The Department of Archaeology is saddened to report the death of Prof Sir Paul Mellars.
Paul was an eminent archaeologist and prehistorian whose research primarily focused on Neanderthal populations in Europe and the ways in which Neanderthals were eventually replaces by ‘modern’ populations. A major focus of his work was to integrate the archaeological evidence for human behaviour with the rapidly emerging evidence from recent DNA research into the African origins and subsequent dispersal of our own species.
He authored or edited several books in this field, including: The Human Revolution (1989), The Emergence of Modern Humans (1990), The Origins of Modern Humans and the Impact of Chronometric Dating (1992), and The Neanderthal Legacy (1996).
His other main research interest was in the way in which the final (‘Mesolithic’) hunter-gatherer populations in Britain adapted to the rapidly changing climatic conditions which followed the end of the last ice age. He carried out excavations on sites in this period in Scotland and North Yorkshire, and published two monographs on these sites: Excavations on Oronsay: Prehistoric Human Ecology on a Small Island (1987), and Star Carr in context: New Archaeological and Palaeoecological investigations at the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr, North Yorkshire (1998).
Paul first came to Cambridge in 1959 as an undergraduate and then postgraduate at Fitzwilliam House (now Fitzwilliam College) with a doctoral thesis on ‘The Mousterian Succession in South-West France’. In 1965, he became a Research Fellow in Arts at the University of Sheffield; and in 1968, the Sir James Knott Research Fellow at the University of Newcastle. In 1970, he returned to Sheffield as University Lecturer in Prehistory and Archaeology. In 1981, he returned to Cambridge as a University Lecturer, becoming a Reader in 1991, and, in 1997, Professor in Prehistory and Human Evolution.
‘Paul Anthony Mellars, from Swallownest to Cambridge’ a biography by Dr Pamela Jane Smith, provides detailed background to Paul’s early fascination with archaeology, memories of his studies at Cambridge alongside Barry Cunliffe, Charles Higham, Colin Renfrew and others, and stories from his teaching and research.
Paul was a Life Fellow and former President of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1990; from 1998–2000, he was President of the Prehistoric Society; in 2004, he was appointed an Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes academiques by the French Government; in 2008, he received the British Academy’s Grahame Clarke medal ‘for academic achievement involving recent contributions to the study of prehistoric archaeology’. Paul was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year’s Honours List 2010 for ‘services to scholarship’.
Head of the Department of Archaeology, Dr Tamsin O’Connell, said, "This is very sad news and truly the passing of an era. Paul was a giant figure in European Prehistory and his contributions to the academe cannot be overestimated. He will be fondly remembered for his insight, his depth of knowledge, his skill as a raconteur, his rapport with the students, as well as for his cigars and his unmistakeable laugh. Our thoughts and best wishes are with Anny, his family and loved ones at this time."
Details of funeral arrangements will be updated here in due course.
