Grahame Clark: an Intellectual Biography of an Archaeologist.
Higham, Charles
BRIAN FAGAN. Grahame Clark: an intellectual biography of an
archaeologist. xix+304 pages, 42 figures. 2001. Boulder (CO): Westview;
0-8133-3602-3 hardback US$26 & CAN$39.50.
Although Brian Fagan is one of the most experienced of writers on
archaeology, it must have taken considerable courage to compile a
biography of Sir Grahame Clark. Clark is not an easy subject. He did not
retain an archive of correspondence, although he was a faithful
correspondent. His reputation as an austere and remote figure cloistered
in the Fens was not undeserved. Nor did his chosen early field of study
conform to the popular image of the great archaeologist: he did not open
royal graves at Ur, nor explore the great cities of the Indus, but
rather chose to pursue the North European Mesolithic. His most
celebrated excavation took place at Star Carr, a small Mesolithic
encampment in Yorkshire. However, Grahame Clark was one of a small group
of archaeologists who shaped the discipline during the second half of
the last century, and whose career touched the peaks of personal
achievement: Disney Professor at Cambridge, Master of Peterhouse,
influential Fellow of the British Academy, Erasmus prizewinner, an
archaeological knight and acclaimed author. It must always be remembered
that much that is today taken for granted by prehistorians was pioneered
by Grahame Clark: the importance of economic data, the vital conjunction
of prehistory with ethnography, and the worldwide implications of the
radiocarbon dating revolution.
What motivated a man who, few would deny, pursued his interest in
archaeology with a chilling zeal? The book is sprinkled with a series of
photographs and the first is particularly revealing. It shows Clark as a
15-year-old schoolboy at Marlborough. His father had died three years
previously, and he was educated in an exclusive private school set in
the rich archaeological terrain of Wiltshire. He is immaculately
dressed, without a hair out of place, and he looks at the lens with
self-confident hauteur, but also a hint of shyness. Already, he was
pacing the downs collecting prehistoric flints, and writing articles for
the school magazine. This image of a single-minded, probably lonely
pursuit of prehistory continued little changed for 70 years. He led a
privileged life, at home in the rarefied atmosphere of the college
combination room, the Master's lodge, and first-class carriage to
London academies.
Everyone who met and knew Grahame Clark will have anecdotes to
relate, a selection of which are to be found in the autobiography of his
ebullient successor as Disney Professor, Glyn Daniel. Brian Fagan could
easily have been led down the treacherous path of accumulating these to
spice his biography. This he avoids, choosing instead to concentrate on
Clark's academic career, charting the development of his interests
and contribution to the expansion and enhancement of prehistoric
archaeology. This resolve is made clear in the book's sub-title,
`an Intellectual Biography of an Archaeologist'. We find that his
career fell into four basic stages.
Before the Second World War, he dedicated himself to the northwest
European Mesolithic. By combining typological and distributional
approaches, he laid the foundations for a appreciation of this period
that went beyond the traditional collection of flints for their own
sake. Already, however, he was weaving a broader pattern, as seen in
Archaeology and society. First published in 1939, it not only emphasized
the importance of anthropology to archaeologists, but also anticipated
his later major works of synthesis.
In 1939, Clark was teaching in the Cambridge Department and, with
many other archaeologists, was seconded into military intelligence in
order to interpret air photographs. As excavation virtually ceased, he
continued his research interests by working on aspects of prehistoric
economies based on textual and ethnographic sources. This led to the
publication of Prehistoric Europe, the economic basis. It was during the
austere post-war years, and with a shoestring budget, that his work on
the Mesolithic culminated in the excavation of the waterlogged site of
Star Carr in Yorkshire and its rapid publication.
In 1952, as he was writing the report on Star Carr, he was elected
into the Disney Chair of Archaeology at Cambridge University and the
second stage of his career began. From this secure base, he taught a
generation of young archaeologists to approach prehistory in a
distinctive manner based on his own experience, and encouraged them to
pursue careers both at home and particularly, abroad. This diaspora from
Cambridge was one of his proudest achievements. It was chronicled in his
book Archaeology at Cambridge and beyond and illustrated by distribution
maps showing the location of his graduates in academe, and their major
excavations. The number of dots covering Australasia was particularly
notable, for there is hardly one Department there which does not owe its
initial stimulus to one of Clark's pupils.
The third stage began with his seminal synthesis, published as
World prehistory. This book brought him both renown and invitations to
travel widely, journeys of enquiry that were to augment later editions
of the work. Fagan also describes Clark's lifelong dedication to
the Prehistoric Society and the role of eminence grise in fostering the
Oxford University Research Laboratory for Archaeology & the History
of Art and and the British Academy Research Project on the History of
Agriculture. In the early 1960s, he was a leading force behind the
excavation of the Macedonian settlement of Nea Nikomedia, a critical
site in charting the expansion of agriculture into Europe.
On retirement from the Disney Chair, Clark reaped the rewards of
his dedication through the Mastership of his college, the Erasmus Prize
and his knighthood for services to prehistory, while pursuing with
unceasing zeal the publication of further books until his death well
into his 80s. Fagan is probably one of only a handful of people who has
read virtually every page of this massive output and, while judicious
with his praise, he is also discerning in pointing out problems. Not all
reviews of Clark's work were favourable: Edmund Leach wrote a
particularly critical review of his book The identity of man, and Fagan
concludes that Clark's career spanned a book too far.
The author also had the advantage of knowing Clark well personally,
and is thus able to set him in the privileged social context
foreshadowed in the picture of the Marlborough schoolboy. This might
well have influenced Clark in some of his later works, which emphasiszed
the importance of wealthy patronage in the production of material goods
set out in his book, Symbols of excellence. We also can obtain a feel
for his single-minded dedication to writing that consumed him until his
death.
This volume is an important contribution to the history of
archaeology in the 20th century. On several occasions, I encouraged
Clark to choose a biographer, to be greeted by a wry smile and a rapid
change of subject. Clark avoided publicity and expressed unreserved
disdain for those who made reputations through the media, particularly
television. Brian Fagan has done the discipline a very considerable
service in illuminating Clark's long and distinguished career and,
in a felicitous manner, recognized in the dedication the vital and
selfless support provided by his wife Mollie, Lady Clark.
CHARLES HIGHAM
Anthropology Department, University of Otago
charles.higham@macintosh.otago.ac.nz
