Marylène Patou-Mathis (born 16 June 1955 in Paris), is a French prehistorian academic and a specialist in the behavior of the Neanderthals and the San people. She studies the place of women in these societies and has questioned the projections of other prehistorians on women's roles in ancient times.

Biography

Patou-Mathis studied at the

Pierre and Marie Curie University Pierre and Marie Curie University ( , UPMC), also known as Paris VI, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the Latin Quarter of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, ...

(Paris VI) and earned a master's degree in geology. She then specialized in prehistory with a diploma of advanced studies (DEA) in

Quaternary geology Quaternary geology is the branch of geology that study developments from 2.58 million years ago to the present. In particular, Quaternary geology study the process and deposits that developed during the Quaternary, a period characterized by Glacial ...

, human

paleontology Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure ge ...

and prehistory, at the same university in 1981. She defended her doctoral thesis there in prehistory in 1984. In 1999, she completed her

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

degree at the Université de Paris I-Sorbonne''.'' Before joining the

National Center for Scientific Research The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 engi ...

(CNRS) in 1989, she lived for three months among the San people, hunter-gatherers of the

Kalahari Desert The Kalahari Desert is a large semiarid climate, semiarid sandy savanna in Southern Africa covering including much of Botswana as well as parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African ...

in Botswana. During her career, she has worked on the behavior of

Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

society and questioned the place of women in prehistory and is quoted as saying, "There is no evidence at present that

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

societies were patriarchal." The first studies in the 19th century considered the Neanderthal to be a violent being with a limited brain, but the work of Patou-Mathis has presented evidence countering that image such as their use of medicinal plants, care of dependent clan members, treatment of fractures and burial of their dead with funeral rites. She has deconstructed the image of Paleolithic societies that implied that tasks were distributed according to the sex of the person, where women had a lower status than men, and she has said these theories have not been supported by archaeological evidence. She maintains that these remote societies may have been

matrilineal Matrilineality, at times called matriliny, is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which people identify with their matriline, their mother's lineage, and which can involve the inheritan ...

or even

matriarchal Matriarchy is a social system in which positions of power and privilege are held by women. In a broader sense it can also extend to moral authority, social privilege, and control of property. While those definitions apply in general English, ...

in nature. Patou-Mathis curated ''Neanderthal, The Exhibition'', at the Musée de l’Homme (Museum of Man) in Paris, from 28 March 2018, to 7 January 2019.

Academic background

In the Prehistory department of the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 ...

(MNHN), Patou-Mathis was the vice-president of the scientific council from 2011 to 2014 and director from 2013 to 2018 of the team "Behavior of Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans placed in their paleo-ecological context" of the joint research unit UMR 7194 of the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

. Since January 2019, she has served as deputy director of the UMR 7194.

Distinctions

* 2014: Knight of the

Legion of Honor The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and civil. Currently consisting of five classes, it was ...

* 2002: Prize from the Chancellery of the Universities of Paris * 1995: Singer-Polignac Foundation Medal * 1984: Laureate of the Vocation Foundation

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Patou-Mathis, Marylene 1955 births Scientists from Paris Pierre and Marie Curie University alumni Sorbonne University French academics French women academics 20th-century French scientists 20th-century French women scientists Prehistorians French prehistorians Legion of Honour Living people