Centres and institutes_

The Vere Gordon Childe Centre

Advanced research in humanity through time

Promoting and empowering research to come to new understandings of the human past, its importance in the present, and its lessons for the future.

The Vere Gordon Childe Centre is a multi-disciplinary research centre situated within the School of Humanities, at the University of Sydney, The Centre aims to understand global human diversity through the study of material culture, artistic representation, and intangible heritage.

The Centre takes its name from University of Sydney graduate Vere Gordon Childe (1892 – 1957) notable for his achievements in archaeology and for his influence on the Australian labour movement.

The Vere Gordon Childe Centre is one of four flagship centres in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences that focus on multidisciplinary research

The Director, Professor Kirsten McKenzie is a historian. The Deputy Director, Dr Joseph (Seppi) Lehner is an archaeologist, and the Centre Executive includes specialists in a wide range of fields both within and outside the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Events and activities

The Vere Gordon Childe Centre has a vibrant research culture.
Sign up to receive news about our upcoming events and activities.

Encountering other times and cultures helps us understand change and see the world from different perspectives. The Vere Gordon Childe Centre investigates global human diversity through thousands of years of material culture, artistic representation and intangible heritage. We connect scholars from across disciplines to enable research, education and public engagement that confronts the big questions about our place in the world and the ongoing impact of the human past.

Professor Kirsten McKenzie | Director Dr Joseph (Seppi) Lehner | Deputy Director

Acknowledgement of country

The VGCC acknowledges and pay respect to the traditional custodians of the land, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. It is upon their ancestral lands that the University of Sydney is built

VGCC Biennial Theme 2024 - 2025: "Reckoning with the Past"

One of the main mechanisms by which the Centre will create and sustain an inclusive environment is through the development of focused interdisciplinary research themes on a biennial basis.

The themes will bridge cutting edge scholarship with issues in research focused on the Centre’s core focus of ‘Humanity through Time’. The themes will have infrastructural support provided by the Centre and will be renewed on a biennial basis.

Image: The Madsen Building, home of the Vere Gordon Childe Centre.

Research cluster themes

Past and present

Understanding the past informs innovative solutions for contemporary challenges.

The impacts of historical legacies raise urgent social, political, and economic concerns in today’s world. By leveraging multiple ways of understanding our past through interdisciplinary and community collaboration, we strive to illuminate the continuum of human experience, gleaning insights to inform contemporary challenges and forge innovative solutions to shape a sustainable trajectory forward.

Cooperation and conflict

Studying the past reveals factors shaping human relationships.

The tension between human cooperation and conflict has a deep past. By examining past contexts, we uncover the drivers and consequences of collective action and discord. We aim to deepen our understanding of human relationships over the long-term and cultivate strategies for fostering cooperation and resolving conflict.

Climate, nature, and culture

Discovering how climate change shapes and is shaped by human cultural practices.

From human health and food security to migration, economic systems and political instability, climate change has pervasive effects on human societies today and deep into the past. We seek to elucidate how cultural practices and historical processes shape and are shaped by environmental and climatic factors, informing strategies for sustainability, resilience, and adaptiveness.

Change and innovation

Analysing historical shifts reveals humanity's dynamic evolution.

By examining transformative periods at global and regional scales, we uncover how societal shifts and political, economic, technological and social innovations have shaped human communities through time. Through interdisciplinary approaches, we scrutinize transformative moments and groundbreaking ideas that have shaped societies, fostering a deeper understanding of humanity's dynamic history and its enduring impact.

Ritual and performance

Exploring how human ritual impacts identity, community, and knowledge.

We investigate the profound significance of human ritual and performance of past societies. Examining cultural practices, religious ceremonies, and social traditions, we aim to unravel their role in shaping identities, fostering community cohesion, and transmitting knowledge through tangible materials and intangible practices across generations.

The Vere Gordon Childe Centre Reading Room

The VGCC Reading Room holds collections from several centres, foundations and institutes at the University of Sydney including The Near Eastern Archaeological Foundation (NEAF), The Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens (AAIA) and rare collections from the Department of Classics and Ancient History. These collections are housed within the Vere Gordon Childe Centre (VGCC) Reading Room, Room 480, Level 4, Madsen Building, University of Sydney.

The NEAF collection within the VGCC Reading Room includes archaeological volumes, periodicals and theses covering the Near East, Cyprus, Mediterranean studies and Archaeological science, theory and method, and history. With nearly 14,000 volumes, not including journals and dissertations, the AAIA Collections within the VGCC Reading Room is an invaluable collection that contains volumes not usually found elsewhere in Australia.

The Reading Room does not allow off-site borrowing so the full collection is theoretically available at all times. Books in the collection are not available for inter-library loans. The library catalogue can be found at: https://humanities-arts-library.sydney.edu.au/

Access to the VGCC Reading Room can be made available by request to researchers, scholars and VGCC members. For access requests please contact the VGCC directly on vgc.centre@sydney.edu.au

About Vere Gordon Childe

Vere Gordon Childe is notable for his worldwide achievements in archaeology and his equally significant early influence on the Australian labour movement. After taking up a scholarship at Oxford, where his socialist views and writings made him a person of interest to MI6, Childe returned to Australia where he worked as private secretary and speech writer to New South Wales Labor Premier John Storey, gaining the attention of the Australian security services. His perceived radical views soon ensured he was not offered an academic post at the University of Sydney (or anywhere in Australia).

As a result, his career as the pre-eminent archaeologist and scholar of his time began not in Australia but in the United Kingdom – where he held the prestigious Abercromby Chair of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh from 1927 to 1946, before becoming the Director of the Institute of Archaeology in London from 1946 until his retirement in 1956. Many of his big ideas about the early origins and spread of agriculture have continued to gain traction with the advent of new scientific techniques like ancient genomics, making his scholarship as relevant in the 21st century as it was in the 20th.

On his return to Australia in 1957, Childe was belatedly awarded an honorary degree by the University of Sydney. On 19 October of that year he fell to his death from the cliffs near Govett’s Leap in the Blue Mountains – from the very spot Charles Darwin had stood remarking at the view some 100 years before. His glasses, pipe, compass, hat and folded raincoat were found at the spot.

Naming our Centre after Vere Gordon Childe commemorates and recognises one of Australia’s pre-eminent academic figures – one overlooked by his native country and alma mater for far too long.