British archaeologist. Born 1937.
Professor at the University of Southampton from 1972 to 1981, and at the University of Cambridge thereafter. Through excavations and theoretical work (notably the book Before Civilisation, 1973, a great work of archaeological synthesis), Colin Renfrew has established himself as one of the leading thinkers in the field of archaeology.
In the much-debated Archaeology and Language (1987), he proposes a link between Indo-European languages and the spread of agriculture in the Near East.