Smithsonian Journeys Experts

Beebe Bahrami is an award-winning writer and anthropologist who specializes in the intersecting worlds of European, Atlantic, and Mediterranean cultures, from prehistory to the present. She earned her BA from the University of Colorado and her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, where she trained in the four-field anthropological tradition of cultural, biological, archaeological, and linguistic anthropology.

She conducts ongoing research and extensive writing in the past and present of the lands and peoples of southwestern France and northern Spain. Her work covers a wide range of topics and disciplines, from prehistoric sites, landscapes and caves, to those of the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron ages, through antiquity and into the medieval and the modern. Beebe has written on and excavated with the international teams working at the Neandertal sites of La Ferrassie, Pech de l’Azé, and Roc de Marsal. She also is an expert on the Camino de Santiago in France and Spain and has walked some 5,500 miles/8,850 kilometers, and counting, on these ancient routes, studying both the ancient pre-Christian landscapes, as well as the traditions, history, and lore that arose with the medieval pilgrimage.

Her books include Café Oc—A Nomad's Tales of Magic, Mystery, and Finding Home in the Dordogne of Southwestern France, Café Neandertal—Excavating Our Past in One of Europe's Most Ancient Places, The Way of the Wild Goose—Three Pilgrimages Following Geese, Stars, and Hunches on the Camino de Santiago, and the comprehensive travel guides, Moon’s Camino de Santiago—Sacred Sites, Historic Villages, and Local Food & Wine, The Spiritual Traveler Spain—A Guide to Sacred Sites and Pilgrim Routes, and Historic Walking Guides Madrid. 

Photo credit: Dennis Sandgathe