John Grahame Douglas Clark

Prof. John Grahame Douglas Clark MA PhD FSA
Born	1907
Died	1995
Residence	Peterhouse, Cambridge 5 Croft Gardens, Barton Road, Cambridge [1937] 42 Barton Road, Cambridge [1949] 19 Wilberforce Road, Cambridge [1955]
Occupation	archaeologist
Society Membership membership ordinary fellow elected_AI 1931.01.13 societies Society of Antiquaries

Notes

Office Notes

RAI Council 1935-36 Member
RAI Council 1955-56 Member
RAI Council 1956-57 Member
RAI Council 1957-58 Member

House Notes

1930.12.16 proposed by L.C.G. Clarke, seconded by M.C. Burkitt

Notes From Elsewhere

Sir John Grahame Douglas Clark CBE FBA (28 July 1907 – 12 September 1995), who often published as J. G. D. Clark, was a British archaeologist who specialised in the study of Mesolithic Europe and palaeoeconomics. He spent most of his career working at the University of Cambridge, where he was appointed Disney Professor of Archaeology from 1952 to 1974 and Master of Peterhouse from 1973 to 1980.

Born in Kent to an upper-middle-class family, Clark developed an early interest in archaeology through his collection of prehistoric flint tools. After an education at Marlborough College, he proceeded to Peterhouse in the University of Cambridge, there attaining both his undergraduate and then doctoral degree. For the latter, he produced a thesis and published monograph focusing on Mesolithic Britain. In 1932 he co-founded the Fenland Research Committee, through which he excavated several prehistoric sites in the East Anglian Fens. He was also a senior member of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia and played an instrumental role in transforming it into The Prehistoric Society in 1935. He served as the editor of its academic journal, the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, from 1933 until 1970.

During the Second World War, Clark was drafted into the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. He remained in Britain, working on aerial reconnaissance, and wrote further archaeological research articles in his spare time. After the war he returned to Cambridge University, where he was employed as a full-time lecturer. Over the course of 1949, 1950, and 1951, he excavated the important Mesolithic settlement site of Star Carr in North Yorkshire. Other excavations carried out under his directorship included that of an Iron Age settlement on Micklemoor Hill, Norfolk, and the Neolithic site of Hurst Fen, Suffolk. In 1951 he was made a Fellow of the British Academy, in 1952 appointed to Cambridge's Disney Chair, and in 1959 elected President of the Prehistoric Society. In later life he travelled the globe more extensively, often as a visiting professor. In these years, he also wrote more prolifically, although these books typically received a less enthusiastic reception than his earlier work.
Clark was not a popular figure among the British archaeological community, being regarded as a competitive and remote individual who craved recognition. He was nevertheless regarded as one of the most important prehistorians of his generation. He was particularly noted for his emphasis on exploring the economies and environmental conditions of prehistoric Europe. His career was recognised by a number of accolades, including the Dutch Erasmus Prize and a British knighthood, and he was the subject of a posthumous biography by Brian Fagan. [lots more on wikipaedia]

Publications

External Publications

Excavations at Star Carr, 1954;
The Mesolithic age in Britain, 1932;
The Mesolithic settlement of northern Europe, 1936;
World prehistory, 1961, etc.

Clark, Grahame (1985). "The Prehistoric Society: From East Anglia to the World". Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 51: 1–14

House Publications

An early Mesolithic site at Broxbourne sealed under boreal peat [with S.H. Warren, H. Godwin, M.E. Godwin and W.A. MacFadyen] 1934