Hawkes, Jacquetta (1910–1996)

English archaeologist and writer. Principally a British prehistorian, she also wrote on Egyptian topics, and produced novels and poetry. Her publications include Prehistoric Britain (1944, with Christopher Hawkes), The World of the Past (1963), and the Shell Guide to British Archaeology (1986). She was a co-founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1957, and served on the Central Committee of UNESCO 1966–79.

Hawkes was the first woman to study archaeology and anthropology to degree level. Her early works include The Archaeology of Jersey (1939), Early Britain (1945), and A Land (1951). She also produced a biography of Mortimer Wheeler; a book of poetry, Symbols and Speculations (1948); and co-wrote Journey Down the Rainbow (1955), and other fiction, with the novelist J B Priestley, her second husband.

She was born in Cambridge and educated at the Perse School and Newnham College, Cambridge. Her first excavation was directed by the British archaeologist Christopher Hawkes, whom she married in 1933.