Vere_Gordon_Childe Vere Gordon Childe (14 April 1892, Sydney, New South Wales–19 October 1957, Mt. Victoria, New South Wales) was an Australian philologist by training who later specialised in archaeology. Usually known as just Gordon Childe, he was perhaps best known for his excavation of the unique Neolithic site of Skara Brae in Orkney and for his Marxist views which influenced his thinking about prehistory.