The changing careers of Vere Gordon Childe

Abstract

It was Antiquity (Daniel 1980) that revealed details of the death of “the greatest prehistorian in Britain, and probably in the world” (Piggott 1958: 312), the Australian Vere Gordon Childe (1892–1957). Antiquity would later note what is still the over-modest marker of his final resting place (Barton 2000). And it was Antiquity that published Childe's ‘Retrospect’ in which he summarised his archaeological career, noting that it began at Oxford, and started again in 1922 “after a sentimental excursion into Australian politics” (Childe 1958: 69). In this article it is suggested that this was far more than an excursion; that through force of circumstance he abandoned a potentially high-flying archaeological trajectory and embarked on an equally high-flying replacement career in politics; only further force of circumstances brought him back to archaeology.