̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Colin Renfrew

Professor Lord Colin Renfrew – 1937-2024

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 12:17:35 +0000

̽��ֱ��Department of Archaeology and McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge mourn the death and celebrate the extraordinary life of Professor Colin Renfrew, Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, formerly tenth Disney Professor of Archaeology, the McDonald’s founding Director, and Master of Jesus College.

Colin was, and will always remain, one of the titans of modern archaeology, a distinguished public figure, and a fine friend and colleague to innumerable archaeologists around the world. This loss makes the world of archaeology a poorer place intellectually, as well as in terms of the sheer energy and optimism that he brought to everything he did.

From his first years as one of the brave new archaeologists of the 1960s, Colin stood out as an exceptional mind, and as a spirit of profound, exciting and rigorous change. He pioneered new, theoretically informed ways of thinking about the explanation of social and political change in the past, within and then far beyond his first enduring regional love for the prehistoric Aegean, while advocating scientific techniques of dating and provenance as an integral part of archaeological endeavour. From this perspective, he was one of the first to appreciate the significance of the calibration of radiocarbon dates for the understanding of European prehistory.

He went on to ask equally fresh questions about the link between language evolution and archaeology and, as the first Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, championed some of the earliest applications of archaeogenetics, as well as a critical and investigative approach to the illicit antiquities market. His fieldwork expanded to Orkney, and latterly returned to the more southerly isles of the Cyclades, subject of his doctoral research, and to remarkable discoveries on the island of Keros. To the very end, he remained engaged with the forefront of archaeological developments, attending and clearly relishing the 36th Annual McDonald Lecture on the Wednesday before he left us.

As those who knew him will amply testify, there was far, far more to Colin than the world-leading and much honoured archaeologist. He took on the mantle of a working peer in the House of Lords, where he spoke up for matters of heritage and archaeological legislation with the customary eloquence and lapidary reasoning of a one-time President of the Cambridge Union.

He was a passionate and knowledgeable expert and collector of modern art, by which Jesus College under his care remains permanently graced. Social events under his hospitality became unforgettable and often hugely convivial gatherings of brilliant minds from the widespread fields that he drew together, and under the right circumstances often culminated in demonstrations of Colin’s skills as a dancer. Last but far from least, he was a much-loved husband to his wife Jane, and father to Helena, Alban and Magnus.

Colin passed away peacefully in his sleep during the night of Saturday 23 to Sunday 24 November 2024. All of us at Cambridge extend our heartfelt condolences and profound respects to his family and to all those who loved and knew him.

Professor Cyprian Broodbank remembers Professor Lord Colin Renfrew, founding Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and former Master of Jesus College, who passed away at the weekend aged 87.

Michael Boyd. Reproduced with kind permission.

Professor Colin Renfrew, Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn

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Unusually sophisticated prehistoric monuments and technology revealed in the heart of the Aegean

lmb97 — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 11:42:54 +0000

New work at the settlement of Dhaskalio, the site adjoining the prehistoric sanctuary on the Cycladic island of Keros, has shown this to be a more imposing and densely occupied series of structures than had previously been realised, and one of the most impressive sites of the Aegean during the Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BC).

Until recently, the island of Keros, located in the Cyclades, south of Naxos, was known for ritual activities dating from 4,500 years ago involving broken marble figurines. Now new excavations are showing that the promontory of Dhaskalio (now a tiny islet because of sea level rise), at the west end of the island next to the sanctuary, was almost entirely covered by remarkable monumental constructions built using stone brought painstakingly from Naxos, some 10km distant.

Professor Colin Renfrew of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Co-Director of the excavation, suggested that the promontory, with its narrow causeway to the main island, “may have become a focus because it formed the best natural harbour on Keros, and had an excellent view of the north, south and west Aegean”.

̽��ֱ��promontory was naturally shaped like a pyramid, and the skilled builders of Dhaskalio enhanced this shape by creating a series of massive terrace walls which made it look more like a stepped pyramid. On the flat surfaces formed by the terraces, the builders used stone imported from Naxos to construct impressive, gleaming structures.

̽��ֱ��research team, led by archaeologists from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, the Ephorate of the Cyclades and the Cyprus Institute, have calculated that more than 1000 tons of stone were imported, and that almost every possible space on the island was built on, giving the impression of a single large monument jutting out of the sea. ̽��ֱ��complex is the largest known in the Cyclades at the time.

Renfrew noted that “investigations at multiple points throughout the site have given unique insight into how the architecture was organised and how people moved about the built environment”.

While excavating an impressive staircase in the lower terraces, archaeologists began to see the technical sophistication of this civilisation 1000 years before the famous palaces of the Mycenaeans. Underneath the stairs and within the walls they discovered sophisticated systems of drainage, signalling that the architecture was multipurpose and carefully planned in advance. Tests are now underway to discover whether the drains were for managing clean water or sewage.

What was the reason for this massive undertaking here?

̽��ֱ��rituals practised in the nearby sanctuary meant that this was already an important central place for the Cycladic islanders. Another aspect of the expansion of Dhaskalio is the use of new agricultural practices, whose study is led by Dr Evi Margaritis of the Cyprus Institute. She says: “Dhaskalio has already provided important evidence about the cultivation of olive and grape, two key new domesticates that expanded the horizons of agriculture in the third millennium. ̽��ֱ��environmental programme is revealing how agricultural strategies developed through the lifetime of the site.”

̽��ֱ��excavated soil of the site is being examined in great detail for tiny clues in the form of burnt seeds, phytoliths (plant remnants preserved as silica), burnt wood, and animal and fish bones. Lipid and starch analysis on pottery and grinding stones is giving clues about food production and consumption.

Plant remains have been recovered in carbonised form, predominantly pulses and fruits such as grape, olives, figs and almonds, but also cereals such as emmer wheat and barley. Margaritis notes: “Keros was probably not self-sustaining, meaning that much of this food was imported: in the light of this evidence we need to reconsider what we know about existing networks to include food exchange”.

Another clue may be found in metalworking, the most important new technology of the third millennium BC. ̽��ֱ��inhabitants of Dhaskalio were proficient metalworkers, and the evidence for the associated technologies is strong everywhere on the site. No metal ore sources are located on Keros, so all raw materials were imported from elsewhere (other Cycladic islands such as Seriphos or Kythnos, or the mainland).

These imported ores were smelted just to the north of the sanctuary, where the winds were strongest, needed to achieve the very high temperatures required to extract metals from ores. Within the buildings of Dhaskalio, the melting of metals and casting of objects were commonplace.

̽��ֱ��new excavations have found two metalworking workshops, full of metalworking debris and related objects. In one of these rooms a lead axe was found, with a mould used for making copper daggers, along with dozens of ceramic fragments (such as tuyères, the ceramic end of a bellows, used to force air into the fire to increase its temperature) covered in copper spills. In another room, which only appeared at the end of excavation this year, the top of an intact clay oven was found, indicating another metalworking area, which will be excavated next year.

What is the significance of the metalworking finds?

Dr Michael Boyd of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Co-Director of the excavation, says: “At a time when access to raw materials and skills was very limited, metalworking expertise seems to have been very much concentrated at Dhaskalio. What we are seeing here with the metalworking and in other ways is the beginnings of urbanisation: centralisation, meaning the drawing of far-flung communities into networks centred on the site, intensification in craft or agricultural production, aggrandisement in architecture, and the gradual subsuming of the ritual aspects of the sanctuary within the operation of the site. This gives us a clear insight into social change at Dhaskalio, from the earlier days where activities were centred on ritual practices in the sanctuary to the growing power of Dhaskalio itself in its middle years.”

̽��ֱ��excavations on Keros are leading the charge of technical innovation in Aegean archaeology. All data are recorded digitally, using a new system called iDig – an app that runs on Apple’s iPads. For the first time in the Aegean, not only data from the excavation, but the results of study in the laboratory are all recorded in the same system, meaning that anyone on the excavation has access to all available data in real time. Three dimensional models are created at every stage in the digging process using a technique called photogrammetry; at the end of each season the trenches are recorded in detail by the Cyprus Institute’s laser scanning team.

̽��ֱ��Cyprus Institute co-organised for a second year an educational programme during this year’s excavations with Cambridge ̽��ֱ��. Students from Greece, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada, and the UK joined the excavation and gained valuable experience of up to the minute excavation and scientific techniques. ̽��ֱ��syllabus epitomised the twin goals of promoting science in archaeology and establishing the highest standards of teaching and research.

̽��ֱ��project is organised under the auspices of the British School at Athens and conducted with permission of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sport. ̽��ֱ��project is directed by Colin Renfrew and Michael Boyd of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��project is supported by the Institute for Aegean Prehistory, the Cyprus Institute, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, the British Academy, the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, National Geographic Society, Cosmote, Blue Star Lines, EZ-dot and private donors.

New excavations on the remote island of Keros reveal monumental architecture and technological sophistication at the dawn of the Cycladic Bronze Age.

At a time when access to raw materials and skills was very limited, metalworking expertise seems to have been very much concentrated at Dhaskalio

Michael Boyd

Cambridge Keros Project

Excavations underway on Dhaskalio, off Keros.

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Island of broken figurines

lw355 — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 09:05:36 +0000

On a June morning in 1963, Colin Renfrew stepped from a caïque boat onto the scrub-covered Aegean island of Keros on the basis of a tip-off. In search of material for his graduate studies, the young Cambridge graduate had been intrigued by rumours of a recent looting of the almost uninhabited island relayed to him by a Greek archaeologist.

Sure enough, evidence of looting abounded. As he reported back to the Greek Archaeological Service, on whose permit he had been surveying the Greek Cycladic islands, smashed marble statues and bowls and broken pottery lay scattered over the hillside.

Despite the destruction, it was clear that the fragments were Early Cycladic, an interesting find in itself. In fact, as he was to discover, he had also stumbled upon the first evidence of an astonishing Bronze Age ritual.

Broken bodies

A year later, the Greek Archaeological Service carried out a major recovery, finding fragments of a type of sculpture found previously mainly in Cycladic Bronze Age graves. ̽��ֱ��simplicity of these eerily beautiful figurines, with their folded arms, sloping feet and featureless faces, are said to have inspired Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore.

On Keros, however, apart from a single intact figurine, all others were broken. There were ‘body parts’ in their hundreds – an elongated foot, a single breast, a folded arm, a pair of thighs, a face – all jumbled together with broken bowls and pots.

When the ‘Keros Hoard’, a collection widely believed to be part of the looted material, appeared on the antiquities market in the 1970s and all the fragments were also broken, the mystery deepened. Was the site on Keros an ancient burial ground that, perhaps in haste, had been destroyed by looters, or was the site something else entirely?

A special deposit

A new opportunity to investigate came in 1987, when Renfrew, by then a Professor in the Department of Archaeology, and two Greek archaeologists were permitted to excavate and survey the looted area, which they called Special Deposit North. “We recovered great quantities of broken material and yet as we excavated more we found no indications of tombs,” said Professor Renfrew.

Not only were the fragments not grave goods but the first of several astonishing features came to light, as Professor Renfrew explained: “As I studied the marble materials for publication, I realised that nearly all of the breakages seemed to be ancient and not the result of the looting. They had been deliberately broken before burial.”

“Although this excavation didn’t resolve the puzzle, it did emphasise how rich the site was and how puzzling.” ̽��ֱ��archaeologists felt sure that more light would be shed by the investigation both of an area a few hundred metres further south that also seemed to be a Special Deposit and of the tiny steep-sided islet of Dhaskalio that lay 80 metres offshore from Keros.

Return to Keros

It was another two decades before Professor Renfrew was able to return, this time for three seasons of excavation, ending in 2008, and with an international team of almost 30 experts. ̽��ֱ��post-excavation analyses of the finds are now nearing conclusion.

In the first year, the Cambridge–Keros project team excavated at the southern site and confirmed the presence of another Special Deposit, but this time undisturbed by looters. Many of the materials were bundled together in small pits up to two metres in diameter. ̽��ֱ��breakages were old and deliberate. Moreover, the absence of marble chips, expected in the case of breakages on the spot, showed the fragments had been broken elsewhere. As later radiocarbon dating confirmed, they had been deposited over a 500-year period from 2800 BC to 2300 BC.

“But the strangest finding of all was that hardly any of the fragments of the 500-odd figurines and 2,500 marble vessels joined together,” said Professor Renfrew. “This was a very interesting discovery. ̽��ֱ��only conclusion we could come to was that these special materials were broken on other islands and single pieces of each figurine, bowl or pot were brought by generations of Cycladic islanders to Keros.”

Bronze Age guesthouse?

Meanwhile, across the short stretch of water to Dhaskalio, a very different picture was emerging. From the outset, the islet showed evidence of having been a major Bronze Age stronghold with structures built on carefully prepared terraces circling a summit, on which a large hall was erected. ̽��ֱ��settlement dates from around the time of the Special Deposits, and then continued to operate before being abandoned around 2200 BC.

Examination of its geology showed that the beautifully regular walling of the settlement was imported marble rather than the flaky local limestone found on Keros. Remarkably, in the same era that the pyramids were being built and Stonehenge was being erected, Cycladic islanders were shipping large quantities of building materials, probably by raft, over considerable distances to build Dhaskalio.

Here, too, there were puzzling finds: a stash of about 500 egg-shaped pebbles at the summit and stone discs found everywhere across the settlement. And, although there was evidence that the olive and vine were well known to the inhabitants of Dhaskalio, the terrain there and on Keros could never have supported the large population the scale of the site implies, suggesting that food also was imported.

One answer is to hypothesise a largely transient population. Several strands make this plausible, as Dr Michael Boyd, who is collating the results of the post-excavation analyses, explained: “Archaeobotanical evidence implies that the site was not intensively occupied year-round, and the imported pottery and materials suggest the possibility of groups coming seasonally from elsewhere.”

“A possible attractor to the site,” he added, “would of course be the Special Deposit on the immediately opposite shore.” In fact, team geologists believe that Dhaskalio and Keros were probably one land mass during the Early Bronze Age and that tectonic movement and rising sea levels created the divide.

Sanctuary

As the team members conclude their analyses of the finds, all indications point towards Keros having been a major ritual centre of the Cycladic civilisation. “We believe that the breaking of the statues and other goods was a ritual and that Keros was chosen as a sanctuary to preserve the effects,” said Professor Renfrew.

He speculates that the objects were used repeatedly in rituals in the home islands, perhaps carried in ritual processions in much the same way that icons are paraded today in Greek villages: “They had a use-life, probably being painted and repainted from year to year. Perhaps the convention was that when a figure had reached the end of its use-life, it could not simply be thrown away or used conventionally, it needed to be desanctified in an elaborate process.”

“Strangely,” he added, “there seems to have been some obligation to bring a piece of the broken figure and deposit it on what must have been the sacred island of Keros, possibly staying a few days on Dhaskalio while the ceremony was completed.” ̽��ֱ��missing pieces of the statues, bowls and pottery have never been located on other islands, and Professor Renfrew wonders if they were thrown into the sea during transit and have long since disintegrated.

This wouldn’t be the first time a sanctuary has been identified in the Greek islands - Delphi, Olympia and Delos, for instance – but it would be the earliest by about 2,000 years and certainly the most mysterious.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge–Keros project was authorised by the Greek Archaeological Service and supported by the British School at Athens, with funding from the Institute for Aegean Prehistory, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Society of Antiquaries of London, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, British Academy, Leventis Foundation and Leverhulme Trust. For more information, please visit

https://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/current-projects/keros-project

Why were Bronze Age figurines smashed, transported and buried in shallow pits on the Aegean island of Keros? New research sheds light on a 4,500-year-old mystery.

I realised that nearly all of the breakages seemed to be ancient and not the result of the looting. For some reason, all of the objects had been deliberately broken before burial.

Professor Colin Renfrew

Cambridge-Keros Project

Fragments of figurines found on Keros

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Yes