A titan in world archaeology, Colin Renfrew, Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, who has died aged 87, tackled questions key to understanding who we are – what makes us human, how migration changes culture, why civilisations appear, what art means – with new evidence as well as argument. His determination to address big issues with science and data fired his enthusiastic embrace of new ideas and technologies, and his joy in directing excavations.
Renfrew entered archaeology in the 1960s at a time of profound change. Younger practitioners were discovering the promise of new sciences and computers, and questioning accepted ideas about prehistory and how to tell its stories. Statistics replaced intuition, in what became known internationally as the New Archaeology, with Renfrew a UK figurehead and Lewis Binford, his friend and sparring partner in disruption, in the US.
