Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod (5 May, 1892–18 December, 1968) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
archaeologist who was the first woman to hold an
OxbridgeOxbridge is a composite, or portmanteau, of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England, and the term is now used to refer to them collectively, often with implications of perceived superior intellectual or social status...
chair, partly through her pioneering work on the Palaeolithic period. Her father was Sir Archibald Garrod, the physician.
Born in
OxfordOxford is a city, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. The city has a population of just under 165,000, with 151,000 living within the district boundary. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre...
, she attended
Newnham College, CambridgeNewnham College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1871 by Henry Sidgwick, and was the second Cambridge college to admit women after Girton College.-History:...
. Between 1925 and 1926 she excavated in
GibraltarGibraltar is a self-governing British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula and Europe at the entrance of the Mediterranean overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. The territory covers and shares a land border with Spain to the north...
and in 1928 led an expedition through South
KurdistanKurdistan is an extensive plateau and mountainous area in the Middle East, inhabited mainly by Kurds...
.
Following this, she held excavations at
Mount CarmelMount Carmel is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mt. Carmel...
in
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
where, working closely with
Dorothea BateDorothea Minola Alice Bate FGS , also known as Dorothy Bate, was a British palaeontologist, a pioneer of archaeozoology...
, she demonstrated a long sequence of Lower Palaeolithic, Middle Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic occupations in the caves of
TabunThe Tabun Cave is an excavated cave located at Mount Carmel, Israel, which was occupied intermittently during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic ages . In the course of this period of time, deposits of sand, silt and clay of up to 25 meters accumulated in the cave...
, El Wad,
Es SkhulEs Skhul is a cave site situated c. 20 kilometers south of the city of Haifa, Israel, and c. 3 kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea. The prehistoric site, was first excavated by Dorothy Garrod in the summer of 1928...
,
ShuqbaShuqba is a Palestinian town in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, located 17.71 kilometers northwest of the city of Ramallah in Palestine...
(Shuqbah) and
Kebara CaveKebara Cave is an Israeli limestone cave locality of the Wadi Kebara, situated at 60 - 65 metres ASL on the western escarpment of the Carmel Range, some 10km north-east of Caesarea...
.
Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod (5 May, 1892–18 December, 1968) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
archaeologist who was the first woman to hold an
OxbridgeOxbridge is a composite, or portmanteau, of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England, and the term is now used to refer to them collectively, often with implications of perceived superior intellectual or social status...
chair, partly through her pioneering work on the Palaeolithic period. Her father was Sir Archibald Garrod, the physician.
Born in
OxfordOxford is a city, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. The city has a population of just under 165,000, with 151,000 living within the district boundary. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre...
, she attended
Newnham College, CambridgeNewnham College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1871 by Henry Sidgwick, and was the second Cambridge college to admit women after Girton College.-History:...
. Between 1925 and 1926 she excavated in
GibraltarGibraltar is a self-governing British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula and Europe at the entrance of the Mediterranean overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. The territory covers and shares a land border with Spain to the north...
and in 1928 led an expedition through South
KurdistanKurdistan is an extensive plateau and mountainous area in the Middle East, inhabited mainly by Kurds...
.
Following this, she held excavations at
Mount CarmelMount Carmel is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mt. Carmel...
in
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
where, working closely with
Dorothea BateDorothea Minola Alice Bate FGS , also known as Dorothy Bate, was a British palaeontologist, a pioneer of archaeozoology...
, she demonstrated a long sequence of Lower Palaeolithic, Middle Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic occupations in the caves of
TabunThe Tabun Cave is an excavated cave located at Mount Carmel, Israel, which was occupied intermittently during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic ages . In the course of this period of time, deposits of sand, silt and clay of up to 25 meters accumulated in the cave...
, El Wad,
Es SkhulEs Skhul is a cave site situated c. 20 kilometers south of the city of Haifa, Israel, and c. 3 kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea. The prehistoric site, was first excavated by Dorothy Garrod in the summer of 1928...
,
ShuqbaShuqba is a Palestinian town in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, located 17.71 kilometers northwest of the city of Ramallah in Palestine...
(Shuqbah) and
Kebara CaveKebara Cave is an Israeli limestone cave locality of the Wadi Kebara, situated at 60 - 65 metres ASL on the western escarpment of the Carmel Range, some 10km north-east of Caesarea...
. Her work contributed majorly to the understanding of the prehistoric sequence in the region. She also coined the cultural label for the late Epipalaeolithic Natufian culture (from Wadi an-Natuf, the location of the Shuqba cave) following her excavations at
Es SkhulEs Skhul is a cave site situated c. 20 kilometers south of the city of Haifa, Israel, and c. 3 kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea. The prehistoric site, was first excavated by Dorothy Garrod in the summer of 1928...
and El Wad. The chronological framework established by her excavations in the Levant remain crucial to the present understanding of the prehistoric evolution in the region. Her excavations at the cave sites in the Levant were conducted with almost exclusively women workers recruited from local villages, although she worked with fellow archaeologist
Francis Turville-PetreFrancis Adrian Joseph Turville-Petre was a British archaeologist, famous for the discovery of the Neanderthal 'Galilee Skull' in 1925 and his work at Mount Carmel, in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine, now Israel. He was a close friend of Christopher Isherwood and W. H...
at
Kebara CaveKebara Cave is an Israeli limestone cave locality of the Wadi Kebara, situated at 60 - 65 metres ASL on the western escarpment of the Carmel Range, some 10km north-east of Caesarea...
, the type-site for the
KebaranThe Kebaran was an archaeological culture in the eastern Mediterranean area , named after the type site, Kebara Cave south of Haifa...
culture.
After holding a number of other academic posts she was made Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge in 1939, a post she held until 1952, aside from a gap towards the end of the Second World War when she served in the
Women's Auxiliary Air ForceThe Women's Auxiliary Air Force , whose members were invariably referred to as Waafs , was the female auxiliary of the Royal Air Force during World War II, established in 1939. At its peak strength, in 1943, WAAF numbers exceeded 180,000, with over 2,000 women enlisting per week.A Women's Royal Air...
. Dorothy Garrod was the first female professor at Cambridge long before the admission of women to the university. She was elected a Fellow of the
British AcademyThe British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established by Royal Charter in 1902, and is a fellowship of more than 800 scholars...
in 1952. In 1965, she was awarded the
CBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
.
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