John Evans

Sir John Evans (1823–1908) was an English archaeologist, numismatist and geologist who spent his working life in his family's paper mills at Hemel Hempstead. In 1859 he and Joseph Prestwich visited the gravel pits of the Somme and confirmed Boucher de Perthes's claim that worked flints lay with the bones of extinct animals, a finding that established the antiquity of man. His books The Coins of the Ancient Britons, The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments of Great Britain and The Ancient Bronze Implements of Great Britain laid the foundations of British prehistoric archaeology. He was the father of Sir Arthur Evans, the excavator of Knossos.