Elinor Wight Gardner (24 September 1892, in Birmingham – 1980),[1] a geology lecturer at Bedford College, London and research fellow at Lady Margaret Hall,[2] is best known for her field surveys with Gertrude Caton–Thompson of the Kharga Oasis which are now recognized as pioneering interdisciplinary research in Africa.
They continued working in the Faiyum over the next two years for the Royal Anthropological Institute where they discovered two unknown Neolithic cultures.
This led to research more broadly on the palaeolithic of north Africa, which Caton-Thompson published in 1952.
[3] Gardner was educated at Edgbaston High School and took a Natural Science Tripos at Newnham College.
She was assistant curator at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 1938-1941, during the war became the director of vegetable production at Lady Margaret Hall and thereafter her positions were in horticulture.