kids encyclopedia robot

Margaret Conkey facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Quick facts for kids
Margaret W. Conkey
Alma mater University of Chicago
Notable work
Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and Evidence, Ancient Godesses: The Myths and Evidence
Awards Huxley Memorial Medal, Award for Advancing Institutional Excellence, Berkeley
Scientific career
Institutions University of California, Berkeley

Margaret W. Conkey (born in 1943) is an American archaeologist and professor. She is an expert on the Magdalenian period, which was part of the Upper Paleolithic (late Stone Age) in the Pyrénées mountains of France. Her main focus is on cave art from this time.

Professor Conkey is famous for being one of the first archaeologists to study how gender and feminist ideas can help us understand ancient societies. She uses feminist theory to look at old images and objects from the Paleolithic Era, also known as the late Ice Age.

She is a Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. This means she is a retired professor who still holds her title. In 2002, Discover magazine named her one of the "50 Most Important Women in Science."

Over the years, she has continued to champion feminist ideas in archaeology. She has organized big conferences, edited books, and written many articles on the topic. Conkey also believes it's important to recognize the women who have contributed to archaeology throughout history.

Margaret Conkey's Life Story

Margaret Conkey was the oldest of five children. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1965 with degrees in ancient history and art history. Soon after, she got to work in biblical archaeology in Jordan, which is now part of the West Bank.

When she applied to graduate school at the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania, she was told she needed to study anthropology for a year first. This subject wasn't offered at Mount Holyoke College. So, she worked as a librarian and grant analyst for the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research in New York. Later, she was accepted into the Oriental Institute and worked part-time as an editor for Current Anthropology.

Conkey earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1978. She taught at San Jose State University for six years. In 1977, she joined the anthropology faculty at SUNY-Binghamton, where she also helped lead Women's Studies. In 1987, she became a professor at Berkeley.

Besides her fieldwork, she has also studied and written about teaching archaeology. She developed and used internet tools to teach introductory archaeology. She also started a program to teach archaeology in local schools. In 1997, Conkey was given a special teaching position called the Class of 1960 Professor of Anthropology.

Exploring Ancient Art and Gender

Professor Conkey has always been interested in understanding Paleolithic art. She studies the ideas behind rock art research and how different observations in the field connect. She uses theories like practice theory and feminist theory to understand these connections.

Gender in Paleolithic Cave Art

Conkey encourages archaeologists to think differently about the meaning of Paleolithic images. She suggests that cave paintings were not just art. They were also a big part of how these ancient communities lived and survived. She believes women were involved in more parts of early life than people usually think.

She challenges the old idea that cave art was mostly done by men. Many people thought it was a type of sympathetic magic to help hunters succeed. Conkey says, "We can't explain 25,000 years of material by saying it was all related to hunting." She points out that the animals painted on cave walls are often different from the animal bones found in nearby food pits. This suggests the paintings had deeper cultural or social meanings, not just about food.

Conkey's interest in prehistoric art, especially from Paleolithic Europe, and gender archaeology led to her research on "goddess" figurines. She worked with her Berkeley colleague Ruth Tringham to study these ancient European statues. They looked at how stories about these figurines are used (sometimes incorrectly) in today's popular culture.

Researching the French Pyrénées

Since 1993, Conkey has led a project called "Between the Caves" in the French Pyrénées. This project focuses on the Paleolithic era. It aims to understand the rich archaeological finds, like art and tools, discovered in the region's caves.

Archaeologists have always faced challenges with preservation and selection bias. Caves are great for preserving artifacts and are easy to find. Because of this, our understanding of Paleolithic life has often been very "cave-centered." It seemed like people just appeared at cave sites and then vanished to another. Archaeologists knew these people found food outside and didn't live in caves all year. However, they thought there wouldn't be much to find outside the caves.

In the early 1970s, American archaeologists started using a new method to survey open landscapes for artifacts. This method hadn't been used in Europe. So, Conkey suggested a new project to look for Paleolithic stone tools outside of caves. Many people doubted her.

“They said, “You won’t find anything.” I said, “Why won’t I find anything?” They said, “Nobody’s really found anything or reported anything.” I said, “Has anybody looked systematically?” They said, “Well, no.” They thought I was nuts.” - Margaret Conkey

However, there is evidence that Paleolithic people spent less time in caves than we once thought. For example, animal bones can show when animals were killed, suggesting seasonal use of sites. Some animals are only available at certain times of the year. It's clear that people were in caves for only a few months a year at most, usually in autumn or winter. So, Conkey and her teams did what had been ignored for a century: they looked at the lives Paleolithic people lived between the cave sites in France. Before 1993, no one had ever done such a survey.

Conkey hopes this research will help us better understand the social geography and landscapes of Paleolithic art. It's also about basic archaeological survey methods. Since 2006, her international team has excavated the region's first open-air site. They have found over 3,000 identifiable stone tool artifacts. Some date back to the Paleolithic era and are spread across a 260 square kilometer area. This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the France-Berkeley Fund, and UC Berkeley.

Promoting Fairness in Archaeology

Conkey has always challenged the idea that fieldwork is only for men. She encourages archaeologists to think about how gender affects human experiences, both in the past and today. For example, when she was in Jordan, she couldn't do any digging because she was a young woman, and all the hired workers were older men. Conkey also believes we should pay more attention to important women archaeologists like Cynthia Irwin-Williams and Patty Jo Watson.

Awards and Achievements

Professor Conkey became President of the Society for American Archaeology in 2009.

In 2009, she received the Chancellor's Award for Advancing Institutional Excellence from Berkeley. This was for her work promoting diversity and equal opportunity. She also won the Distinguished Teaching Award (1996) and the Award for Educational Initiatives (2001). She used funds to create a Multi-Media Teaching Laboratory for the Department of Anthropology.

In 2017, she was given the Huxley Memorial Medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
2002 Sex BC Herself TV Mini-Series documentary from Optomen Television

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Margaret Conkey para niños

  • Feminist archaeology
  • Gender archaeology
kids search engine
Margaret Conkey Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.