Marek Zvelebil, FSA (1952–2011) was a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

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 ...

and

prehistorian Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

Biography

The son of

Indologist Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies. The term ''Indology'' (in German, ''Indologie'') is o ...

Kamil Zvelebil Kamil Václav Zvelebil (November 17, 1927 – January 17, 2009) was a Czech scholar in Indian literature and linguistics, notably Tamil, Sanskrit, Dravidian linguistics and literature and philology. Life and career Zvelebil studied at the Char ...

, Zvelebil left his birth city of

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

with his family in 1968 following the

Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...

. The family first lived in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

before returning to Europe and settling in the Netherlands. Zvelebil however studied in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, and went on to gain a BA in archaeology from the

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

and a PhD from the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, where he was one of the last students of

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 ...

. Marek then taught at the University of South Carolina before returning to Sheffield in 1981 as a Research Fellow, later holding the positions of Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader and finally Professor of European Prehistory. Overall he spent thirty years at Sheffield, with spells as a visiting professor at several institutions across Europe and North America. Zvelebil's primary research interest was in the European

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

and Mesolithic-

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

transition, particularly in the

Baltic region The terms Baltic Sea Region, Baltic Rim countries (or simply the Baltic Rim), and the Baltic Sea countries/states refer to slightly different combinations of countries in the general area surrounding the Baltic Sea, mainly in Northern Europe. ...

. His PhD research was on the transition to farming in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

and the eastern Baltic. Over the course of his career he wrote or edited more than a hundred scholarly works, including seminal papers such as ''Hunters in Transition'' (1986) and ''Plant Use in the Mesolithic and its role in the transition to farming'' (1994). The latter, published in the ''

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society In academia and librarianship, conference proceedings is a collection of academic papers published in the context of an academic conference or workshop. Conference proceedings typically contain the contributions made by researchers at the conferen ...

'' was awarded the R. M. Baguley Prize. With the

dissolution of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

in 1991, Zvelebil was able to extend his research, looking at early farming cultures in eastern Europe and

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

n hunter-gatherer peoples. His field research included a co-directed major project in southeastern Ireland, as well as the Sheffield Department of Archaeology's long-running project in the

Outer Hebrides The Outer Hebrides () or Western Isles ( gd, Na h-Eileanan Siar or or ("islands of the strangers"); sco, Waster Isles), sometimes known as the Long Isle/Long Island ( gd, An t-Eilean Fada, links=no), is an island chain off the west coast ...

. Zvelebil died on 7 July 2011, at the age of 59.

Selected bibliography

*''Archaeology Yesterday and Today: The Development of Archaeology in the Sciences and Humanities'' by Zdenek Vasicek, Jaroslav Malina and Marek Zvelebil (Hardcover - 26 Oct 1990) *''Harvesting the Sea, Farming the Forest: Emergence of Neolithic Societies in the Baltic Region (Sheffield Archaeological Monographs)'' by Marek Zvelebil, R.W. Dennell and Lucyna Domanska (Hardcover - 1 May 1998) *''Hunters in Transition: Mesolithic Societies of Temperate Eurasia and their Transition to Farming (New Directions in Archaeology)'' by Marek Zvelebil (Paperback - 18 Jun 2009)

References

External links

Interview at the University of Sheffield
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zvelebil, Marek 1952 births 2011 deaths Czech archaeologists Dutch archaeologists Academics of the University of Sheffield Scientists from Prague