Dorothy Garrod

Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod
Dorothy Garrod, c. 1913, while at Newnham College, Cambridge
Born	5 May 1892 Oxford
Died	18 December 1968
Nationality	British
Fields	archaeology

Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod CBE, FBA (5 May 1892–18 December 1968) was a British archaeologist who was the first woman to hold an Oxbridge chair, partly through her pioneering work on the Palaeolithic period. Her father was Sir Archibald Garrod, the physician.

Biography

Garrod was raised at her family home in Merton. In 1913, she entered Newnham College, Cambridge, and read for a Diploma in Anthropology at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, where she was taught by Robert Ranulph Marett.

It was Garrod who discovered the important neanderthal skull now called Gibraltar 2 in the early 1920s. She had come to Gibraltar to investigate at Abbe Breuil's encouragement. He had discovered the Devil's Tower Cave in Gibraltar with William Willoughby Cole Verner.

Between 1925 and 1926 she excavated in Gibraltar and in 1928 led an expedition through South Kurdistan that led to the excavation of Hazar Merd Cave and Zarzi cave.

Following this, she held excavations at Mount Carmel in Palestine where, working closely with Dorothea Bate, she demonstrated a long sequence of Lower Palaeolithic, Middle Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic occupations in the caves of Tabun, El Wad, Es Skhul, Shuqba (Shuqbah) and Kebara Cave. Her work was a major contribution 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 Skhul 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-Petre at Kebara Cave, the type-site for the Kebaran 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 Force. She was based at the RAF Medmenham photographic interpretation unit as a section officer.

Garrod 1928 standing with George and Edna Woodbury of the American School of Prehistoric Research

Dorothy Garrod was the first female professor at Cambridge. The first women University Teaching Officers were appointed to Cambridge University in 1921, and in 1926 Cambridge University women first gave women the titles of degrees but without associated privileges (i.e. no participation in University government). It was not until 1947 that full membership for women was granted by Cambridge University.

Awards and recognition

Dorothy Garrod was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1952. In 1965, she was awarded the CBE.

See also

• Archaeology of Israel

References and further reading

• Adams, Amanda, (2010). Ladies of the Field: Early Women Archaeologists and Their Search for Adventure, Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN 978-1-55365-433-9
• Davies, William and Ruth Charles (eds) (1999) Dorothy Garrod and the Progress of the Palaeolithic: Studies in the Prehistoric Archaeology of the Near East and Europe Oxford: Oxbow Books.
• Smith, Pamela Jane. (2000) "Dorothy Garrod as the First Woman Professor at Cambridge University" Antiquity 74(283), 131-6.
• Smith, Pamela Jane. (2005) "From 'small, dark and alive' to 'cripplingly shy': Dorothy Garrod as the first woman Professor at Cambridge." [1]
• Smith, Pamela Jane et al. (1997) "Dorothy Garrod in Words and Pictures" Antiquity 71(272), 265-70.

External links

• The Dorothy Garrod photographic archive at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford
• Exhibition on Dorothy Garrod at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
• Dorothy Garrod (1892–1968): Eine Archäologin erobert die Eliteuniversität Cambridge (German)

Academic offices
Preceded by Sir Ellis Minns	Disney Professor of Archaeology, Cambridge University 1938 - 1952	Succeeded by Sir Grahame Clark