Her thesis used computer indices of the Hagia Triada Linear A texts in an attempt to decipher its signs and symbols.
[5] The computer indices were made via punched cards, a method which was preceded by the work of Alice E. Kober on Linear B.
[6] Her doctoral study at Yale University was supervised by Sydney Lamb, under whom she wrote her dissertation, "The Computer Aided Analysis of Undeciphered Ancient Texts.
"[7] Her books include Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean (1992), Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years; Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times (1995), The Mummies of Ürümchi (1999), When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth (2004; coauthored with husband Paul T. Barber), The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology, and the Origins of European Dance (2013), Resplendent Dress from Southeastern Europe: A History in Layers (2013), and Two Thoughts with but a Single Mind: Crime and Punishment and the Writing of Fiction (2013; co-authored with husband P.T.
[1][8][9][10] Among other things, she has proposed that if 19th-century scientists had thought to name prehistorical periods with an eye on women's work and the things they invented, instead of focusing their naming only on men's more durable inventions (Iron Age, Bronze Age, etc.