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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Kurgan theory
Marija Gimbutas Triumphant: Colin Renfrew Concedes by Carol P. Christ

The disdain with which the work of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas has been held in the field of classics and archaeology was shown to me when I stated quietly at a cocktail party at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens that I was interested in her work. This comment, tentatively offered, unleashed a tirade from a young female archaeologist who began shouting at me: “Her work is unscholarly and because it is, it is harder for me and other women scholars in the field to be taken seriously.”

Responding to the backlash against her theories, Gimbutas is said to have told a female colleague that it might take decades, but eventually the value of her work would be recognized. It is now more than twenty years since Marija Gimbutas died in 1994, and the value of her work is beginning to be recognized by (at least some of) her colleagues—including one of her harshest critics. In a lecture titled “Marija Rediviva: DNA and Indo-European Origins,” renowned archaeologist Lord Colin Renfrew (allied with the British Conservative Party**), who had been one of Gimbutas’s most vociferous antagonists and a powerful gate-keeper, concluded the inaugural Marija Gimbutas Lecture at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago with these words: “Marija [Gimbutas]’s Kurgan hypothesis has been magnificently vindicated.”

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Ted Czukor
    Ted Czukor says #
    It is so great to read this. The wedge has forced open the door, and it can never be closed again. It will only get wider and mo
  • Carol P. Christ
    Carol P. Christ says #
    I agree with you Ted, once the door is open, the waters will be rushing through.
  • Thesseli
    Thesseli says #
    So nice to read this! My undergraduate degree is in archaeology, and it's wonderful to finally see what was always there (but nev

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