MARIJA GIMBUTAS IN THE CLASSROOM, FIELD AND OFFICE: A SHORT PERSONAL REMINISCENCE
MARIJA GIMBUTAS IN THE CLASSROOM, FIELD AND OFFICE: A SHORT PERSONAL REMINISCENCE

Summary/Abstract: I first met Marija Gimbutas in 1967 when I travelled crosstown to UCLA to inquire about doing a PhD there under her supervision. In 1967 I joined the interdepartmental program in Indo-European Studies with a specialisation in European Archaeology. Marija was on sabbatical during my first year at UCLA (so my first instructor in European archaeology was her replacement, Lili Kaelas) but I caught up with her again when I served on her excavation at Obre in Bosnia in the summer of 1968. In the following academic year I attended two of her classes (the European Neolithic and Bronze Age) after which I had a three year sabbatical (US Army) before returning in 1972 to audit her seminar in Neolithic religion. I also recall a graduate seminar under the aegis of the newly founded Institute of Archaeology where I submitted an essay on the History of the Indo-European Problem which Marija forwarded (unknown to me at the time) to the newly founded Journal of Indo-European Studies (Mallory 1973). I went on to serve on her excavation at Akhilleion in Greece in 1973. I completed my PhD with Marija in 1975 by which time I was fairly integrated into her world as she had not only been my PhD supervisor but also my landlady: I and my roommate lived in a small bungalow on her property in Topanga Canyon, paying rent partly in cash and partly in labour. After receiving my PhD I spent one year replacing Marija at UCLA while she was on sabbatical. My last ‘official’ activity with Marija was joining her joint projects with Santo Tiné in southern Italy where I directed the excavations at Lagnano Da Piede, although by the time the excavations had entered their second year I was – and have been ever since – at Queen’s University Belfast. I maintained some correspondence with Marija after that and we met at various conferences such as at Forli, Italy. I visited Marija in 1988 at her house in Topanga when I was on vacation in California with my (then very young) family and the last time we met in person was at an Indo-European conference in Dublin in 1989.

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