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Carol Kramer, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, and one of the founding figures of ethnoarchaeology, died in Tucson on December 3, 2002, at the age of 59. Her research was conducted in the Near East and South Asia, but her influence extends far beyond those regions as she pioneered in the application of data from living peoples to archaeological questions. She bridged socialcultural anthropology and archaeology and genuinely understood the potential and limitations of each type of data. More than just a scholar, she was an outstanding teacher and mentor, playing a particularly important role in demonstrating to women that archaeology needed them. Her students say that she was remarkable in her teaching of all aspects of her subject, from professional skills to courses on archaeological theory and data. Her reputation was international; she was a frequent participant in French conferences and lectured in Europe and South Asia.
Kramer's major publications were all in the area of ethnoarchaeology, beginning with an edited volume, Ethnoarchaeology: Implications of Ethnography for Archaeology (1979) and continuing with two monographs, Village Ethnoarchaeology: Rural Iran in Archaeological Perspective (1982) and Pottery in Rajasthan: Ethnoarchaeology in Two Indian Cities (1997). She co-authored with Nicholas David Ethnoarchaeology in Action (2001), which has become the standard work in the field. She also produced a number of important articles, notably one on ceramic ethnoarchaeology for the Annual Review of Anthropology (1985), as well as some early ones on aspects of sites and fieldwork. Her last paper was "Boys and Girls Together," an examination of gendered roles in pottery production in Rajasthan, which she presented at the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) meetings in 2001 and was preparing for publication in a volume dedicated to William Longacre.
Carol was born on May 3, 1943, in New York City, where she grew up. She went to the High School of Music and Art and then to City College, where she graduated in 1964. She was gifted in French and art but decided to pursue graduate work in archaeology, first at the University of Chicago and then at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her Ph.D. in 1971. While in graduate school she developed interests that would persist throughout her career, notably the study...