But Dorothy Did #SunWriteFun
But Dorothy Did
a brief biography of pioneering archaeologist Dorothy Garrod
By: Katie McEnaney, 200 words
From the beginning, Dorothy did the unexpected. Most girls in 1921 didn’t attend university, but Dorothy did. She studied anthropology, wondering and learning about people in the past.
Most people never set foot inside a cave, but Dorothy did. She crawled in, dodging stalagmites and ducking stalactites. She witnessed wonders: herds of painted bison and thousand-year old footprints.
Few archaeologists considered cave sites, but Dorothy did. She excavated caves across Eurasia. At Mount Carmel her teams dug 75 feet down, uncovering 75,000 years of prehistory.
Few excavations employed women, but Dorothy did. She hired local women as crew members and launched the careers of many female scholars. Some years her team was entirely women.
Few archaeologists worked and traveled widely, but Dorothy did. Rather than focus on one area, she pondered how sites around the Mediterranean were related. She uncovered a new culture, Natufian, and proved that these first farmers were connected across Afro-Eurasia.
Women could not become professors at universities, but Dorothy did. She was the first female professor at Cambridge. She worked tirelessly creating a program for studying early humans.
Explorer. Archaeologist. Professor. Not everyone lives their life exploring their passions to the fullest, but Dorothy did.