Ian Hodder facts for kids

Ian Richard Hodder is a well-known British archaeologist. He was born on November 23, 1948, in Bristol, England. He is famous for creating a new way of thinking in archaeology called "post-processual archaeology." This idea became very popular among his students and in his own work during the 1980s. Today, he is a professor of anthropology at Stanford University in the United States.

Early Life and Education

Ian Hodder was born in Bristol, England. He grew up in Singapore and also in Oxford, England. He went to a private school for boys called Magdalen College School, Oxford.

He studied archaeology at the UCL Institute of Archaeology in London. He earned his first degree in 1971. Later, he continued his studies at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1975. His research focused on how to use spatial analysis in archaeology.

Academic Career and Discoveries

Ian Hodder started his teaching career at the University of Leeds in 1974. He taught there for three years. In 1977, he returned to the University of Cambridge. He worked there as a lecturer in archaeology for many years.

From 1990 to 2000, he led the Cambridge Archaeological Unit. He also became a Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge. The university recognized his work by making him a Professor of Archaeology in 1996.

In 1999, Professor Hodder moved to Stanford University in the United States. He became a special professor there in 2002.

Excavating Çatalhöyük

From 1993 to 2018, Professor Hodder led a big international team. They worked on a very old site called Çatalhöyük in central Anatolia, which is now modern Turkey. This site is about 9,000 years old and comes from the Neolithic period.

He was the director of the Çatalhöyük Archaeological Project. The project aimed to protect the site and help people learn about it. He wanted to try new ways of doing archaeology. For example, he let each archaeologist record their own ideas about the site. In 2012, he made some changes to the team. He handed over the project to a Turkish team in 2018.

Awards and Recognition

Professor Hodder has received several important honors. In 1996, he was chosen as a Fellow of the British Academy. This is a high honor for experts in humanities and social sciences.

In 2019, he was given the title of Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG). This award was for his great work in archaeology and for helping improve relations between the UK and Turkey.

Selected Books

Ian Hodder has written many important books about archaeology. Some of his well-known works include:

• Symbols in Action (1982)
• Reading the Past (1986)
• The Domestication of Europe (1990)
• The Archaeological Process (1999)
• The Leopard's Tale: Revealing the Mysteries of Çatalhöyük (2006)
• Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things (2012)