The distinguished archaeologist and researcher Professor Lord Colin Renfrew, “the most important scholar of the Cycladic civilization,” has passed away at the age of 87.
In Koufonisia, southern Aegean Sea, the Municipality reportedly decided to fly the at half-mast for the next three days to honor the great scholar.
The head of the Antiquities Ephorate of Cyclades Dimitris Athanassoulis announced the news of Lord Renfrew’s death in a post on Facebook, while
Culture Minister Lina Mendoni noted that “Colin Renfrew leaves a great legacy and innovative approaches.”
Born on 25 July 1937 in Stockton-on-Tees, England, he read Natural Sciences then Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge University, graduating in 1962. In 1965 he completed his PhD thesis “ Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of the Cyclades and their external relations.”
He directed excavations at Quanterness in Orkney and Phylakopi on the island of Milos, Greece. In 1973, Renfrew published “Before Civilisation: The Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe” in which he challenged the assumption that prehistoric cultural innovation originated in the Near East and then spread to Europe. He also excavated with archaeologist Marija Gimbutas at Sitagroi, northern Greece.
In 1981 he was elected to the Disney Professorship of Archaeology in the University of Cambridge, a post he held until his retirement. In 1990, Renfrew was appointed as the founding Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
From 2006 to 2008 he directed new excavations on the Cycladic Island of Keros and was co-director of the Keros Island Survey.
