Childe, Vere Gordon, 1892–1957, British archaeologist, b. Australia. An Oxford graduate, he taught at the Univ. of Edinburgh (1927–46) and the Univ. of London (1946–56). He gained renown for his monumental synthesis of European prehistory, The Dawn of European Civilization (1925, 6th ed. 1957), and The Prehistory of European Society (1958). His studies in Asian archaeology led him to advance the concepts of the agricultural and urban revolutions in New Light on the Most Ancient East (1929, rev. ed. 1953). His interpretation of human history is put forth in two popular works, Man Makes Himself (1937, rev. ed. 1951) and What Happened in History (1942).
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