page_title: John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury
section_title: Archaeology and biological science
hierarchical_section_title: John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury / Archaeology and biological science
caption_attribution_description: English: Pages from a book of obituary cuttings on the death of Sir John Lubbock, Lord Avebury in 1913.
context_page_description: John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, 4th Baronet, PC, DL, FRS, known as Sir John Lubbock, 4th Baronet from 1865 until 1900, was an English banker, Liberal politician, philanthropist, scientist and polymath. Lubbock worked in his family company as a banker but made significant contributions in archaeology, ethnography, and several branches of biology. He coined the terms "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic" to denote the Old and New Stone Ages, respectively. He helped establish archaeology as a scientific discipline, and was also influential in nineteenth-century debates concerning evolutionary theory. He introduced the first law for the protection of the UK's archaeological and architectural heritage. He was also a founding member of the X Club.
context_section_description: In addition to his work at his father's bank, Lubbock took a keen interest in archaeology and evolutionary theory. In 1855, he and Charles Kingsley discovered the skull of a musk ox in a gravel pit, a discovery that was commended by Darwin. A collection of Iron Age antiquities Lubbock and Sir John Evans excavated at the site of Hallstatt in Austria is now in the British Museum's collection. He spoke in support of the evolutionist Thomas Henry Huxley at the famous 1860 Oxford evolution debate. During the 1860s, he published many articles in which he used archaeological evidence to support Darwin's theory. In 1864, he became one of the founding members (along with Thomas Henry Huxley and others) of the elite X Club, a dining club composed of nine gentlemen to promote the theories of natural selection and academic liberalism. During the 1860s he held a number of influential academic positions, including President of the Ethnological Society from 1864–65, Vice-President of Linnean Society in 1865, and President of the International Congress of Prehistoric Archaeology in 1868. In 1865 he published Pre-Historic Times, which became a standard archaeology textbook for the remainder of the century, with the seventh and final edition published in 1913.
  His second book, On the Origin of Civilization, was published in 1870. During 1871, he purchased part of the Avebury estate to protect its prehistoric stone monuments from impending destruction. During the early 1870s, he held the position of President of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland from 1871–72, as well as the position of Vice President of the Royal Society in 1871. During this period he worked with John Evans, the other key figure in the establishment of the discipline of archaeology.
  In 1865, Lubbock published what was possibly the most influential archaeological text book of the nineteenth century, Pre-historic times, as illustrated by ancient remains, and the manners and customs of modern savages. He invented the terms "Palaeolithic" and "Neolithic" to denote the Old and New Stone Ages, respectively. He also introduced a Darwinian-type theory of human nature and development. "What was new was Lubbock’s ... insistence that, as a result of natural selection, human groups had become different from each other, not only culturally, but also in their biological capacities to utilize culture."
  Lubbock complained in the preface to Pre-Historic Times about Charles Lyell:
  "Note.—In his celebrated work on the Antiquity of Man, he coined the term Neolithic in 1865. Sir Charles Lyell has made much use of my earlier articles in the Natural History Review, frequently, indeed, extracting whole sentences verbatim, or nearly so. But as he has in these cases omitted to mention the source from which his quotations were derived, my readers might naturally think that I had taken very unjustifiable liberties with the work of the eminent geologist. A reference to the respective dates will, however, protect me from any such inference. The statement made by Sir Charles Lyell, in a note to page 11 of his work, that my article on the Danish Shell-mounds was published after his sheets were written, is an inadvertence, regretted, I have reason to believe, as much by its author as it is by me."
  In 1871, he bought land at Avebury to prevent part of the ancient stone circle from being built on. This, and other threats to the nation's heritage, persuaded him that some legal protection was needed. In 1874, he introduced a parliamentary bill that would identify a list of ancient sites that deserved legal protection. After several later attempts and against some opposition, it was not until 1882 that a much watered down version, The Ancient Monuments Act, came into being. Though restricted to 68 largely prehistoric monuments it was the forerunner of all later laws governing the UK's archaeological and architectural heritage.
  Lubbock was also an amateur biologist of some distinction, writing books on hymenoptera (Ants, Bees and Wasps: a record of observations on the habits of the soci
caption: Pages from a book of obituary cuttings following the death of Sir John Lubbock in 1913.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 6D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2016:08:25 21:46:03", "Image Artist": "John Lubbock", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "John Lubbock", "Image ExifOffset": "360", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "9186", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "11076", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "11487", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:08:25 21:46:03", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:08:25 21:46:03", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "6", "EXIF ApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "50", "EXIF SubSecTime": "79", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "79", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "79", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5472", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3648", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8958", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1368000/359", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "912000/239", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF CameraOwnerName": "Alan Dawson", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "023022001433", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[50, 50, 0, 0]", "EXIF LensModel": "EF50mm f/1.8 II", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "0000000000"}