Patty Jo Watson

Patty Jo Watson (born 1932) is an American archaeologist noted for her work on Pre-Columbian Native Americans, especially in the Mammoth Cave region of Kentucky. Her early investigations focused on the origins of agriculture and pastoralism in the Near East. She is now Distinguished University Professor Emerita, Archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis. Until her retirement in 2004, she was the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of Archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis. Education In 1952, Watson, a junior at Iowa State, transferred into a three-year master's program at the University of Chicago. In 1953, Watson attended the University of Arizona's Point of Pines field school where she became interested in flotation techniques. Later from 1954 to 1955, Watson participated in the Iraq-Jarmo Project in Northern Iraq as a field assistant to Robert Braidwood. Watson earned her M.A. in 1956 and her Ph.D. in 1959 from the University of Chicago. Watson's dissertation examined "Early Village Farming in the Levant and its Environment."