Margaret W. Conkey, is one of Discover magazine's "Fifty Most Important Women in Science"

Conkey has been carrying out a field research project since 1993 to understand the possibilities for open air archaeological evidence called "between the caves," since it is intended to contextualize archaeological evidence of art and material culture found in French caves with support--from two grants from the National Science Foundation, one from the France-Berkeley Fund, and several from the Stahl Endowment. To date, the team has recovered more than 3000 identifiable lithic artifacts differentially distributed within a 260 square kilometer transect.

Discover magazine chose to include her among its "Fifty Most Important Women in Science" for her archaeological work. She uses modern ideas—notably feminist theory—to interpret images and objects from what she calls "deep time"—the Paleolithic era or late Ice Age when humans made the first known images we consider art. The most famous of cave art is found in the Lascaux caves. The paintings have been traditionally explained as an attempt, by people believed to have a special connection to the spirit world, to symbolically subdue the animals everyone counted on for food. But as Conkey sees it, "the images aren't about people with magical powers staggering in [to a cave], painting something, and leaving." In fact, she has spent decades trying to get archaeologists to rethink the possible meanings of Paleolithic images. "We think this was not just an artistic revolution, but also a social revolution, that making these images became a critical part of sustaining [Paleolithic] communities. It was part of social memory and other broad issues most people haven't thought much about before."

"My concern is that others have interpreted cave art primarily as what Australian aboriginals would call ‘men's business.' We can't explain 25,000 years of material by saying it was all related to hunting." For one thing, she notes that the animals on the walls and the animal remains in food refuse pits nearby are largely different species. "So what's on the wall is probably more about what was on their minds for some cultural or social reason than about what was in their stomachs." Asking different questions, she believes, may lead to new conclusions in the anthropology of gender. A skeleton's sex is detectable, but no one can know whether men, women, or both held the brushes and knives to create cave art.

SOURCES
anthropology.berkeley.edu
www.pinterest.com
www.mtholyoke.edu