Bertha Pallan showing difference in size of early type (small) and late type atlatl darts (throwing sticks) from Gypsum Cave. Bertha "Birdie" Parker Pallan [Cody] (1907-1978) was the first American Indian female archaeologist, of Abenaki and Seneca descent. She participated in excavations at the site of Mesa House, and it may have been on the 1929 expedition that she discovered the pueblo site of Scorpion Hill while walking with her young daughter. She excavated the site herself, taking notes, photos, and later publishing the results; the finds were exhibited in the Southwest Museum. She worked at Gypsum Cave in 1930, a site that Harrington had claimed to have the earliest evidence for human occupation of North America during the Pleistocene.