Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (148 page)

A Lower Palaeolithic flake-based flintworking industry named after the assemblage recovered from the type-site of Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, England. Probably of Hoxnian age, 300000 to 200000 years ago. Apart from the tip of a wooden spear recovered from Clacton-on-Sea, the industry is characterized by a range of stone tools including trimmed flint flakes and chipped pebbles, some of which have been classified as chopper tools. Handaxes are generally absent from the assemblages, leading to some speculation that in fact the assemblages are complementary to broadly contemporary early
ACHEULIAN
assemblages.

 
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See
KILN
.

 
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A kin group stretching more broadly than the family, found in many pre-industrial societies.

 
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A simple stone bridge made by setting stone blocks at intervals across a river to act as supports for a series of stone slabs laid end to end across the top. Most surviving examples are found in the southwest of England, the best known being Tarr Steps on Exmoor, although they were formerly far more widespread. Often claimed as prehistoric because of their simplicity and rather primitive appearance, most clapper bridges in fact date to the period between the 14th and 19th centuries
ad
.

 
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Clark , Sir John Grahame Douglas
(1907–95)
[Bi].

Distinguished British prehistorian who specialized in the Mesolithic period and is well known for his work on world prehistory and developments in the field of palaeoeconomy. Born in Bromley, Kent, he was educated at Marlborough and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he remained for the rest of his career. He became a Bye-Fellow in 1933 and a Fellow in 1950, breaking off his academic work only during WW2 to serve in the RAF Volunteer Reserve where he worked on photographic interpretation. In 1952 he was appointed Disney Professor of Archaeology and in 1956 he became head of the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology. He was Master of Peterhouse from 1973 to 1980. Throughout his academic career and beyond into retirement there were a number of key strands to his work. First and foremost was an interest in the Mesolithic of northern Europe, starting with his first book, published at the age of 25,
The Mesolithic Age in Britain
(1932, Cambridge: CUP). His excavations at
STAR CARR
between 1949 and 1951 remain one of the most important pieces of work relating to the early Mesolithic. Beyond this his interests included world prehistory, a topic which displayed another of his talents, the ability to write for wide audiences and the general public.
Prehistoric England
(1940, London: Batsford) went through five editions,
World prehistory
(1961, Cambridge: CUP) through three. And beyond this still was his interest in economic prehistory and the need to take a social perspective, well exemplified in his
Prehistoric Europe: the economic basis
(1952, London: Methuen). Of course these were not his only interests. For 35 years he was the editor of the
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society
and from 1958 to 1962 he was President of the Prehistoric Society. He served on numerous other committees and boards. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1951, appointed CBE in 1971, and knighted in 1992. In 1978 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Society of Antiquaries.
[Obit.:
Proceedings of the British Academy
, 94, 357–87]

 
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Clarke , David Leonard
(1937–76)
[Bi].

British prehistorian who was one of the principal exponents of the so-called
NEW ARCHAEOLOGY
. Educated at Dulwich College, he had two years of obligatory National Service before going to university. These he spend with the Royal Signals Corps at Essen in Germany. He went up to Peterhouse, Cambridge, in October 1957, graduating in archaeology and anthropology with first-class honours three years later. He was promptly accepted back as a Ph.D. student, his chosen subject being beaker pottery in the British Isles.
In 1964 he finished his dissertation and was appointed to a William Stone Research Fellowship. Two years later he was elected a Fellow of the college and Director of Studies in Archaeology and Anthropology. Part of his time was devoted to preparing his work on beakers for publication as the
Beaker pottery in Great Britain and Ireland
(1970, Cambridge: CUP). Alongside this, however, he was also working on a study of what archaeology was and what it should be. Drawing on many diverse disciplines he began to formulate a new way of thinking about and exploring the past. The results of this were published as
Analytical archaeology
(1968, London: Methuen), in which he argued that archaeology should become a science by developing its own explicit methodologies and theory based on
SYSTEMS THEORY
. This book was probably the single most important archaeological text published in Britain in the 1960s, and one that caused great controversy in ushering in the new archaeology on the European side of the Atlantic. A number of colleagues and students quickly picked up on the ideas and their implications, as shown by the papers in Clarke's edited book
Models in archaeology
(1972, London: Methuen). This was followed up in 1973 with an article in
Antiquity
entitled ‘Archaeology—the loss of innocence’ which took the ideas to a far wider audience and drew heavy criticism from more traditionally minded archaeologists.
Although hopeful of being given the Disney Chair of Archaeology in 1975, the electors chose Glyn Daniel instead. In 1976, Clarke was given an untenured assistant lectureship. That same year he spent some time in hospital; he died at home the day after being discharged when a blood clot, formed by weeks of inactivity, detached itself and lodged in his lung.
[Bio.: N. Hammond , 1979, David Clarke : a biographical sketch. In
Analytical archaeologist. Collected papers of David L. Clarke
. London: Academic Press, 1–10]