Clare Fell Explained

Birth Date:10 October 1912
Birth Place:Ulverston, England
Death Place:Sandside, Beetham, England
Fields:Archaeology
Workplaces:Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge
Education:MA (1948)
Alma Mater:Newnham College, Cambridge
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Known For:Studying the Langdale axe industry in Cumbria
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Clare Isobel Fell (10 October 1912  - 17 July 2002) was a British archaeologist.[1]

She was born in Ulverston, Lancashire (now Cumbria), England. She read archaeology at Newnham College, Cambridge in the 1930s.[1] The university did not allow women to take degrees at that time, and she received her MA in 1948. After the Second World War she worked at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge before moving back to Ulverston in 1953.In 1949 she worked on Grahame Clark's excavations at the Star Carr Mesolithic site in Yorkshire. Around the same time she began studying the Langdale axe industry in Cumbria, the project for which she is perhaps best remembered.[1] She was not the first person to notice that Neolithic axes had been produced in Great Langdale, but she was able to demonstrate the scale of the activity there, and used the word "factory" to describe it. She also guessed correctly that other quarries would be found on outcrops of volcanic tuff in the Lake District.

Fell kept up to date with scientific advances and collaborated with Winifred Pennington in the study of the effects of humans on the environment, resulting in pioneering pollen analyses for prehistoric artefact layers from sites in Cumbria.

Television appearance

Fell appeared in a discussion panel on the BBC television series Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? on 9 July 1953. The programme was directed by David Attenborough.[2]

Bibliography

References

David Barrowclough. Prehistoric Cumbria. 2010

Notes and References

  1. News: Clare Isobel Fell, M.A., F.S.A., 10th October 1912 - 17th July 2002. Cherry. James. Winchester. Angus J L. University of Leicester. 2019-04-17. 3 August 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190803003504/https://www.le.ac.uk/has/ps/past/past42.html#Fell. dead.
  2. Web site: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral . BBC Genome . 9 July 1953 . 2017-10-03.