Clarence (Peter) van Riet Lowe, civil engineer and archaeologist, was the son of James Martin Lowe and his wife Maria Wilhelmina, born van Riet. He received his schooling in Aliwal North, Zastron (in the Free State) and at Grey College, Bloemfontein, matriculating through the University of the Cape of Good Hope in 1911. The next year he enrolled at the South African College (from 1918 the University of Cape Town) as an engineering student. When World War I (1914-1918) broke out he interrupted his studies to join the Duke of Edinburgh's Own Rifles and later served as a gunner with the South African Field Artillery in East Africa, Egypt and Palestine. He was then posted as an officer to the Royal Horse Artillery and Royal Field Artillery for further service in Palestine (where he showed an early interest in archaeology by collecting hand-axes), Italy, France and England. After the war he returned to his studies, graduated with a BSc degree in civil engineering at the University of Cape Town in 1919 and joined the staff of the Department of Public Works of the Union of South Africa as an assistant engineer in Pretoria and Natal.
In 1922 Lowe married Miss Iris Ethelwynne Kelly in Cape Town, with whom he had a son and a daughter. Later that year, while stationed as resident engineer at Knysna (Eastern Cape), he published his first brief archaeological paper, "A palaeolithic settlement in Knysna" in the University of Cape Town engineering students' journal. During the next five years he was engaged on bridge construction in the Orange Free State (now the Free State) and in his spare time found, catalogued and described over 300 stone age sites. He established contacts with many other archaeologists and prehistorians, both locally and overseas, and despite serious problems with his eyesight collaborated with A. J. H. Goodwin* in writing a comprehensive account of The Stone Age cultures of South Africa (1929). Part of the material he collected was donated to the University of the Witwatersrand, but the collections were destroyed in a library fire in 1931. However, he also donated material to the museums in Bloemfontein and Cape Town.
In 1931 Lowe was promoted to chief engineer in the Department of Public Works, Pretoria. By that time he was also recognized for his contributions to prehistory and during a visit to Europe that year to attend the British Association's centenary meeting in London with General J. C. Smuts* and others, made contact with a number of eminent prehistorians. With their support, and the personal interest of General Smuts, the government of South Africa established a Bureau of Archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1935 and appointed Lowe as its first director. At the same time he was appointed to a newly created chair of archaeology at the university, although no courses in archaeology were offered. He retained his directorship until his retirement in 1954 and the professorship until his death. Also in 1935 he was appointed a member (later honorary secretary) of the newly established Commission for the Preservation of Natural and Historical Monuments, Relics and Antiques, and in that position played an important role in drawing up legislation to protect the country's historical monuments and making them better known by his contributions to The Monuments of South Africa (1941). He remained a member of the commission to his death.
One of the most important projects of the Bureau of Archaeology, in collaboration with the Geological Survey of South Africa, was a study of the gravel terraces of the Vaal River during 1936-1937. The results were published in Memoir No. 35, 1937, of the Geological Survey. This investigation established for the first time the geological and climatic background of the stone age cultures of the South African interior. Lowe updated the information in an article in the South African Archaeological Bulletin in 1952. He also collaborated with Professor Leon Fouché in directing the important excavations of the University of Pretoria on Mapungubwe Hill in Limpopo Province. He also discovered hand-axe tools in the cave deposits of the Makapan valley in Limpopo and later collaborated with Professor R. A. Dart* in a study of some of these deposits.
Lowe also became a leading authority of the prehistoric art of South Africa. He was an expert copyist and produced a map and directory of sites in 1936. His copies of cave paintings and petroglyphs furthermore provided a valuable record. He also built up a collection of historic and prehistoric beads in southern Africa, realizing their potential value in dating past cultural contacts. In 1937 he attended an international conference in Cairo and then travelled overland to visit sites in the Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The next year the University of Cape Town awarded him the honorary degree Doctor of Science (DSc) for his work in archaeology. In 1939 he returned to Uganda to study its Pleistocene geology and prehistory in collaboration with E. J. Wayland, publishing The Pleistocene Geology and Prehistory of Uganda, Part 2, in which he described the prehistoric artefacts, in 1952. He also visited Mozambique with the Abbé Breuil on two occasions (1941 and 1944) to advise its government on archaeological research and the protection of monuments. This was during World War II (1939-1945), when his life was divided between military and civil service duties. At this time (1944) the Bureau of Archaeology became the Archaeological Survey of South Africa, of which he remained the director. His work was published in some 150 scientific papers and reports.
Lowe was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa in 1933 and for some time served on its council. He served as president of the South African Archaeological Society (1952), of the South African Museums Association (1939), and of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, (1949-1950), receiving the association's South Africa Medal (gold) in 1944. He was awarded a silver medal by the Historical Monuments Commission in 1956. In 1947 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. With Professor R. A. Dart he played an important role in the foundation of the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research and its endowment by Dr Price. He was a man of wide interests, an outstanding figure whose vital personality affected a wide circle of friends and associates from various parts of the world. He died unexpectedly in 1956, following a minor operation.
