John Desmond Clark (10 April 1916 – 14 February 2002) was a British

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

noted particularly for his work on prehistoric Africa.

Early life

Clark was born in London, but his childhood was spent in a hamlet in the

Chiltern Hills The Chiltern Hills is a chalk escarpment in England. The area, northwest of London, covers stretching from Goring-on-Thames in the southwest to Hitchin in the northeast - across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Bedfordshire. ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

. Clark went to a preparatory boarding school in Buckinghamshire at age 6 1/2, from where he moved on to

Monkton Combe School (Thy Word is Truth) , established = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , founder = The Revd Francis Pocock , head_label = Head Master , head ...

near Bath. Clark graduated with a BA from

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

, under

M. C. Burkitt Miles Crawford Burkitt (27 December 1890 – 22 August 1971) was a British archaeologist and prehistorian, who is known for his work, mainly on the Stone Age, in Europe, Asia and especially Africa, where he was one of the first pioneers of African ...

and

Grahame Clark Sir John Grahame Douglas Clark (28 July 1907 – 12 September 1995), who often published as J. G. D. Clark, was a British archaeologist who specialised in the study of Mesolithic Europe and palaeoeconomics. He spent most of his career working at ...

Archeological and anthropological career

In 1937 Clark became the curator of

Northern Rhodesia Northern Rhodesia was a British protectorate in southern Africa, south central Africa, now the independent country of Zambia. It was formed in 1911 by Amalgamation (politics), amalgamating the two earlier protectorates of Barotziland-North-West ...

's Rhodes-Livingstone Museum (now known as the Livingstone Memorial Museum). A year later he married Betty Cable née Baume, who would accompany him on a number of expeditions throughout his life. Clark served in the military during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

with the East Africa Command forces in Somalia and Ethiopia, being subsequently attached to the British Military Administration, when he managed to find time to carry out archaeological fieldwork in the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

. Following the war, he returned to Cambridge, completing his PhD in 1947. In 1948 he founded the Northern Rhodesian National Monuments Commission. Clark then returned to Northern Rhodesia to serve once more as the Museum's director. In 1953, Clark ordered an excavation at

Kalambo Falls The Kalambo Falls on the Kalambo River is a single-drop waterfall on the border of Zambia and Rukwa Region, Tanzania at the southeast end of Lake Tanganyika. The falls are some of the tallest uninterrupted falls in Africa (after South Africa's ...

, a 235m high, single-drop waterfall at the southeast end of

Lake Tanganyika Lake Tanganyika () is an African Great Lake. It is the second-oldest freshwater lake in the world, the second-largest by volume, and the second-deepest, in all cases after Lake Baikal in Siberia. It is the world's longest freshwater lake. ...

, on what is now the border between Zambia and Tanzania. The site would eventually emerge as one of the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century, providing a record of more than two hundred and fifty thousand years of human history. To date, artefacts of Acheulean,

Sangoan The Sangoan is the name given by archaeologists to a Palaeolithic tool manufacturing style which may have developed from the earlier Acheulian types. In addition to the Acheulian stone tools, bone and antler picks were also used. Sangoan toolkits ...

, Lupemban,

Magosian The Magosian is the name given by archaeologists to an industry found in southern and eastern Africa. It dates to between 10,000 and 6,000 years BC and is distinguished from its predecessors by the use of microliths and small blades. In 1953, J. ...

, Wilton, and

Bantu Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language * Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle *Black Association for National ...

cultures have all been found at the falls. Clark also undertook significant fieldwork in Ethiopia, Somalia, Malawi, Angola, and Niger, some of which led him to collaborate with

Louis Louis may refer to: * Louis (coin) * Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name * Louis (surname) * Louis (singer), Serbian singer * HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy See also Derived or associated terms * Lewis (d ...

and Mary Leakey. In 1961, Clark resigned from his post as Director of the Museum (being succeeded by Gervas C.R. Clay), and became Professor of

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

(subsequently Emeritus) at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where he taught until his retirement in 1986. Under his guidance, the programme became one of the world's foremost in

paleoanthropology Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship ...

. In 1965, he was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. He received the

Gold Medal Award Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile meta ...

for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement in 1988 from the

Archaeological Institute of America The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is North America's oldest society and largest organization devoted to the world of archaeology. AIA professionals have carried out archaeological fieldwork around the world and AIA has established re ...

. Clark continued working until his death, including a 1991 dig in China that was the first to be led in that country by foreign archaeologists in more than 40 years. Clark died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

in 2002, having published more than twenty books and over 300 scholarly papers on paleoanthropology and African prehistory in the course of his career. His wife survived him by only two months. He is survived by his children, Elizabeth and John. Over the course of his career, Clark compiled a large scholarly library of scientific books and articles which he donated to his former students, archaeologists Nicholas Toth and Kathy Schick, at the Stone Age Institute where the collection is now housed as the Desmond Clark Memorial Library.

Honours

Clark was appointed

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in 1956 and

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in 1960. He was elected FSA in 1952 and FBA in 1961. He was a Fellow of the

, and of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

(USA). He received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1982. His Cambridge ScD was awarded in 1975 and honorary doctorates at Witwatersrand and Cape Town universities in 1985, along with the Gold Medals of the

Society of Antiquaries of London A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

(1985) and the

(1989). The

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...

awarded him the Grahame Clark Medal for Prehistory in 1997. He became an American citizen in 1993.

Selected works

* * *Prehistoric Cultures of Northeast Angola and Their Significance in Tropical Africa (1963) * with Walter W. Bishop *Background to Evolution in Africa (1967) (Joint Editor) *Atlas of African Prehistory (1967) *Further Palaeo-Anthropological Studies in Northern Lunda (1968) *Kalambo Falls Prehistoric Site (Vol.1, 1969; Vol.2, 1974; Vol. 3, 2001) *The Prehistory of Africa (1970) * *The Acheulean and the Plio-Pleistocene Deposits of the Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia (2000) *See also African Archaeological Review 5, 1987; and the Journal of Human Evolution 15(8) and 16(7/8), 1987

References

External links

UC Berkeley obituaryLeakey Foundation press releaseFred Wendorf, "J. Desmond Clark", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2003)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, J. Desmond 1916 births 2002 deaths Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge British archaeologists Paleoanthropologists Deaths from pneumonia in California People educated at Monkton Combe School Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences People associated with the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute Recipients of the Grahame Clark Medal British Army personnel of World War II 20th-century archaeologists British expatriates in Zambia Presidents of the South African Archaeological Society