Vere Gordon Childe was an Australian archaeologist who specialised in the study of European prehistory. He spent most of his life in the United Kingdom, working as an academic for the University of Edinburgh and then the Institute of Archaeology, London. He wrote twenty-six books during his career. Initially an early proponent of culture-historical archaeology, he later became the first exponent of Marxist archaeology in the Western world.

Childe was born on 14 April 1892 in Sydney. He was the only surviving child of the Reverend Stephen Henry Childe (1844–1923) and Harriet Eliza Childe, née Gordon (1853–1910), a middle-class couple of English descent. The son of an Anglican priest, Stephen Childe was ordained into the Church of England in 1867 after gaining a BA from the University of Cambridge. Becoming a teacher, in 1871 he married Mary Ellen Latchford, with whom he had five children. They moved to Australia in 1878, where Mary died. On 22 November 1886 Stephen married Harriet Gordon, an Englishwoman from a wealthy background who had moved to Australia as a child. Her father was Alexander Gordon QC (1815–1903) and Sir Alexander Gordon QC (1858–1942), a Supreme Court judge, born in Australia, was a brother.

Childe's biographer Sally Green found no evidence that Childe ever had a serious intimate relationship; she assumed he was heterosexual because she found no evidence of same-sex attraction. Conversely, his student Don Brothwell thought him to be homosexual. He had many friends of both sexes, although he remained "awkward and uncouth, without any social graces". Despite his difficulties in relating to others, he enjoyed interacting and socialising with his students, often inviting them to dine with him. He was shy and often hid his personal feelings. Brothwell suggested that these personality traits may reflect undiagnosed Asperger syndrome.