Charles McBurney

Who was Charles McBurney?

Charles Brian Montagu McBurney was an American archaeologist who spent most of his working life in England.

Charles McBurney was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the son of Henry McBurney and Dorothy Lillian Rundall and the grandson of Charles McBurney, the American surgeon. His mother was English, the daughter and granddaughter of British Army officers. He spent his childhood in the USA and then in Switzerland.

In 1933, he entered Kings College, Cambridge, reading French and German, and then Archaeology and Anthropology. Graduate studies were interrupted by war service in the RAF. He completed his PhD in the years immediately following World War 2.

In 1952, he became a lecturer in archaeology at Cambridge, and later Reader and finally Professor of Quaternary Prehistory. His work included studies of the Upper Palaeolothic in Britain, important excavations in the Channel Islands, extensive excavations in Libya and, in later years, excavations in Iran and Afghanistan. He also published on French prehistory, archaeological work in the Soviet Union, and on cave art. His continuing influence is felt in the work of his many distinguished pupils.