Richard J. C. Atkinson

Alternative meaning:Richard Atkinson (educator)

Richard John Copland AtkinsonCBE(22 January 1920 – 10 October 1994) was a Britishprehistorianandarchaeologist.

Biography

Atkinson was born inEvershot,Dorset,and went toSherborne Schooland thenMagdalen College, Oxford,readingPhilosophy, Politics and Economics.During theSecond World War,hisQuakerbeliefs meant that he was aconscientious objector.In 1944, he became Assistant Keeper of Archaeology at theAshmolean Museum.In 1949, he was appointed a lecturer at theUniversity of Edinburgh

Atkinson directed excavations atStonehengefor theMinistry of Worksbetween 1950 and 1964. During this period he helped to bring theories about the origins and construction of Stonehenge to a wider audience: for example, through the BBC television programme,Buried Treasure(1954), which, among other things, sought to demonstrate, using teams of schoolboys, how the stones might have been transported by water or over land. He also produced a theory on the creation of Stonehenge.

He also investigated sites atSilbury Hill,West Kennet Long Barrow,andWayland's Smithyand was a friend and collaborator of Peggy Piggott,Stuart PiggottandJohn F.S. Stone.His Silbury work was part of aBBCdocumentary seriesChronicleon the monument. In 1958, he moved toUniversity College, Cardiff,to become its first professor of archaeology. He remained at Cardiff until he retired in 1983. He served on theUniversity Grants Committee.He received theCBEin 1979. Atkinson worked tirelessly to promote and develop science-based British archaeology, and was famous for his practical contributions to archaeological technique and his pragmatic solutions to on-site problems, which were listed in the handbook he wrote calledField Archaeology.

Legacy

English Heritageholds Atkinson's collection of over 2,000 record photographs in the publicEnglish Heritage Archive.A selection of around 200 photographs can be viewed online on the ViewFinder website.The Wessex Gallery of Archaeology, which opened at theSalisbury Museumin summer 2014, displays Bronze Age artefacts discovered by Atkinson in July 1953.

Unfortunately, because of an extremely heavy administrative burden arising from service on many committees throughout his career, including a period as Deputy Principal of University College, Cardiff, Atkinson's written reports of the excavations at Stonehenge were not complete before serious illness, mainly caused by overwork, forced total retirement.

References

• Newcastle University obituary

Further reading

• Atkinson, R. J. C. (1959).Stonehenge and Avebury.H.M. Stationery Office.OCLC655253701.

External links

• View Atkinson's photos of Stonehenge held by English HeritageArchived6 June 2011 at theWayback Machine