Julia Pavlovna Petrova-Averkieva (July 24, 1907 – October 9, 1980) was a Soviet anthropologist and string figure collector.
[1] A student of Franz Boas,[1] and influenced by Lewis Henry Morgan,[2] she went on to serve as the director of North American Studies at the Institute of Ethnography in Moscow.
She learned to balance these obligations by mastering cross-country skiing, which drastically reduced her travel time between home, school, and Poduzhemye.
In May 1925, Averkieva was accepted into Leningrad State University, to study under W. G. Borgoras, an ethnologist specializing in local history.
Although Averkieva proved to be an apt pupil, the university ethnologists advised her to travel across the Atlantic to study the ancient cultures of North America, where anthropology was gaining popularity.