Vere Gordon Childe was born on 14th April 1892 and died in 1957. He remains probably the most widely archaeologist, even if new research will have updated some of his work.
Gordon Childe was born in Australia and was a socialist activist both in that country and in Britain. In his later years he held an academic position at what is now UCL. An annual Gordon Childe lecture was started in 2016.
Childe was a marxist and worked with the Communist Party of GB but was never a member. His views on Stalin and Trotsky do not appear to have been central to his political or academic activity. The fact that he died shortly after 1956 meant that he never became associated with the new left.
Gordon Childe worked with the Communist Party Historians Group in the 1940s and 1950s but, not a CP member, was not according to Eric Hobsbawm’s memoir of the Group centrally involved for that reason.
However his alignment but non affiliation meant that he played a central role in the formation of the journal Past and Present which aimed to bring together marxist and non-marxist historical research, initially from 1952,at the height of the Cold War.
Gordon Childe’s multi-faceted life brings to mind that of E P Thompson. He was a member of the CP until 1956 and active on its Yorkshire Committee- a senior role. Thompson although famous in 2024 as an historian primarily focused on English literature at this time.
Gordon Childe’s life and work deserves to be better known to new generations of the left. A recent review of a biography with much more detail is here:
Vere Gordon Childe and prehistory: a way of thinking, and much more
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