
Clark and Prehistory at Cambridge
Author(s) -
Pamela Jane Smith
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
bulletin of the history of archaeology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2047-6930
pISSN - 1062-4740
DOI - 10.5334/bha.06103
Subject(s) - prehistory , erasmus+ , history , archaeology , subject (documents) , classics , anthropology , sociology , library science , art history , the renaissance , computer science
If honours and titles give measure of a man, then Professor SirGrahame Clark was indeed important. Faculty Assistant Lecturer in the Faculty ofArchaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge University from 1935-46, University Lecturer1946-52, Disney Professor of Archaeology 1952-74, Head of the Department of Archaeologyand Anthropology 1956-61 and 1968-71, Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge 1950-73, Master ofPeterhouse 1973-80, he was a visiting lecturer at diverse universities; appointed CBE in1971, he received many awards including the prestigious Erasmus Prize for 1990,presented by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, for his "long and inspiring devotion toprehistory" (Scarre 1991:10); and in June 1992, he was knighted. Yet wellbefore fame and position were rewards, Clark made major contributions to theestablishment of prehistory as an academic subject at Cambridge University. Cambridgewas the first and, for many years, only British university granting an undergraduatedegree which offered prehistory as a specialization. "The development of postgraduateresearch in prehistoric archaeology at Cambridge had to wait on the provision ofundergraduate teaching;' Clark (1989b: 6) recently observed. The "faculty was the onlyone in Britain producing a flow of graduates in prehistoric archaeology" (Clark 1989a:53)