Daryll Forde facts for kids
Cyril Daryll Forde (born March 16, 1902 – died May 3, 1973) was a British anthropologist. This means he was a scientist who studied human societies and cultures. He was also an Africanist, focusing on the cultures and history of Africa.
Contents
Early Life and Studies
Cyril Daryll Forde was born in Tottenham, England, in 1902. His father was a reverend and a schoolmaster. Forde went to the local school in Tottenham. Later, he studied geography at University College London (UCL).
At that time, UCL did not have a special department for anthropology. However, the geography department was interested in ethnography (studying cultures) and archaeology (studying ancient things). Forde studied under Grafton Elliot Smith, a professor of anatomy. Smith believed that all human civilization started in ancient Egypt. This idea is called hyperdiffusionism.
After finishing his first degree in 1924, Forde became a lecturer in the anatomy department. His early work was influenced by Smith's ideas. In his first book, Ancient Mariners (1928), Forde suggested that shipbuilding and sailing began in Egypt. He thought these ideas then spread around the world through ancient sea journeys.
Forde and Smith also worked together on digging up an ancient burial mound from the Bronze Age near Dunstable. Forde's main research focused on the large stone monuments (megaliths) of prehistoric western Europe. He was influenced by V. Gordon Childe, another important archaeologist who became his friend. Childe helped Forde to think differently about hyperdiffusionism. However, Forde still believed that European megaliths were copies of monuments from the Near East. This idea was important in archaeology for many years.
In 1924, Forde won a special award called the Franks Studentship for his archaeology work. In 1928, he earned his doctorate degree in prehistoric archaeology.
Studying in America
Fellowship at Berkeley (1928–1930)
After getting his doctorate, Forde won a special scholarship to study in the United States. He went to the University of California, Berkeley. There, he worked with American anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and Robert Lowie. Forde had met Lowie in London a few years earlier.
Kroeber and Lowie were students of Franz Boas. Boas was a very important figure in anthropology. Berkeley became a key place for what was known as "Boasian anthropology." The way anthropology was studied there was very different from Britain. This experience greatly changed Forde's ideas and work. He later called it his "transatlantic noviciate," meaning a time of new learning across the ocean.
Both Kroeber and Lowie had also studied archaeology. But they believed in the "four field approach" to anthropology. This means studying humanity in a complete way, looking at culture, language, archaeology, and human biology. They encouraged Forde to do fieldwork with local Native American tribes.
Forde worked with the Yuma people near the Colorado River and the Hopi people in Arizona. This led to his most famous book, Habitat, Economy and Society: a Geographical Introduction to Ethnology (1934). At Berkeley, he learned about "ecological anthropology." This way of thinking looks at how people's cultures and societies are shaped by their environment. He brought these ideas back to the UK.
Professor in Wales
Chair at Aberystwyth University (1930-1945)
In 1930, when he was only 28 years old, Daryll Forde became a professor. He was appointed the Gregynog Professor of Geography and Anthropology at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.
When he was 31, he started a five-year project to dig up an Iron Age hillfort called Pen Dinas. This was between 1933 and 1937. People had wanted this local hillfort to be excavated for a long time. Pictures from that time show a young Daryll Forde on the site. He looked well-dressed among the workers and clearly enjoyed leading one of the biggest hillfort digs in southern Britain. During his early years at Aberystwyth, in 1934, he also published his important textbook, Habitat, Economy and Society.
Later Career and African Studies
From 1945, Daryll Forde worked back at University College London. There, he helped build a new way of studying "cultural anthropology," similar to the American style. This was different from the "social anthropology" studied by other British anthropologists like Alfred Radcliffe-Brown.
From 1935, he started working in Nigeria with the Yakö people. His studies in Africa led to several books, including African Worlds: Studies in the Cosmological Ideas and Social Values of African Peoples (1954). From 1945 to 1973, he was the director of the International African Institute.
Today, the anthropology department at UCL has an annual lecture series and a seminar room named in his honor.
See also
In Spanish: Cyril Daryll Forde para niños
