Colin Renfrew

Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, was a British archaeologist, paleolinguist and Conservative peer noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, neuroarchaeology and the prevention of looting. In Before Civilisation (1973) he challenged the assumption that prehistoric cultural innovation originated in the Near East and spread to Europe. His Anatolian hypothesis, set out in Archaeology and Language (1987), held that Proto-Indo-European originated about 9,000 years ago in Anatolia and spread with farming, against Marija Gimbutas's Kurgan hypothesis. He was Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge from 1981 to 2004.