Fagan Brian. Grahame Clark. An Intellectual Life of an Archaeologist

Westview Press, 2001. — 304 p.To chronicle the intellectual life of Grahame Clark (1907-1995) is to participate in the history of the discipline of archaeology, which Clark—almost single-handedly at first—transformed from an antiquarian pastime based largely on artifact classification into a sophisticated study of the human past based on collaborations among scientists from many disciplines. Delving into Clark's major publications and personal archives, and drawing on dozens of interviews with Clark's former colleagues and students, noted archaeology writer Brian Fagan, himself a former student of Clark's at Cambridge University, assesses Clark's pioneering efforts in economic and environmental prehistory. To accurately study the man, Brian Fagan focuses not just on Clark's published works; he also examines Clark's personal archives and draws on dozens of interviews with Clark's colleagues and students.
Out of the stultifying atmosphere of dull museum display cases, Clark redefined prehistoric archaeology as the study of ancient communities ceaselessly adapting to ever-changing environments. His famous excavation of the Stone Age hunter-gatherer site of Star Carr was a tour de force of environmental archaeology. Clark also broke British prehistory out of its entrenched provincialism to consider Britain within the context of Mesolithic Europe and, eventually, global prehistory. During Clark's exceptionally long career, spanning well over half a century, the generations of students he trained colonized the world of archaeology and reshaped the discipline in Clark's image.