Between 1901 and 1904, while on leave of absence from Smith, Harriet Boyd Hawes returned to Crete, where she discovered and excavated the Minoan town at Gournia. Hawes was the first woman to direct a major field project in Greece, her crew consisting of over 100 workers. She was also the first archaeologist to discover and completely excavate an Early Bronze Age Minoan town site. The material excavated from the site of Gournia was divided between the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in Crete and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, which supported her excavations. She was assisted by Edith Hall Dohan, her classmate from Smith College. In 1902, she described her discovery during a lecture tour of the United States and was the first woman to speak before the Archaeological Institute of America. The report of her findings, titled "Vasiliki and Other Prehistoric Sites on the Isthmus of Hierapetra", was published in 1908 by the American Exploration Society. She excavated many more Bronze and Iron Age settlements in the Aegean and became a recognized authority on the area. In 1910, Smith College bestowed on her an honorary doctorate.