as initiating and implementing an archaeology outreach program in local schools. In July 1997, Conkey was named the Class of 1960 Professor of Anthropology, a rare endowed chair. Archaeological work Conkey has pursued a continued interest in the interpretation and study of Paleolithic art, the theory and social contexts of rock art research, and bringing together the different types of observations and research that have been used in the field under different theoretical umbrellas (including practice theory and feminist theory). Gender in Paleolithic art Conkey encourages archaeologists to rethink the possible meanings of Paleolithic images - that cave paintings represented not only an artistic revolution, but a social one that made these images a critical part of sustaining these Paleolithic communities; in which women were involved in more aspects of early life than commonly thought. She challenges the long-standing theory that cave art was a primarily male practice, and was sympathetic magic to ensure success while hunting, saying that “[w]e can't explain 25,000 years of material by saying it was all related to hunting." She points out that the animals depicted in painting on the walls and the animal remains in food refuse pits nearby are often different species - this implies that their paintings likely carried more cultural or social meaning than just being about food. The combined interests in prehistoric art, especially that of Paleolithic Europe, and gender and feminist archaeology, has also involved recent research and publication concerning "goddess" figurines, especially of ancient Europe, in collaboration with Berkeley colleague Ruth Tringham.These investigate how the archaeological stories about these figurines have been taken up (often problematically) by contemporary popular culture. Research in the French Pyrénées Conkey has been carrying out the field research project titled “Between the Caves” in the French Pyrénées since 1993, focused on the Paleolithic era and on contextualizing the rich archaeological evidence of art and material culture found in the region's caves. Two long-standing issues in archaeology have been preservation and selection biases - caves especially offer rich sources of both. They are ideal conditions to have preserved artifacts, and are easy to find. So historically, our research has always presented a very cave-centered portrait of Paleolithic life, one in which people in the Paleolithic seemed to just land in cave sites, and then suddenly showed up at some other site. Archaeologists acknowledged that these people obtained their food from out in the open