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Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew Of Kaimsthorn
Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, (25 July 1937 – 24 November 2024) was a British archaeologist, paleolinguist and Conservative peer noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, neuroarchaeology, and the prevention of looting at archaeological sites. Renfrew was also the Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, and was a Senior Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Early life and education Renfrew was educated at St Albans School, Hertfordshire (where one of the houses is named after him) and from 1956 to 1958 did National Service in the Royal Air Force. He then went up to St John's College, Cambridge, where he first read Natural Sciences, and then Archaeology and Anthropology, graduating in 1962. He was elected president of Cambridge Union in 1961 and was a member of the University of Cambridge� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Right Honourable
''The Right Honourable'' (abbreviation: The Rt Hon. or variations) is an honorific Style (form of address), style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire, and the Commonwealth of Nations. The term is predominantly used today as a style associated with the holding of certain senior public offices in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and, to a lesser extent, Australia. ''Right'' in this context is an adverb meaning 'very' or 'fully'. Grammatically, ''The Right Honourable'' is an adjectival phrase which gives information about a person. As such, it is not considered correct to apply it in direct address, nor to use it on its own as a title in place of a name; but rather it is used in the Grammatical person, third person along with a name or noun to be modified. ''Right'' may be abbreviated to ''Rt'', and ''Honourable'' to ''Hon.'', or both. ''The'' is sometimes dropped in written abbreviated form, but is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative and Unionist Party, commonly the Conservative Party and colloquially known as the Tories, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party. The party sits on the Centre-right politics, centre-right to Right-wing politics, right-wing of the Left–right political spectrum, left-right political spectrum. Following its defeat by Labour at the 2024 United Kingdom general election, 2024 general election it is currently the second-largest party by the number of votes cast and number of seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons; as such it has the formal parliamentary role of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition. It encompasses various ideological factions including One-nation conservatism, one-nation conservatives, Thatcherism, Thatcherites and Traditionalist conservatism, traditionalist conservatives. There have been 20 Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, prime minis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, archaeological site, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. It is usually considered an independent academic discipline, but may also be classified as part of anthropology (in North America – the four-field approach), history or geography. The discipline involves Survey (archaeology), surveying, Archaeological excavation, excavation, and eventually Post excavation, analysis of data collected, to learn more about the past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Following the Allies of World War I, Allied victory over the Central Powers in 1918, the RAF emerged as the largest air force in the world at the time. Since its formation, the RAF has played History of the Royal Air Force, a significant role in Military history of the United Kingdom, British military history. In particular, during the Second World War, the RAF established Air supremacy, air superiority over Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain, and led the Allied strategic bombing effort. The RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), Ministry of Defence (MOD), which are to "provide the capabilities nee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Service
National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The length and nature of national service depends on the country in question. In some instances, national service is compulsory, and citizens living abroad can be called back to their country of origin to complete it. In other cases, national service is voluntary. Many young people spend one or more years in such programmes. Compulsory military service typically requires all citizens to enroll for one or two years, usually at age 18 (later for university-level students). Most conscripting countries conscript only men, but Norway, Sweden, Israel, Eritrea, Malaysia, Morocco and North Korea conscript both men and women. Voluntary national service may require only three months of basic military training. The US equivalent is Selecti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Albans School (Hertfordshire)
St Albans School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (traditional English Private schools in the United Kingdom, fee-charging day school, day and former boarding school) in the city of St Albans in Hertfordshire. Entry before Sixth Form is for boys only, but the Sixth Form has been co-educational since 1991. From 2026, St Albans School plans to be going fully co-educational. Founded in 948 by Wulsin (Abbot Ulsinus), St Albans School is not only the oldest school in Hertfordshire but also List of the oldest schools in the world, one of the oldest in the world. The school has been called "Britain's oldest public school" by the ''Daily Mail''. Nicholas Carlisle, in 1818, described the school as "of very ancient origin, and of great celebrity"N. Carlisle, "A concise description of the endowed grammar schools in England" (1818) p. 508 and the ''Good Schools Guide'' describes St Albans as a "traditional public school, with a rich history". Among its famous alumni are Po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McDonald Institute For Archaeological Research
The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research is a research institute of the University of Cambridge in England. History The institute was established in 1990 through a benefaction from the late Dr Daniel McLean McDonald, a successful industrialist: the endowment totalled approximately £11 million. McDonald (1905–1991) was founder and chairman of the BSR Group, manufacturers of record turntables and record changers. The benefaction enabled the university to construct purpose-built premises for the Institute which include research rooms and laboratories, together with storage space, a seminar room and a modest library. Mission and purpose The Institute provides support for Cambridge-based researchers in the various branches of archaeology, with a particular interest in the archaeology of early human cognition. The Institute emphasises the value of archaeological science, and contains laboratories for geoarchaeology, archaeozoology, archaeobotany, and artefact analysis. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illicit Antiquities
The antiquities trade is the exchange of antiquities and archaeological artifacts from around the world. This trade may be illicit or completely legal. The legal antiquities trade abides by national regulations, allowing for extraction of artifacts for scientific study whilst maintaining archaeological and anthropological context. The illicit antiquities trade involves non-scientific extraction that ignores the archaeological and anthropological context from the artifacts. Legal trade The legal trade in antiquities abide by the laws of the countries in which the artifacts originate. These laws establish how the antiquities may be extracted from the ground and the legal process in which artifacts may leave the country. In many countries excavations and exports were prohibited without official licenses already in the 19th century, as for example in the Ottoman Empire. According to the laws of the countries of origin, there can't be a legal trade with archaeological artifact without ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neuroarchaeology
Neuroarchaeology is a sub-discipline of archaeology that uses neuroscientific data to infer things about brain form and function in human cognitive evolution. The term was first suggested and thus coined by Colin Renfrew and Lambros Malafouris. Definition As explained by archaeologist Dietrich Stout and evolutionary neuroscientist Erin E. Hecht, neuroarchaoelogy "has specific theoretical implications that extend beyond the general sense of the neologism. It is thus useful to distinguish between Neuroarchaeology (narrow sense) and neuroarchaeology (general sense). As outlined by Malafouris, Neuroarchaeology is an outgrowth of the cognitive-processual archaeology of Renfrew and is explicitly grounded in Material Engagement Theory. Material Engagement Theory focuses on the role of objects in mediating human behavior, cognition, and sociality and is closely aligned with approaches to cognition as ''extended'', ''grounded'', ''situated'' and ''distributed'' developed in psychology, p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaeogenetics
Archaeogenetics is the study of ancient DNA using various molecular genetic methods and DNA resources. This form of genetic analysis can be applied to human, animal, and plant specimens. Ancient DNA can be extracted from various fossilized specimens including bones, eggshells, and artificially preserved tissues in human and animal specimens. In plants, ancient DNA can be extracted from seeds and tissue. Archaeogenetics provides us with genetic evidence of ancient population group migrations, domestication events, and plant and animal evolution. The ancient DNA cross referenced with the DNA of relative modern genetic populations allows researchers to run comparison studies that provide a more complete analysis when ancient DNA is compromised. Archaeogenetics receives its name from the Greek word ''arkhaios'', meaning "ancient", and the term ''genetics'', meaning "the study of heredity". The term archaeogenetics was conceived by archaeologist Colin Renfrew. In February 2021, sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleolinguistics
Paleolinguistics is a term used by some linguists for the study of the distant human past by linguistic means. For most historical linguists there is no separate field of paleolinguistics. Those who use the term are generally advocates of hypotheses not generally accepted by mainstream historical linguists, a group colloquially referred to as "long-rangers". Background The controversial hypotheses in question fall into two categories. Some of them involve the application of standard historical linguistic methodology in ways that raise doubts as to the validity of the hypothesis. A good example of this sort is the Moscow school of Nostraticists, founded by Vladislav Illich-Svitych and including Aharon Dolgopolsky, Sergei Starostin, and Vitaly Shevoroshkin, who have argued for the existence of Nostratic, a language macrofamily including the Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, Altaic, Dravidian, and Kartvelian language families and sometimes other languages. They have established r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radiocarbon Dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotopes of carbon, isotope of carbon. The method was developed in the late 1940s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby. It is based on the fact that radiocarbon () is constantly being created in the Atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide, which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis; animals then acquire by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and thereafter the amount of it contains begins to decrease as the undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of in a sample from a dead plant or animal, such as a piece of w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
