Renfrew, Colin

He studied at the St. Albans School in Hertfordshire . In 1956-1958 he served as a communications officer in the Royal Air Force .

Then he entered Cambridge St. John's College, where he first studied natural sciences, and in 1962 received a bachelor of art in archeology and anthropology.

Interested in Scythians, Renfrew intended to travel by car to Russia, but did not receive permission from the Soviet authorities. Then he went to the British Archaeological School in Athens, where he completed an internship and enrolled in graduate school in Cambridge at the same time began managing excavations in the Cyclades islands (Sitagros and Antiparos). In 1965 he defended his doctoral dissertation on the theme " Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures in the Cyclades and their external relations" (the latter meant primarily the trade in obsidian). In the same year he married Jane M. Ewbank.

Since 1965, a fellow at St. Johns College of Cambridge and a professor in the Department of Prehistoric Times and Archeology at the University of Sheffield (until 1972). In 1968-1970, he led the excavations at Sitagri in Greece . In 1968, he ran unsuccessfully from the Conservatives to Parliament in Sheffield-Brightside County. In the same year he was elected a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London , and in 1970 - a member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (later honored).

In 1972-1981, professor of archeology at the University of Southampton , replaced Barry Canliff in this position. He headed the excavations of Quonterness in the Orkney Islands and Philakopia on the island of Milos in Greece. In 1973, he published the book Before Civilization: The Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe, in which he criticized the assumption that prehistoric cultural innovations originated in the Middle East and then spread throughout Europe. Together with M. Gimbutas, he excavated at Sitagri in Greece. In 1980, he was elected a member of the British Academy .

In 1981, he was elected to the Disney paid for special scholarship professor of archeology at Cambridge University , which he held until 2004. In 1986-1997 Master of Cambridge College of Jesus. In 1990, the founder and until 2004 director of the Cambridge Institute of Archeological Research MacDonald . In 1987, he published the book “Archeology and Language: The Enigma of the Origin of the Indo-Europeans” , devoted to the problem of the Indo-European ancestral home. According to the Renfrew hypothesis , proto-Indo-Europeans lived in Anatolia 2000 years before the burial culture in Europe, and later spread to Greece, Italy, Sicily, the Mediterranean coast of France, Spain and Portugal. Another branch of the Indo-Europeans migrated along the fertile river valleys of the Danube and the Rhine to Central and Northern Europe.

Peeing since 1991. Honorary Doctor of several universities (Sheffield (1990), Athens (1991), Southampton (1995), Edinburgh (2004), Liverpool (2004)). Winner of the European Latsis Prize (2003). Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (05.25.2006).

• Renfrew, AC, 1972, The Emergence of Civilization: The Cyclades and the Aegean in The Third Millennium BC , London.
• Renfrew, AC, 1973, Before Civilization, the Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe , London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-6593-5
• Renfrew, AC and Wagstaff, Malcolm (editors), 1982, An Island Polity, the Archeology of Exploitation in Melos , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Renfrew, AC, (editor), 1985, The Archeology of Cult, the Sanctuary at Phylakopi , London: British School at Athens and Thames & Hudson.
• Renfrew, AC, 1987, Archeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins , London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-6612-5
• Renfrew, AC and Bahn, P. , 1991, Archeology: Theories, Methods and Practice , London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-28147-5 . (sustained a number of reprints)
• Renfrew, AC, 2000, Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership: The Ethical Crisis in Archeology , London: Duckworth. ISBN 0-7156-3034-2
• Renfrew, AC, 2003, Figuring It Out: The Parallel Visions of Artists and Archaeologists , London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05114-3
• Ernestine S. Elster and Colin Renfrew (eds), Prehistoric Sitagroi: excavations in northeast Greece, 1968-1970. Vol. 2, The final report. Los Angeles, CA: Cotsen Institute of Archeology, University of California, Los Angeles, 2003. Monumenta archaeologica 20.
• Colin Renfrew, Marija Gimbutas and Ernestine S. Elster (eds.), Excavations at Sitagroi, a prehistoric village in northeast Greece. Vol. 1. Los Angeles: Institute of Archeology, University of California, 1986.

• Anatolian hypothesis
• Mallory, James Patrick - Longtime Renfrew Opponent

• Department of Archeology, University of Cambridge
• McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
• Interview of Colin Renfrew by Alan Macfarlane 23rd October 2008 (film )
• Renfrew Colin on the site of IS ARAN
• http://www.balzan.org/en/prizewinners/colin-renfrew
• RENFREW OF KAIMSTHORN, Professor Lord on the website of the British Academy