Colin Renfrew
Biographic Data
| ID | 96972 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Colin Renfrew |
| GIVEN NAMES | Colin |
| FAMILY NAME | Renfrew |
| SIGNATURE | RENFREW C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 193 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1498 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 153 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 40 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1964 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 23 |
Ochre and hide-working during the early bronze age at Dhaskalio, central Cyclades
Dhaskalio is a small and steep-sided islet at the western end of the island of Keros in the central Cyclades. Excavations carried out between 2006–2008 and 2016–2018 brought to light the remains of extensive architecture on Dhaskalio and a ritual area of significant importance in the Kavos area of Keros, both dated to the mid-third millennium BCE. Among the findings is a substantial macro-lithic assemblage, comprising stone artefacts made from di…
Micro-XRF analysis of Early Bronze Age gold artefacts from Dhaskalio, Keros
Herding the flocks, harvesting the coast? The life of islanders at the Early Cycladic site of Dhaskalio (2,750–2,250 BCE)
Mice in the sanctuary? House mice from Early Bronze Age Dhaskalio
Copper smelting on Dhaskalio, Keros
New evidence for long distance interaction at Keros
Building blocks between past and present
Single source archive for all data domains of past and present excavation data. • Large scale retrospective photogrammetry from separate excavation campaigns. • Incorporation of architectural reconstruction suggestions within a 3D GIS framework. • Comprehensive, real-time access to all available data for reflexive decision making. This paper summarises the development and showcases the uses of a 3D GIS-based tool used by the Keros Project in our …
Use-wear analyses of macro-lithic artefacts from the Early Bronze Age site of Dhaskalio, central Aegean, unveil their use as tools for metalworking
A holistic solution for the analysis of excavation and specialist data in a 3D GIS framework
This paper seeks to summarise the development and showcase the uses of a 3D GIS-based tool used by the Keros Project in our work at the Early Bronze Age site of Dhaskalio, Keros. While reflexivity and born-digital tools were built into the design of the 2016-2018 excavations, the issue of how appropriately to use, analyse and make accessible the vast quantities of digital data, especially the over one thousand 3D SFM photogrammetric models, came …
Language families and the spread of farming
My aim in this chapter is to suggest that there is so major a correlation between the distribution of the world's language families (a concept from the field of historical linguistics) on the one hand, and that of farming dispersals (seen from the perspective of prehistoric and historic archaeology) on the other, that major reappraisals may be necessary in both of these disciplinary fields, at a global level. And if that claim is insufficiently b…
The sanctuary at Keros in the Aegean Early Bronze Age
This article aims to summarise the results of three periods of fieldwork carried out since 2006. These are the Cambridge Keros Project of 2006–2008, the Keros Island Survey of 2012–2013, and the Keros-Naxos Seaways Project of 2015–2018. Taken together, these form a coherent, large-scale project that aimed to study a maritime landscape in some depth, putting the Kavos and Dhaskalio sites in a broader context, while through excavation understanding…
Tracing the missing fragments of Cycladic architecture
Open Area, Open Data
This article presents a holistic and reflexive process for archaeological fieldwork from inception to publication. The opportunities afforded by maturing digital techniques allowed fundamental rethinking of field and laboratory practice paradigms. A number of normally unquestioned aspects of archaeological praxis were examined with the goal of reorganizing information dynamics. Instead of a series of disparate processes in the field and field lab…
Keros
Keros, in the heart of the Cyclades, was the seafaring center of a regional network in the Early Bronze Age. It drew in participants from far and wide in rituals of deposition at its “Special Deposits,” and boasted the largest planned and monumental architecture of the period, where early metallurgy was practiced.
Looting and Vandalism (Cultural Heritage Management)
Early Islamic North Africa
This volume proposes a new approach to the Arab conquests and the spread of Islam in North Africa. In recent years, those studying the Islamic world have shown that the coming of Islam was not marked by devastation or decline, but rather by considerable cultural and economic continuity. In North Africa, with continuity came significant change. Corisande Fenwick argues that the establishment of Muslim rule also coincided with a phase of intense ur…
Global perspectives on obsidian studies in archaeology
Early Cycladic Sculpture in Context from beyond the Cyclades
Early Cycladic Sculpture Beyond the Cyclades
Interdisciplinary approaches to the prehistory of Keros
First investigated archaeologically in 1963, it is only with the recent publication of the 2006–2008 excavations that the nature of the Early Bronze Age sanctuary and settlement on Keros is becoming clear. Further investigations – a survey in 2012–2013 and excavations in 2016–2018 – have expanded our knowledge of the sanctuary. This paper sets out the interdisciplinary nature of the research on Keros, highlighting the contribution of a panoply of…
The emergence of complex society in China
Recent research at Liangzhu in China documents the settlement as a fortified town dating from 3300–2300 BC, accompanied by an impressive system of earthen dams for flood control and irrigation. An earthen platform in the centre of the town probably supported a palace complex, and grave goods from the adjacent Fanshan cemetery include finely worked jades accompanying high-status burials. These artefacts were produced by a complex society more than…
Ritual, Play and Belief, in Evolution and Early Human Societies
Paper exploring the role of animals and food in the development of feasting ritual in Neolithic Malta "Few social occasions demand greater effort in terms of playacting and ritual behaviour than feasts. These may require clothes to demonstrate status and affil- iation, and the participants must play a role that is almost theatrical, employing special manners and rituals in the public consumption of food. The food served is also different, special…
Rethinking materiality
Introduction (Elizabeth DeMarrais) Part I: Rethinking Materiality The Materialization of Culture (Elizabeth DeMarrais) Towards a Theory of Material Engagement (Colin Renfrew) Aesthetics, Intelligence and Emotions: Implications for Archaeology (Chris Gosden) Part II Materiality, Mind and History The Affordances of Things: a Post-Gibsonian Perspective on the Relationality of Mind and Matter (Carl Knappett) The Cognitive Basis of Material Engagement…
Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership
Time depth, convergence theory, and innovation in proto-indo-european
In this paper the language/farming dispersal hypothesis for the distribution of the Indo-European languages is revisited, taking into account recent work in historical linguistics in the field of convergence theory, and recent re-evaluations concerning the place of the Anatolian languages within the Indo-European family. The importance of time depth within Proto-Indo-European is stressed, and the possibilities of regions where a real convergence …
Archaeology
Ancient Mind
Before civilization
Trade and Culture Process in European Prehistory
This paper sets out to re-evaluate one of the chief processes leading towards culture change in prehistory. Widespread diffusion has for too long been the guiding principle in European prehistory; its validity is questioned here. The study of trade (defined in the first instance as the exchange or traffic of materials), and specifically the scientific analysis of raw materials, suggests that the importance of migration and of diffusion in Europea…
Production and Consumption in a Sacred Economy
The role of production, exchange, and consumption in Chaco Canyon can be analyzed successfully only when the system as a whole is considered. A cognitive-processual approach is used here to develop a model of Chaco as an essentially egalitarian society, centered on the Canyon as a Location of High Devotional Expression. The production and consumption of goods is understood in the context of an ideational/devotional significance of the great house…
Archaeology, Genetics and Linguistic Diversity
The current convergence is outlined between the three approaches to human diversity now offered by the disciplines of archaeology, histoncal linguistics and molecular genetics. The potentialities and pitfalls in the genetic evidence are reviewed. The outlines of the new account of linguistic diversity which may now be discerned receive a measure of support from the genetic evidence which is, however, especially in its application to the origins o…
Obsidian and Early Cultural Contact in the Near East
Obsidian was not necessarily the earliest object of trade, but it certainly seems to be the first for which material evidence remains. It has been reported from nearly every Early Neolithic settlement in the Near East, although many of these sites are distant from the natural sources. In our first paper (Cann and Renfrew 1964), we outlined a method for the characterization, by trace-element analysis, of obsidian artifacts from archaeological cont…
Looting and the World's Archaeological Heritage
The world's archaeological heritage is under serious threat from illegal and destructive excavations that aim to recover antiquities for sale on the international market. These antiquities are sold without provenance, so that their true nature is hard to discern, and many are ultimately acquired by major museums in Europe and North America. The adoption in 1970 by UNESCO of the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Imp…
The Emergence of Civilisation
Transformations
The Archaeology of Cult — The Sanctuary at Phylakopi
The Characterization of Obsidian and its application to the Mediterranean Region
Evidence of contact between cultural groups is of great importance to the study of prehistory. Although the development of absolute dating methods has decreased our dependence on the discovery of such contacts for chronology, they are essential material when the origin and spread of culture is being studied. In the past, cultural contacts have generally been demonstrated by typological similarities of artifacts, but unfortunately many typological…
Ancient Interactions
The history and archaeology of the Scythians and other steppe peoples are relatively familiar, but what of their predecessors who colonized and occupied this vast region, from the Carpathians to China, before the Iron Age? The papers in this volume provide an overview and reassessment of our knowledge of the period from Neolithic to Iron Age in an area which covers approximately one-sixth of the earth's land surface. They range broadly from East …
Cycladic Metallurgy and the Aegean Early Bronze Age
Time Depth in Historical Linguistics 1-2
Time depth constitutes one of the most difficult problems in historical linguistics. Its evaluation is crucial for any systematic comparison with archaeological or genetic data, and hence basic to any broader historical interpretatio. This was the focus for a meeting of some of the world's leading linguistics held in 1999 at the McDonald Institute. The oft-criticised techniques of glottochronology and lexicostatistics were formulated by their lea…
Anthropomorphic Figurines of Predynastic Egypt and Neolithic Crete with Comparative Material from the Prehistoric Near East and Mainland Greece
The Emergence of Civilisation
Further Analysis of Near Eastern Obsidians
The very early development and extent of the obsidian trade in the Near East is being increasingly documented by the discovery and excavation of Early Neolithic sites throughout the area. Since the publication of our last paper (Renfrew, Cann and Dixon, 1966), obsidians from five aceramic Neolithic sites have been analysed, and the natural source of the material determined in each case. All the results fall into the framework of groups already es…
The emergence of complex society in China
Recent research at Liangzhu in China documents the settlement as a fortified town dating from 3300–2300 BC, accompanied by an impressive system of earthen dams for flood control and irrigation. An earthen platform in the centre of the town probably supported a palace complex, and grave goods from the adjacent Fanshan cemetery include finely worked jades accompanying high-status burials. These artefacts were produced by a complex society more than…
Obsidian in the Western Mediterranean
In the history of west Mediterranean contacts and communications, obsidian has a special place, being the first traded commodity documented in the archaeological record. The commercial contacts which it reveals precede those of the Mycenaeans by more than three millennia. The general outlines of this trade and the principal sources exploited have previously been documented by trace element analysis undertaken by optical emission spectrography. Th…
Obsidian in the Aegean
Obsidian to the Greeks was no more than a semi-precious stone, black and shiny, suitable for mirrors or exotic ornaments. But to their predecessors in the Aegean through five millenia it was an important raw material for the manufacture of tools and weapons. Sharper and more abundant than flint, more easily worked and cheaper than copper, it was not displaced entirely even by the use of bronze, which was always an expensive material, there being …
Before Babel
Recent research in historical linguistics suggests that groups or ‘families’ of languages may be classed together into larger language units or ‘macrofamilies’, for which some community of origin has been argued. The Afro-Asiatic macrofamily, for instance, which includes the Semitic and Berber languages as well as Ancient Egyptian and many languages of North and East Africa, is widely accepted among linguists. More controversial is the Nostratic …
Colonialism and Megalithismus
Ideas and theories in prehistory often seem to have a life of their own, surviving and flourishing quite independently of the evidence upon which they might be supposed to rest. The biblical Lost Tribes, the Etruscan migrations of Herodotus, and the Phoenician merchants of Strabo, for example, served for centuries as a model for the explanation of Europe's remote past, unsupported in many cases by any evidence whatsoever
The Development and Chronology of the Early Cycladic Figurines
Theory and Explanation in Archaeology
The Characterization of Obsidian and its application to the Mediterranean Region
Evidence of contact between cultural groups is of great importance to the study of prehistory. Although the development of absolute dating methods has decreased our dependence on the discovery of such contacts for chronology, they are essential material when the origin and spread of culture is being studied. In the past, cultural contacts have generally been demonstrated by typological similarities of artifacts, but unfortunately many typological…
Two Prehistoric Sites on Mykonos
Obsidian in the Aegean
Obsidian to the Greeks was no more than a semi-precious stone, black and shiny, suitable for mirrors or exotic ornaments. But to their predecessors in the Aegean through five millenia it was an important raw material for the manufacture of tools and weapons. Sharper and more abundant than flint, more easily worked and cheaper than copper, it was not displaced entirely even by the use of bronze, which was always an expensive material, there being …
Obsidian and Early Cultural Contact in the Near East
Obsidian was not necessarily the earliest object of trade, but it certainly seems to be the first for which material evidence remains. It has been reported from nearly every Early Neolithic settlement in the Near East, although many of these sites are distant from the natural sources. In our first paper (Cann and Renfrew 1964), we outlined a method for the characterization, by trace-element analysis, of obsidian artifacts from archaeological cont…
Cycladic Metallurgy and the Aegean Early Bronze Age
Colonialism and Megalithismus
Ideas and theories in prehistory often seem to have a life of their own, surviving and flourishing quite independently of the evidence upon which they might be supposed to rest. The biblical Lost Tribes, the Etruscan migrations of Herodotus, and the Phoenician merchants of Strabo, for example, served for centuries as a model for the explanation of Europe's remote past, unsupported in many cases by any evidence whatsoever
Wessex without Mycenae
The absolute chronology for the Early Bronze Age of Central and Northern Europe, including that for the Wessex culture of southern Britain, is not yet reliably established. This point was emphasized by V. Gordon Childe in his Retrospect , and the following words were indeed the very last which he wrote. Speaking of ‘the urgency of establishing a reliable chronology’, he stated: ‘a great deal of the argument depends on a precise date for the begin…
Aegean Marble
The term ‘Island Marble’ was coined by G. R. Lepsius in 1890. In a first flush of enthusiasm for the recently developed technique of cutting thin sections of rocks for microscopic examination, he claimed to distinguish various Attic and other marbles of mainland Greece, Parian and Naxian marble, and a residual category, ‘Inselmarmor’. Obviously the ability to determine the place of origin of the raw material, by examination of a specimen of marbl…
The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals
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Models in Prehistory
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Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Deh Luran Plain
xv, 438 p. : ill. (part fold.), maps ; 27 cm
Further Analysis of Near Eastern Obsidians
The very early development and extent of the obsidian trade in the Near East is being increasingly documented by the discovery and excavation of Early Neolithic sites throughout the area. Since the publication of our last paper (Renfrew, Cann and Dixon, 1966), obsidians from five aceramic Neolithic sites have been analysed, and the natural source of the material determined in each case. All the results fall into the framework of groups already es…
Trade and Culture Process in European Prehistory
This paper sets out to re-evaluate one of the chief processes leading towards culture change in prehistory. Widespread diffusion has for too long been the guiding principle in European prehistory; its validity is questioned here. The study of trade (defined in the first instance as the exchange or traffic of materials), and specifically the scientific analysis of raw materials, suggests that the importance of migration and of diffusion in Europea…
The Development and Chronology of the Early Cycladic Figurines
Anthropomorphic Figurines of Predynastic Egypt and Neolithic Crete with Comparative Material from the Prehistoric Near East and Mainland Greece
Close-Proximity Analysis
A simple graphical method is presented for the seriation or ordering of archaeological assemblages or types. Like most seriation methods, it requires the tabulation of coefficients of similarity between the units in question. By a consideration, restricted to the most similar neighbors of each unit in turn, a uniquely determined structure usually emerges within a few minutes. When the archaeological material is such that it may be seriated well, …
The Autonomy of the South-East European Copper Age
Ten years have now elapsed since the death of V. Gordon Childe, whose great achievement it was to relate the many disparate elements of European prehistory into a single coherent whole. These ten years have seen not only the sustained application of radiocarbon dating to the south-east European Neolithic (Quitta, 1967; Kohl and Quitta, 1966), but the publication of important stratigraphic sequences, especially that of the great tell at Karanovo i…
The Tree-Ring Calibration of Radiocarbon
It is now nearly twenty years since the first radiocarbon dates for the neolithic cultures of Europe astonished and perplexed prehistoric archaeologists by falling a millennium earlier than the existing chronologies had suggested. Since that time most (but not all) archaeologists have become reconciled to radiocarbon dating, and to a chronology for Europe based, at least for the neolithic period, on the radiocarbon dates which have become so wide…
The Burnt House at Siitagroi
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New configurations in old world archaeology
The tree‐ring calibration of radiocarbon dates from the fifth to the first millennium B.C. is revolutionizing the absolute chronology of prehistoric Europe. After a survey of the scientific background, the implications and effects of these changes are considered. A new chronology is tentatively presented in tabular form. The very magnitude of the changes emphasizes how erroneous much recent diffusionist thinking has been, and how sterile much chr…
British Faience Beads Reconsidered
The 'faience' beads of the British Bronze Age have since the last century been appreciated as the product of a somewhat sophisticated technology. Although the possibility of local manufacture was seriously considered by earlier antiquaries, especially for the Scottish beads, in more recent years-since the writings of Childe and Piggott-a Mycenaean or Egyptian origin has been widely assumed for them
On Trade and Culture Process in Prehistory
Sitagroi, radiocarbon and the prehistory of south-east Europe
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Thoughts on radiocarbon dating
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The Tombs of Mesara
Archaeology (149 works) · History (142 works) · Geography (103 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (74 works) · Prehistory (52 works) · History (51 works) · Ancient history (49 works) · Sociology (41 works) · Philosophy (40 works) · Art (35 works)