Division of Archaeology

Pamela Jane Smith

Pamela Jane Smith

Research Fellow, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

Fax: 01223 333503.
Email: pjs1011@cam.ac.uk

Dr Pamela Jane Smith specialises in the history of British and Canadian twentieth-century archaeology; working primarily as an oral historian, she investigates the creation, production and `travel' of academic knowledge.

Born outside NYC, her BA was from Michigan with Erik Wolf and Leslie White; she then has spent 40 enjoyable years as a social activist, parent, wife and daughter and is indebted to her son for his patience and care.

After coming to Cambridge from Canada in 1994, (Bruce Trigger's idea), Pamela became the first to document the lives of numerous British prehistorians such as Grahame Clark, Dorothy Garrod and Miles Burkitt; her research was based on previously unknown sources which she herself found; this original, new research has been subsequently widely used by academic authors.

Pamela has pioneered gendered, cultural and geography-of-knowledge interpretations of the `prehistory' of archaeology looking at topics such as `Gentleman are not Cads; Women are not Professors' and the importance of social situations such as tea-rooms in the generation of new intellectual approaches and in the development of `big science' archaeology during the 1920s and 1930s. Pamela was the first to document the influence of Breuil on British archaeology and the interrelationships between religious beliefs, Empire and archaeology in the twentieth century. She has a wide knowledge of the history of archaeology and is often used as an academic adviser.

Projects

• Personal Histories Project
• Histories of Archaeology Research Network
• Interviews with archaeologists, some of which are available as Podcasts/MP3s here
• Book on the history of Canadian archaeology.
• Oral-historical interviews.
• Oral historical interviews: Wenner-Gren oral history project

Publications

• `Paul Anthony Mellars, from Swallownest to Cambridge: the early years'.
• New book: BAR 495, `A Splendid Idiosyncrasy: Prehistory at Cambridge 1915–50 by Pamela Jane Smith. ISBN 9781407304304.
• Article in British Archaeology: Gathering roses in winter
• Antiquity: Dorothy Garrod in words and pictures
• The article on Dorothy Garrod. From 'small, dark and alive' to cripplingly shy': Dorothy Garrod as the first woman Professor at Cambridge.
• PhD thesis, `A Splendid Idiosyncrasy: Prehistory at Cambridge, 1915--50'
• MPhil thesis, `Grahame Clark, the Fenland Research Committee and prehistory at Cambridge'