David L. Clarke

Clarke was born in Kent, England. He studied at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, from which he obtained his PhD in 1964 under the supervision of Grahame Clark.

He became a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge in 1966. His teaching and writing, particularly in analytical archaeology in 1967, transformed European archaeology in the 1970s. It demonstrated the importance of systems theory, quantification, and scientific reasoning in archaeology, and drew ecology, geography, and comparative anthropology firmly within the ambit of the subject. Never really accepted by the Cambridge hierarchy, he was nevertheless loved by his students for his down-to-earth, inclusive attitudes toward them. In 1970, he published his PhD thesis about British and Irish Bell Beaker pottery.

Clarke died in 1976 as a result of thrombosis arising from a gangrenous twisted gut.[1]

• Clarke, David L. (1968). Analytical Archaeology. Methuen. ISBN 0-416-42850-9.
• Clarke, David L. (1970). Beaker Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 576. ISBN 0-521-07249-2.
• Clarke, David L. (1972). Models in Archaeology. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-416-16540-0.
• Clarke, David L. (1977). Spatial Archaeology. Boston: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-175750-1.
• Clarke, David L. (1979). Analytical Archaeologist: Collected Papers of David L. Clarke. Boston: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-175760-9.

• Quote from David Clarke, from his 1973 article in Antiquity called The Loss of Innocence. Antiquity 47:100.
• Guidi, Alessandro (1 September 1998). "Clarke in Mediterranean Archaeology : David Clarke's 'Archaeology : The Loss of Innocence' (1973) 25 Years After". Antiquity. 72 (277): 678–680. ISSN 0003-598X. Archived from the original on 6 June 2007.