Audrey Butt Colson: key obituary facts
Is Audrey Butt Colson dead? Yes. Audrey Butt Colson died on October 23, 2026, at age 100.
Cause of death: Audrey Butt Colson's cause of death has not been publicly confirmed.
What was Audrey Butt Colson known for?
She was a Social anthropologist.
More about Audrey Butt Colson
Born: 1 January 1926.
Gender: female.
Occupation: anthropologist, social anthropologist.
Education: University of Oxford.
Employer: University of Oxford.
Known for: Study of the Amerindian peoples of Guyana, Brazil and Venezuela.
Audrey Butt Colson, a British social anthropologist whose research focused on the Amerindian peoples of Guyana, Brazil and Venezuela, died October 23, 2026, aged 100.
Born Audrey Joan Butt in Gloucestershire on March 15, 1926, she studied at the University of Oxford under anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard. She received a Diploma in Ethnology in 1949, a B.Litt.
in 1950 and a D.Phil. in 1955. Colson carried out fieldwork among the Akawaio people in Guyana in 1951–52 and again in 1957, later extending her research to other Pemon and Kapon groups in Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela. Her studies thus moved from fieldwork with one people to comparative research across several communities and national borders. Together with Peter Rivière, she was one of the pioneers of Amazonian anthropology at Oxford. The university’s permanent endowment includes the Butt Colson Amerindian Studies Bequest, which supports South American Amerindian studies. Her publications included Land (2009), Fr Cary-Elwes S.J. and the Alleluia Indians (1998), and the 1983 study An Amerindian Derivation for Latin American Creole Illnesses, and Their Treatment.