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SMNTY Classics: Digging Up Women Archaeologists · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: I've never told your production of iHeartRadio, and we have
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: recently done our will do depending on how his schedule
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: shakes out, an episode on women in paleontology because it
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: is the anniversary of Jurassic Park, which is one of
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: my favorite movies, and I just had it in my head, like, oh,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: what can I do that would you know, be feminist?
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Related to that, and Kristen Caroline past hosts, have done
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: one on archaeologists, and I think that's also toughly because
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: we have the new Indiana Jones movie coming out and
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: they talk about the Indiana Jones effect in this, so
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I thought this one would be cool. I did go through,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: especially like after Jurassic Park and then the Mummy came out.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I went through a pretty big I wanted to be
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: an archaeology I.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Told you my story. Yeah, I did that in the
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: early years of elementary school, and we would discover some
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: cool things, probably disrespectfully, but we did it, and I
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, I want to do this.
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: I did not not yet, not yet, So please enjoy
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: this classic episode brought to.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: You by the Reinvented twenty twelve, Camri, It's ready. Are
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: you welcome to you stuff Mom never told you?
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: From Houstuffworks dot com.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Today we are talking about a topic that is very
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: near and dear to my heart, which is archaeology.
• 1:52
  Speaker 5: I am a big geek and I did not know
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: this about you.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you learn all sorts of things about me.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I read romance novel I wanted to be an archaeologist,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: and it's all because of Indiana Jones. Let's be honest.
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah it was.
• 2:06
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: As a kid, I watched a Temple of Doom. I
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: know it's not everybody's favorite, get over it. I watched
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Temple of Doom over and over and over again, and
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, how well I knew when to
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: cover my eyes when he ripped the guy's heart out
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and when they're crawling through that roach cave. Yeah, well,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm afraid of bugs. I don't know if
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: it's because of that the roach cave, but yeah, I
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: was convinced that I was going to be an archaeologist.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: And I was convinced of this up and through up
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: until my freshman year of college, and I took an
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: anthropology class. You know, I went to college as an
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: undecided like many like many kids do.
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: Quick question, though, did you wear a lot of khaki
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: in these days?
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't shoot shoot, No, I wear camo instead. Okay, No,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I took an anthropology class. I was determined that I
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: was going to become an archaeologist, and I was all
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I was with it. Learned about monkeys and I was there,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and then we got to the archaeology section and I
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: fell asleep every day in class. Oh oh, it just
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: wasn't as interesting. And I guess once you find out
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: all the nitty gritty details behind, like your dream job,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: it might not seem as appealing.
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: And your professor did not look like Harrison Ford.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: No, shockingly no, and neither did my ta. But I
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: can tell you the difference between a boy monkey head
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and a girl monkey head. Yeah there's that. Okay, Yeah,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: that's all I got. Though.
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  Speaker 6: Well, now you know even more about archaeology, though, Caroline,
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  Speaker 6: because you have dug up yep, you dug up a
• 3:38
  Speaker 6: history of women in archaeology.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And if I had become an archaeologist, I would
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  Speaker 1: have been a rare breed part of a rare breed.
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  Speaker 6: Indeed, and books on women in archaeology are also rare,
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  Speaker 6: and we are pulling from three primary books. This one
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  Speaker 6: isn't so much article based, but more based on books.
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  Speaker 6: Let's go ahead and toss out the three books that
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: we are going to be discussing today, first of which
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  Speaker 6: would be Ladies of the Field, Early Women Archaeologists in
• 4:05
  Speaker 6: their Search for Adventure by Amanda Adams.
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  Speaker 1: Then we have Excavating Women, a history of women in
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  Speaker 1: European archaeology, and the third is Women in Archaeology by
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Cheryl Klassen. She writes the intro it was sort of
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  Speaker 1: a big group of essays about famous lady archaeologists.
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  Speaker 6: So right off the bat, we can go ahead and
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  Speaker 6: tell you that women do not have a very strong
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  Speaker 6: presence in archaeology.
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  Speaker 5: Maybe perhaps because of an Indiana Jones effect. Maybe not sure.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. He was handsome. I was ready to
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  Speaker 1: go hang out with him.
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  Speaker 6: But even though women comprise a small percentage of archaeologists,
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  Speaker 6: they have been digging up all those artifacts since it
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  Speaker 6: was first created as a discipline in the nineteenth century.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and really, you can think of anybody men or
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  Speaker 1: women who were part of the field during the nineteenth
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: century as pioneers. And one woman who comes to mind
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: is Joanna Mesdorff. She's German who, despite not being able
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: to go to university in Germany, built an academic career
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  Speaker 1: on self study and she actually became the first female
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  Speaker 1: museum director in Germany in eighteen ninety one. And it
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: was a lot of women like this who might not
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: have had a formal education at first, who taught themselves
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: all they needed to know, or they worked alongside their
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: husbands or fathers to find out everything there was in
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  Speaker 1: the field.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, it wasn't.
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  Speaker 6: Uncommon for a women like Messdorff to not have a
• 5:33
  Speaker 6: college education because women being permitted to university lectures really
• 5:39
  Speaker 6: wasn't formally permitted in places like Great Britain, Norway and
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  Speaker 6: Denmark until the eighteen seventies. Cambridge, for instance, granted women
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: full membership in nineteen forty eight, but it had established
• 5:51
  Speaker 6: an all female college in the meantime. But at the
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  Speaker 6: same time, upper class educated women especially were still taught
• 6:00
  Speaker 6: Latin and Greek, which ties in a lot with the
• 6:03
  Speaker 6: interest in archaeology. Italy had become a popular destination site
• 6:08
  Speaker 6: as the seat of the home of the classics, and
• 6:11
  Speaker 6: then there was also this rise in an interest in
• 6:15
  Speaker 6: Egyptology in the nineteenth century as well.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, granted, a lot of the excavations and expeditions that
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: were going on in Egypt were kind of looting, but
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: there was still an interest, even if it was in
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: stealing gold. But after World War One, more women started
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: going to college. More women also started entering the field
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  Speaker 1: of archaeology, but a lot of them were going about
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  Speaker 1: it a different way than men were. Instead of going
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  Speaker 1: on digs and leading these projects, a lot of women
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  Speaker 1: were getting into the field through museum work and research,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: which we shouldn't. I mean, that's not a bad thing. No,
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  Speaker 1: they contributed quite a bit, but they were just going
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  Speaker 1: they had to sort of go about it in more
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  Speaker 1: of an indirect way.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I thought it was interesting. There was a quote from.
• 6:58
  Speaker 6: Coming from nineteen thirty three that I think this was
• 7:00
  Speaker 6: from a male museum curator saying that women are specially
• 7:04
  Speaker 6: suited to museum work by their love of the beautiful,
• 7:07
  Speaker 6: their adaptability, and their patients in detailed work. So academia,
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  Speaker 6: the more academic side of archaeology, and actually going on
• 7:15
  Speaker 6: those digs more closed off.
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  Speaker 5: But women were come to the museum. Handle this pottery
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: and jewelry. You like findings, there.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Is something sparkly, you have soft hens, Yeah, don't go outside.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: But Cheryl class and who we mentioned at the beginning,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: looks at archaeology through the lens of gender, and she
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: talks about how really until the sixties, upper class educated
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  Speaker 1: white women were sort of repelled from the field, particularly
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: going out on digs and whatnot. And in the US
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  Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties, she says that there was a
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  Speaker 1: class and race based definition of femininity that limited women's
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  Speaker 1: involvement in the field. And during this time, while more
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  Speaker 1: women were getting involved in archaeology digs, things like that,
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  Speaker 1: it was sort of a limited, particularly in the US,
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  Speaker 1: to more unskilled labor.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, and often that was had racist undertones to it
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  Speaker 6: because it was really only open to black women.
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  Speaker 5: I didn't know.
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  Speaker 1: This excavation came to be considered.
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  Speaker 6: Appropriate work for unemployed women, especially women of color, in
• 8:20
  Speaker 6: New deal projects.
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  Speaker 5: In the nineteen thirties and the nineteen forties.
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  Speaker 1: So there was this issue of femininity. But only if
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  Speaker 1: you're an upper class white woman. If you're a lower
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: class woman, black or white, it's all right. If you
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  Speaker 1: get your hands start out in the field. Yeah, there
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  Speaker 1: was the attitude now class and says women constitute still
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  Speaker 1: a very small percent. In the nineties, She said that
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  Speaker 1: only fifteen percent of the archaeologists in the top thirty
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  Speaker 1: academic departments were women, and many work in small contract
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  Speaker 1: companies or have only research affiliations with departments and museums. Basically,
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  Speaker 1: this means that women end up having few role models
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  Speaker 1: of their same gender, and that leads to poor networks essentially.
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  Speaker 6: And this reflects a lot from the conversations that we've
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  Speaker 6: had about women in sciences and the STEM courses science, technology, engineering,
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  Speaker 6: and math.
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  Speaker 5: We see that.
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  Speaker 6: Reflected in archaeology as well. And this is coming from
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  Speaker 6: a twenty eleven article on Biblical Archaeology dot org. Jenny Ebling,
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  Speaker 6: an associate professor of archaeology at the University of Evansville
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  Speaker 6: in Indiana, pointed out that in the Biblical Archaeology Reviews,
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  Speaker 6: which Caroline, I'm sure you have a subscription to that,
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  Speaker 6: and there are twenty eleven list of dig opportunities in Israel. Naturally,
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  Speaker 6: because it's biblical archaeology, only two of the twenty two
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  Speaker 6: excavations were either directed or co directed by women. And
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  Speaker 6: she also found that fewer than a third of the
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  Speaker 6: licenses granted by the Israel Antiquities Authority of twenty eleven
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  Speaker 6: were issued to female archaeologists, and she's not entirely sure why.
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  Speaker 5: But as comes up so often in this podcast, there
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  Speaker 5: is a significant gender gap.
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  Speaker 1: There is and classen like we mentioned, who looks at
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  Speaker 1: archaeology not necessarily from just being a science field, and
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: looks at it as a gender sort of the whole
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  Speaker 1: gendered aspect of it. In women's involvement, she says that
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: homophobia is a part of why women have not been involved,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: and there was this whole issue of, like we said, femininity,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: traditional femininity, and that if you were a woman who
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: not only wanted to pursue education, but wanted to pursue
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: an quote unquote athletic pursuit like archaeology, you were non feminine.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: You were a non woman. And so there was this
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: whole idea that connected feminist the feminist movement or feminism
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: to lesbianism, and so you were just this total odd
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  Speaker 1: ball if you wanted to participate in something that was
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: dirty and outside.
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  Speaker 6: Well, and this is coming from nineteen oh four, a
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: director of Denmark's National Museum said, the work of the
• 10:57
  Speaker 6: monuments of our fatherland is, according to its nature, men's work,
• 11:01
  Speaker 6: and it demands the exercise of physical strength and stamina,
• 11:05
  Speaker 6: which cannot be expected to be found amongst women. It's
• 11:09
  Speaker 6: that outdoor labor that's involved with the digging, which is
• 11:13
  Speaker 6: maybe why still you know, we don't see a lot
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: of female dig directors.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: But we are in the laboratories. I was about to
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: say laboratories. We are in the.
• 11:21
  Speaker 6: Laboratories in the museums working with pottery, textiles, jewelry and
• 11:26
  Speaker 6: more specialized fields.
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  Speaker 5: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And one person who still makes people angry is Harvard
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: professor Edward H. Clark, who was working in the mental
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds, women watch your overarias. He said that
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: mental activity interfered with ovulations, so women should focus on
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: their reproductive abilities. The education of women creates a class
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  Speaker 1: of sexless humans. Oh my god, it upsets the whole system.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: If you're not a manly man or a girly girl,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: we don't know what you are.
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  Speaker 6: Well, I think that we can say that since Edward
• 11:59
  Speaker 6: old Ed was saying this in the mid to late
• 12:01
  Speaker 6: eighteen hundreds, I think women modern women have proven him wrong.
• 12:06
  Speaker 6: We are still producing women having sexual intercourse and careers.
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  Speaker 5: It's incredible.
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  Speaker 7: And we go outside, yes sometimes, and Glassen talks about
• 12:17
  Speaker 7: archaeology and how it combines athleticism and intelligence, those two
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  Speaker 7: traditionally male gendered characteristics.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, which ended up dissuading some women from pursuing. And
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, there could have been some women out there
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: who thought man going to Egypt and digging up a
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: treasure trove. That sounds really interesting, But I better stay
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: home and just do my knitting or think about.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, the cultural icon of archaeology that we have
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: is Indiana Jones. And I'm not saying anything against Indiana
• 12:46
  Speaker 6: Jones films.
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: I love them. I love them as a child. I
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: will watch them still today.
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  Speaker 6: But nevertheless, you know, it does have that, you know,
• 12:53
  Speaker 6: maybe the connotation of archaeology as this masculine field where
• 12:59
  Speaker 6: the women are just gorgeous vixen's and you know, well
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: dressed curators.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly delicate things floating through museums.
• 13:07
  Speaker 6: And my goodness, and there's nothing wrong with a well
• 13:09
  Speaker 6: dressed curator either.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Absolutely not. But I want to talk about some of
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: our archaeology all stars. These women who really paved the
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: way for other women to get involved in the field.
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  Speaker 6: I'm also imagining, like you know, in your college freshman
• 13:35
  Speaker 6: dorm room, you had posters of these women no bands,
• 13:39
  Speaker 6: or like you know John Belushina's college T shirt, you
• 13:42
  Speaker 6: had a poster of let's say, Amelia Edwards.
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: He a godmother of Egyptology who was quite a gal.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, she was around from eighteen thirty one to nineteen eighteen.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Edwards was definitely an independent woman thanks to no one
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: will ever say this again in modern history. She was
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: independent and financially secure thanks to her career as a journalist.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: That would never apply anymore anyway. She was homeschooled from
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: a young age by a mother who avoided teaching her housework.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Her mother had seemed like her mother had other plans
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: for her.
• 14:16
  Speaker 6: She also never married, and one of her great loves
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: was Marian North, the botanical artist for those of you
• 14:23
  Speaker 6: out there familiar with her work.
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: And she was also had a.
• 14:27
  Speaker 6: Long term relationship with Lucy Renshaw identified only as L
• 14:31
  Speaker 6: in Edward's journal and who accompanied her on some of
• 14:33
  Speaker 6: her Middle East travels. And she comes in eighteen seventy
• 14:38
  Speaker 6: three to Alexandria and became an expert on local archaeology
• 14:43
  Speaker 6: and helped found the Egypt Exploration Fund in eighteen eighty two.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Edwards is really credited during this time that she helped
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: found this group of making archaeology accessible to the common person.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: She always encouraged her students to write about archaeology and
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: way that was accessible to other people, and so her
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: work for the fund involved raising money, writing articles, and lecturing,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: and she ended up receiving honorary degrees from Columbia University,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Smith College, and the College of the Sisters of Bethany.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: So clearly people out there were like, oh, well, I
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: guess she's smart, even though she's a girl. I guess
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: we'll give her.
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: The stuff whatever.
• 15:23
  Speaker 6: Another notable lady we should talk about who teams up
• 15:27
  Speaker 6: with her husband, in this case Jane Dulafoy. She became
• 15:32
  Speaker 6: known for her cross dressing so that she could fight
• 15:35
  Speaker 6: in the Franco Prussian War of eighteen seventy, and she
• 15:40
  Speaker 6: and her husband Marcel wanted to obviously after the war ended,
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: they wanted to reach the legendary site of Suza, east
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: of the Tigris River and home to an ancient city
• 15:53
  Speaker 6: and hundreds of people flocked to help them excavate this site.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Doulafoy is really interesting. There's a picture of her
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: in in the book Ladies of the Field, and she's
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: kind of turned to the side in profile. She has
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: her hair chopped off, she's wearing men's clothing, and she
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: she has a striking resemblance. Might I say to one
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: young Dustin Hoffman, really yeah, but yeah, she and her
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: husband went trapsing around the Middle East. They loved it.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: She really was dedicated to the whole idea of uncovering
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: this city in SUSA, and they did. They found a lot.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: They found like fifty four boxes worth big large crpes,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: not just boxes worth those stuff that they ended up
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: taking back with them to France. And she she was
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: no shrinking violet. She wasn't just sitting back, you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: being fanned with palm fronds. No, she was overseeing the dig.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: She had people reporting to her aunt. She oversaw every
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: painstaking detail of excavating. Basically, they were enameled bricks that
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: were part of giant freezes in the Palace of Darius,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: which was quite a big find.
• 17:00
  Speaker 6: And just to point out what a celebrity she became
• 17:02
  Speaker 6: at the time, after coming back stateside, The New York
• 17:07
  Speaker 6: Times reported that she received the authorization of the government
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: to appear in public in costume because she was so
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: well known at this point. For her what would be
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: considered cross dressing, which really today would probably just be
• 17:20
  Speaker 6: like wearing slacks and the shirt.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Right exactly, Yeah, and the it would just.
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: Look like Dustin Hoffman.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yank, Dustin Hoffmann. But they point out that the
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: privilege of being able to wear men's clothing around in
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the streets was normally reserved for the mentally ill or handicapps.
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: So this was a high honor.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: So it was a high honor. And she was pretty
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: fashionable too. It's not like she just wore any old pants.
• 17:45
  Speaker 6: So in exchange for her doing things such as, oh,
• 17:48
  Speaker 6: I don't know, unearthing the Palace of Darius, people were like, well, oh,
• 17:54
  Speaker 6: you can.
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: Wear pants, how about that?
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: How about that?
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: Congratulations pants.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Well it's funny because that actually her wearing men's clothing
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: was not just about traveling easier. It was about safety
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: because a lot of the places that she traveled in
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the Middle East she would not have been able to
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: pass through safely as a woman, and she even had
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: to shave her head at one point because the life
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: got so bad. Yeah, So they got to somewhere were
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: they They got to some palace and the ruler was like, no,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: you're not a woman. She had a shaved head, was
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: wearing pants. He wouldn't believe her.
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: Hm, well, what about Kathleen Kenyon? What can you tell
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: me about her?
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Well, Kathleen Kenyon is very famous. She actually didn't start
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: out with any interest in particular in archaeology. Her interest
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: was sparked when she joined Gertrude, Kate and Thompson on
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the nineteen twenty nine All Women Excavation of Great Zimbabwe
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: as a photographer and she went on to work at Roman,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Britain's third largest city, Verulamium Verumum. It's one of them,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: but yes, with Sir Mortimer Wheeler, and together they developed
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the Wheeler Kenyon method, which still influences excavation methods. And
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: it had to do with stratigraphic analysis. Instead of just
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: dig in any old place, you would pay attention to
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: the strata of the dirt.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: The layers, the vertical layers of the dirt well done.
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: And just for a few examples of some things that
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: she dug up, perhaps using that very Wheeler Kenyon method.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: Just before World War Two, she excavated.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: The Jewelry Wall at Leicester, whose public.
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: Baths are a rare example of civil Roman architecture. She
• 19:37
  Speaker 6: was also the first acting director of the Institute of
• 19:40
  Speaker 6: Archaeology of the University College of London, founded in nineteen
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: thirty seven to provide instruction in proper excavation techniques.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: And what Kenyon is possibly the most famous for is
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: her excavation of the ancient city of Jericho, which she
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: uncovered the first walled city full with houses and courtyards
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: dating back to the Neolithic era. So this was a
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: huge fine because one area they found it was like
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: this huge staircase along the wall. It made me think
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: of Monty Python's The Life of Brian, that whole thing. Anyway,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: it's older than some of the Pyramids, so yeah, good job,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Kathleen Kenyon. Another woman that we have to talk about
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: is Hannah Marie Wormington. She was around from nineteen fourteen
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: to nineteen ninety four. She was the first woman admitted
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to the Department of Anthropology at Harvard who also graduated technically.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: She was the second woman admitted overall, but she was
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: admitted to Harvard in nineteen thirty seven and received her
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: PhD in nineteen fifty four. And according to her obituary
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: in The New York Times, Wormington was an expert on
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the Paleo Indian period and she was affiliated with the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Denver Museum of Natural History for nearly sixty years.
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: And a round out this this list of.
• 21:01
  Speaker 6: Notable female archaeologists, we have Lithuanian Maria Gimbuddhists whose focus
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: was on Indo European studies in the Bronze and Neolithic periods.
• 21:11
  Speaker 6: And she was notable because of the way that she
• 21:15
  Speaker 6: brought together linguistic and archaeological.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Knowledge right, and this she took her study of basically
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: in her in her biography they talk about how it's
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: sort of inappropriate for archaeologists to get too deep into
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: people's culture, maybe to assume too much about their religion
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and whatnot. But she kept finding all of those goddess figures,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you know, the round women or whatever, and she basically
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: developed this theory of the goddess and she saw the
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: female form rendered in thousands of images and said that
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: it reflected the centrality of women in religious and cultural life.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Basically said like, look, all these people were worshiping women.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: And not only was her theory a big deal in
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: her two books on theists were a big deal, but
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: her whole theory became such a huge deal to feminists
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: and women and environmentalists and nature worshippers and the primordial
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: deity for our Paleolithic and Neolithic ancestors. In her biography,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: says was female, reflecting the sovereignty of motherhood.
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: And I can imagine, I mean, if she's coming out
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: with this in the mid twentieth century, that probably was
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: a pretty revolutionary idea for people who probably conceptualized a
• 22:29
  Speaker 6: lot of times we conceptualize in the Western world at least,
• 22:32
  Speaker 6: and Judeo Christianity conceptualizes, you know, gods as masculine, right,
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: So that was probably pretty groundbreaking at the time. And
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: one final name who will be much more familiar probably
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: to listeners, is she was not an archaeologist, but archaeology
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: was highly influential for her because her husband was an
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: archaeologist in the Middle East. Agatha Christie, the famous mystery writer.
• 23:00
  Speaker 6: She spent thirty years assisting her husband's work in the
• 23:03
  Speaker 6: Middle East, and she would write her books in between
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: and hence you have archaeology themed Murder on the Orient.
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: Express and Death on the Nile Go.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I geta.
• 23:13
  Speaker 6: So those are some names that I bet a lot
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: of listeners haven't heard from.
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: And I really.
• 23:20
  Speaker 6: Really really hope that we have some archaeologists out there listening.
• 23:24
  Speaker 6: And if it's male archaeologist, you have women working with you,
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: women in the field.
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: What's it like. I'm curious to.
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: Know, because I feel like, you know, we don't really
• 23:34
  Speaker 6: talk about archaeology all that much. I mean, we'll hear
• 23:37
  Speaker 6: about King tut every now and then, but this idea
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: of you know, figuring out how the discipline even came
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: to be and women's role.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: In it is pretty interesting stuff.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: So I'm glad that you wanted to be one as
• 23:49
  Speaker 6: a child here so that I could learn more.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: And I just woant it. One final thing about my
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: freshman year experience. Yes, so, I so badly wanted to
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: do this. I thought it was going to be so cool,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: and I'm remember telling my slightly stuck up roommate about
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: it and she was like, I mean, what is possibly
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: left to find? I just want everyone to let that
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: soak in. She actually said, what is left to find
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and so every time I see something on the news
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: about something being discovered somewhere, I think of her.
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: Think of her. Yep, you know what you should have said.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: There's space, space, archaeology, moon excavation, moon castles.
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: Yes, so now that you're thinking about uh, mooncastles, send
• 24:33
  Speaker 6: us your thoughts. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
• 24:36
  Speaker 6: where you can send your letters. So you can also
• 24:38
  Speaker 6: head over to Facebook or tweet us at mom Stuff podcast.
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: And in the meantime, got a couple of letters here
• 24:46
  Speaker 6: for you.
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: We've got one from Zoe and.
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: This is in response to our episode on prom. Zoe writes,
• 24:54
  Speaker 6: I'm still in high school and have not yet experienced
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: the prom, although in my school it's just called I
• 25:01
  Speaker 6: live in a very rural community in Canada, and most
• 25:04
  Speaker 6: of the people at school are redneck farm kids. From
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: what I gather, our graduation banquet is going to be
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: a campfire barbecue in the woods somewhere, and the.
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: Dance will probably end up at the rodeo grounds.
• 25:13
  Speaker 6: One of my friends was actually looking up camouflage print dresses.
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: Another great plan that I've heard from the two boys
• 25:19
  Speaker 6: in my class is that they're going to wear Carhart
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: Farm clothes and show up in a grain truck or
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: a tractor.
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: Which I think is way cooler than a stretch hummer,
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: Limo and Zoe, I do agree with that.
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: I find it really annoying how PROM is marketed to
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: teens through movies, TV and team romance novels.
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: Where it's blasphemy to make a light of the prom.
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: You can easily tell that it has really affected teen
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: culture by the way, the majority of the girls in
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: my class object to these ideas.
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: They obviously expect.
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: PROM to be the super romantic, extravagant event that they
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: have seen and read about. I personally think that I'm
• 25:53
  Speaker 6: going to side with the boys, don't take it so seriously,
• 25:55
  Speaker 6: and just to have some fun while it lasts.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: And this is from Dawn about our episode on having
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the Talk with your kids. She said that she listened
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: intently to that episode because I have a nine year
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: old son who will soon be ready to know the
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: truth about how babies are made. He is known for
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: a while that moms have an egg and devs have
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: a seed which come together to make a baby. When
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: he was seven, he said, yes, I know that, but
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: how does the transfer take place? He's very detail oriented.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: We told him he'd have to wait until he was
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: older to find out the answer. There are some wonderful
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: books I'd like to recommend to listeners which I learned
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: about in library school. Robbie Harris has several books that
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: explain things to kids in a clear way, with lots
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: of great illustrations and humorous discussion between a bird and
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: a bee that lighten things up. It's not the stork
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: is for younger kids. It's so amazing. Is for kids
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: in the upper elementary grades, and it's perfectly normal. Is
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: for middle school age kids. I have them in my closet,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: ready to go when the time comes, and.
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: Good to hear that she is prepped. Yeah, prepped for
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: the talk and good luck with that talk when the
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: time comes again.
• 26:59
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• 27:01
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• 27:02
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• 27:10
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• 27:12
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• 27:18
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• 27:30
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