Born: 30 August 1907, United States
Died: 8 October 1978
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Bertha Pallan Thurston Cody
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Bertha “Birdie” Parker was a pioneering American archaeologist known for her work as an assistant at the Southwest Museum and is recognized as the first Native American female archaeologist of Abenaki and Seneca descent. Her mother, Beulah Tahamont (later Folsom), was an actress, and as a teenager, they both performed in the “Pocahontas” show with Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Her father, Arthur C. Parker, was a renowned archaeologist and the first president of the Society for American Archaeology.
As a child, Bertha assisted her father in his excavations, and she later joined her uncle, Mark Raymond Harrington, as a camp cook and expedition secretary after marrying her aunt, Endeka. Under Harrington’s guidance, she learned archaeological methods in the field. In 1929, she conducted a solo excavation at the Scorpion Hill pueblo site, with her discoveries exhibited at the Southwest Museum.
Bertha’s work extended to Gypsum Cave in 1930, a site Harrington promoted for its early evidence of human occupation in North America during the Pleistocene. She cleaned, repaired, and cataloged finds, even making significant discoveries, including the skull of an extinct giant ground sloth alongside ancient human tools.
During her career from 1931 to 1941, Bertha worked as an Assistant in Archaeology and Ethnology at the Southwest Museum, publishing various papers in the museum journal “Masterkey.” Her contributions ranged from “California Indian Baby Cradles” to insights into the Yurok Tribe.