The Vere Gordon Childe Centre

The Vere Gordon Childe Centre seeks to understand global human diversity through thousands of years of material culture, artistic representation and intangible heritage. We are unravelling the complex relationship between conflict and cooperation by engaging with past cultures and contemporary social movements; we are exploring how a diversity of human cultures in the past have been impacted by and adapted to climate change, uncovering diverse and innovative strategies for survival.

The centre takes its name from University of Sydney graduate and polymath Vere Gordon Childe (1892 – 1957), an exceptionally influential archaeologist and an important figure in left-wing thought in Australia in the early decades of the twentieth century. Childe’s work explored the intersection between archaeological, classical and historical research on human cultures through time. The first ‘world archaeologist’, he was an early advocate for the importance and uniqueness of Indigenous archaeology and for the rights and recognition of First Nations peoples through both his academic and political views.

The Vere Gordon Childe Centre connects scholars from across disciplines to enable research, education and public engagement that confronts the big questions about our place in the world and the ongoing impact of the human past.

Hero image: Monument built by Bronze Age communities in Oman. Photo: Lehner, Archaeological Water Histories of Oman Project.