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Alice Beck Kehoe (born 1934, New York City) is a feminist anthropologist and archaeologist. She has done considerable field research among Native American peoples in the upper plains of the US and Canada, and has authored research volumes on Native American archaeology and Native American history. She is also the author of several general anthropology and archaeology textbooks.
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She attended Barnard College and Harvard University, from which she received her PhD in anthropology. While a student at Barnard, she was influenced by James Ford, Gordon Ekholm, and Junius Bird; she worked summers at the American Museum of Natural History Anthropology Department. While at Harvard, she worked with Gordon Willey and Evon Vogt. Many of her influences have been colleagues such as David H. Kelley, Jane Kelley, Jennifer Brown, Robert L. Hall, Carl Johannesen and George F. Carter and his student Stephen C. Jett.
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Kehoe taught at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln before teaching at Marquette University, from which she retired in 2000 as professor emeritus. She resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Kehoe has held offices with the American Anthropological Association (AAA), and was president of the Central States Anthropological Society (CSAS).
Kehoe has studied many aspects of Native America and is a strong believer in the theoretical link between the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC) (of the Native southeastern U.S.) and Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America). Her principal area of interest is the archaeology and cultures of the northwestern plains of the U.S. While searching for an ethnographic research topic for her dissertation, she happened upon the Saskatchewan Dakota New Tidings Ghost Dance. Kehoe has worked many years with the Blackfeet of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, an Algonquian Native American group of Browning, Montana, with whom she visits each year to study their history and culture. She has studied Native American spiritual healers ("medicine people") and worked with Piakwutch, "an elderly deeply respected Cree man who served his Saskatchewan Cree community...".[1]: 60 She has also worked among Native Americans of Bolivia at Lake Titicaca, where she chewed coca leaves with Native women of the region.[1]: 70
Kehoe has taken some contrarian or controversial positions throughout her career. One of the original proponents of feminist archaeology, she coedited with Sarah Milledge Nelson one of the first collections of feminist archaeology papers, Powers of Observation in 1990. An interest in pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts led to her meeting Richard Nielsen, who asked her to advise on archaeological aspects while testing the Kensington Runestone of Minnesota.[citation needed] Though a majority of relevant scholars have concluded the Runestone is a 19th Century hoax,[2] nevertheless there remains a community convinced of the stone's authenticity.[3] Kehoe is satisfied the item represents actual runic writing by members of a Scandinavian voyage to North America in the 14th century. One linguist who does agree with Kehoe is Richard Hall, who is not a runologist and his errors in reading the runes have been noted by runologists James E. Knirk[4] and R. I. Page.[5]
In 2016, Kehoe was honored by the Plains Anthropological Association with its Distinguished Service Award for her "enduring work in Anthropology and Archaeology of the Great Plains" (wording on plaque presented to Kehoe). Her memoir of her career as a woman in American archaeology, Girl Archaeologist: Sisterhood in a Sexist Profession, was published in 2022 by University of Nebraska Press.
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- Kehoe, Alice Beck (1989). The Ghost Dance: Ethnohistory and Revitalization. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. ISBN 978-1577664536.
- Nelson, Sarah M. and Kehoe, Alice Beck, eds. (1990) Powers of Observation: Alternative Views of Archaeology. Archaeological Papers of AAA Archaeology Division 2. Washington: American Anthropological Association.
- Kehoe, Alice B. (1992). North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0131928763.
- Kehoe, Alice Beck (1998). Humans: An Introduction to Four-Field Anthropology. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415919845.
- Kehoe, Alice Beck (1998). The Land of Prehistory: A Critical History of American Archaeology. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415920544.
- Kehoe, Alice Beck; Emmerichs, Mary Beth, eds. (1999). Assembling the Past: Studies in the Professionalization of Archaeology. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 978-0826319395.
- Kehoe, Alice Beck (2000). Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press. ISBN 978-1577661627.
- Sterk, Helen M.; Hay, Carla H.; Kehoe, Alice B.; Ratcliffe, Krista; VendeVusse, Leona G. (2002). Who's Having this Baby? Perspectives on Birthing. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. ISBN 978-0870136153.
- Kehoe, Alice Beck (2002). America Before the European Invasions. New York: Longman. ISBN 978-0582414860. Second edition titled North America Before the European Invasions, published 2017 by Routledge, New York.
- Kehoe, Alice Beck (2005). The Kensington Runestone: Approaching a Research Question Holistically. Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press. ISBN 978-1577663713.
- Kehoe, Alice Beck; Pleger, Thomas C. (2007). Archaeology: A Concise Introduction. Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press. ISBN 978-1577664505.
- Kehoe, Alice Beck (2008). Controversies in Archaeology. Walnut Creek, Calif.: Left Coast Press. ISBN 978-1598740615.
- Kehoe, Alice Beck (2012). Militant Christianity: An Anthropological History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1137282149.
- Wissler, Clark; Kehoe, Alice Beck; Miller, Stewart E. (2012). Amskapi Pikuni: The Blackfeet People. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-1438443355.
- Kehoe, Alice (2014). A Passion for the True and Just: Felix and Lucy Kramer Cohen and the Indian New Deal. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. ISBN 978-0816530939.
- Kehoe, Alice (2016). Traveling Prehistoric Seas: Critical Thinking on Ancient Transoceanic Voyages. Walnut Creek, Calif.: Left Coast Press. ISBN 978-1-62958-067-8.
- Kehoe, Alice (2022). Girl Archaeologist: Sisterhood in a Sexist Profession. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-1496229366.
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