UCL Institute of Archaeology Gordon Childe Lecture and Seminar 2025

The Gordon Childe Lectures, organised by the UCL Institute of Archaeology and normally held annually, commenced in 2016. The events are named in honour of Vere Gordon Childe, Director of the Institute from 1946-57. 

The annual Gordon Childe Lecture features speakers able to take a broad view of their topic and make it interesting and relevant to both the general public as well as subject specialists. The addition of the accompanying seminar also offers an opportunity for extended discussion on the themes raised in the lecture.

Gordon Childe Lecture 2025 (14 May) - Two months to go!

This year's Gordon Childe speaker is Professor Liv Nilsson Stutz from Linnaeus University, Sweden, with a lecture entitled 'Piecing Together Past Human Encounters with Death: a theory and practice of the archaeology of death.'  This will be an in-person event, commencing at 6pm.

Abstract

How can archaeologists understand the human experience of death in the deep past? More specifically, how can the archaeological record, consisting of fragmented material traces of past people’s actions when faced with death, provide real insights into past lives. The lecture will embrace themes of belief, ritual, cosmology, the dead, emotion, and concepts of body and self.

Drawing on the legacy of Gordon Childe’s contributions to archaeological thought, and with inspiration from his book Piecing Together the Past, this lecture explores a classic archaeological challenge: how can we archaeologically approach human experience beyond the material? Through the example of hunter-gatherer-fisher burials from prehistoric Europe, this lecture explores the potential of asking fundamental but critical questions to build an interpretative framework that allows us to approach these issues. Through a focus on the physical handling of the dead human body – including cremation, inhumation, manipulation, and even mumification – the approach opens a window into past lived experience where death is understood within its context, and in turn provides insights into the hunter-gatherer-fisher world more broadly.

The 'Welcome’ will be given by Kevin MacDonald (Professor of African Archaeology and Director, UCL Institute of Archaeology) and ‘Vote of Thanks’ by Andrew Reynolds (Professor of Medieval Archaeology, UCL Institute of Archaeology).

Book your place for the Gordon Childe Lecture 2025

Gordon Childe Advanced Seminar 2025 (15 May) 

Panel discussion - response to the Gordon Childe Lecture, commencing at 2pm

Participants

The panel discussion with the speaker, Professor Liv Nilsson Stutz, will be chaired by Andrew Reynolds (Professor of Medieval Archaeology, UCL Institute of Archaeology) and will involve Carolyn Rando (Associate Professor in Bioarchaeology and Forensic Anthropology, UCL Institute of Archaeology), David Wengrow (Professor of Comparative Archaeology, UCL Institute of Archaeology), John Robb (Professor of European Prehistory, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge).

Book your place for the Gordon Childe Advanced Seminar 2025

Read more

• Gordon Childe Lectures at the UCL Institute of Archaeology