Dame Kathleen (Mary) KenyonDied 24 Aug 1978 at age 72 (born 5 Jan 1906).[Dame Kathleen Mary Kenyon was an English archaeologist whose work at Jericho identified it as the oldest known continuously occupied human settlement by excavating to its Stone Age foundation. This evidence pushed back the era of occupation of the mound at Jericho from the Bronze Age and Neolithic to the Natufian culture at the end of the Ice Age (10,000 – 9,000 BC). She established that the city itself spanned more than 3,800 years. Over 100 tombs were discovered at Jericho during excavations (1952-58). Kenyon helped pioneer stratigraphic excavations as a more scientific approach to archaeological digs, a technique she learned while working with Sir Mortimer Wheeler at his major excavation of the Romano-British city of Verulamium (north of London). |
