Borden, Charles E. (1905 - 1978)

Charles E. Borden is considered the grandfather of British Columbia archaeology. He was born in New York City but shortly thereafter accompanied his widowed mother to her family home in Germany. At the age of 22 Borden returned to the United States. He enrolled at the University of California at Los Angeles majoring in German and continued his studies at the Berkeley campus, from which he secured an MA in 1933 and a PhD in 1937. In 1939 he accepted an appointment in Canada, as an assistant professor of German at the University of British Columbia. In 1949 he was appointed Lecturer in Archaeology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, while also retaining the German position. In 1954 he was promoted to the rank of Professor of German, but he remained a Lecturer in Archaeology until the year he retired, when he was appointed as a full Professor of Archaeology. He created the 'Borden System' in 1952, which was used to catalogue archaeological sites in Canada.