Dorothy Garrod, first woman Professor at Cambridge

Abstract

In May 1939, the accomplished Palaeolithic archaeologist, Dorothy Garrod, was elected Cambridge's Professor of Archaeology — the first woman to hold a Chair at either Cambridge or Oxford. Garrod was well qualified for the position in several ways. Trained by R.R. Marett at Oxford and the Abbé Henri Breuil in France, she was renowned for her excavations in Gibraltar, Palestine, Southern Kurdistan and Bulgaria. By 1939, Garrod was one of Britain's finest archaeologists. She had discovered the wellpreserved skull fragments of ‘Abel’, a Neanderthal child, in Gibraltar, identified the Natufianculture while excavating Shukbah near Jerusalem, directed the large, long-term excavations at Mt Carmel, established the Palaeolithic succession for that crucial region and then travelled, in 1938, to explore the important Palaeolithic cave of Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria. Published reports of her excavations had appeared promptly and were very favourably reviewed. The prehistorian, Grahame Clark, who was to succeed her to the Disney Chair in 1952, described Garrod's The Stone Age of Mount Carmel (1937) as ‘pure gold’ (Clark 1937: 488).

First Sex- The Natufian Statue and Professor Dorothy Garrod

“…Garrod retired in 1952 and her colleagues presented her with this fitting scroll: "To Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod ... indefatigable explorer of antiquity, who for thirteen years professed the science of archaeology in Cambridge with such great learning, such great splendour, such great friendliness and humanity..." The scroll ended with the epistle by Horace 'caelum non animum mutant, qui trans [mare] currunt'-'those who hasten across the sea, change their horizon, not their soul.'" (4)…”

"Simplement, me vaig situar a 59,055 polzades d’ells" podria haver dit Dorothea Bate.

“…El fet de treballar amb la primera dona que va ser professora de la Cambridge University, la Dra. Garrod (Smith 2000), acredita la seva vàlua. Ara bé, en temps recents qui la dona a conèixer àmpliament es Shindler (2005) al seu llibre dedicat a la vida i obra de la científica, i que va tardar 9 anys en escriure.…”

Underappreciated pioneers

“…Yet, a good case can be made for crediting Dorothy Garrod's work at Devil's Tower with being the first research project to place as much emphasis on the context of the fossil evidence as on the hominin fossils themselves. This essay draws heavily on the comprehensive account of Dorothy Garrod's life and career for The British Academy by her good friend and fellow archaeologist, Gertrude Caton‐Thompson, 1 the careful archival research of Pamela Smith, 2 and on Karolyn Shindler's biography of Dorothea Bate 3…”