Maria Hopf (13 September 1913 – 24 August 2008) was a pioneering archaeobotanist, based at the RGZM, Mainz.
Career
Hopf studied botany from 1941–44, receiving her doctorate in 1947 on the subject of soil microbes. She then worked in phytopathology and plant physiology. From 1952–56 she studied glume wheat grain and glume anatomy at the Max Planck institute for Zuchtungsforschung in Berli-Dahlem. Hopf was introduced to the study of the history of cultivated plants by Elisabeth Schiemann. She then moved to the Romisch Germanisches Zentral Museum in Main, working first as a scientific assistant, before being appointed as the head of the newly founded division of archaeobotany in 1961.[1] The archaeobotanist Gordon Hillman studied archaeobotany for a year in Mainz with Hopf.[2][3] In 1968 Hopf was one of the founders of the IWGP along with Maria Follieri, and Jane Renfrew. During her career, Hopf received scholarships to study at the Israel Museum and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Hopf retired in 1979.[1] A Festschrift for Maria Hopf was published in 1979, edited by Körber-Grohne.[4]
Hopf's work spanned the regions of Europe and Asia, and all time periods, with a particular focus on Germany, Spain and the Balkans. She published over 100 works, with a key work being the co-authored volume Domestication of Plants in the Old World, first published in 1988.[1]
Hopf studied plant remains from Kathleen Kenyon's excavations in Jericho.[5] In Iberia, Hopf studied plant remains from Neolithic sites in the Pais Valenciano and Andalucia.[6]
