Women Men In The Prehispanic Southwest

Women and Men in the Prehispanic Southwest takes a groundbreaking look at gendered activities in prehistory and the differential access that women and men had to sources and symbols of power and prestige. The authors-including some of the most prominent archaeologists working in the Southwest today-present invaluable methodological and theoretical case studies that take a great step forward in researchers' ability to "read" gender in the evidence left behind by ancient societies. Archaeological interpretation is enhanced and critiqued in a summary discussion by a prominent Southwestern ethnologist and feminist anthropologist. The authors' probe the time period during which Southwestern populations shifted from migratory gatherer-hunters to sedentary agriculturalists and from living in small bands to settling in large aggregated communities. The chapters address the organization of space; ritual activities; mortuary goods and burial facilities; food gathering and agricultural production; hunting and domesticated animals; food processing and preparation; health, nutrition, disease, and violence; craft production; and exchange and interaction.

The French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss once described a village as “deserted” when all the adult males had vanished. While his statement is from the first half of the twentieth century, it nonetheless illustrates an oversight that has persisted during most of the intervening decades. Now Southwestern archaeologists have begun to delve into the task of “engendering” their sites. Using a “close to the ground” approach, the contributors to this book seek to engender the prehistoric Southwest by examining evidence at the household level. Focusing on gendered activities in household contexts throughout the southwestern United States, this book represents groundbreaking work in this area. The contributors view households as a crucial link to past activities and behavior, and by engendering these households, we can gain a better understanding of their role in prehistoric society. Gender-structured household activities, in turn, can offer insight into broader-scale social and economic factors. The chapters offer a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to engendering households and examine topics such as the division of labor, gender relations, household ritual, ceramic and ground stone production and exchange, and migration. Engendering Households in the Prehistoric Southwest ultimately addresses broader issues of interest to many archaeologists today, including households and their various forms, identity and social boundary formation, technological style, and human agency. Focusing on gendered activities in household contexts throughout the southwestern United States, this book represents groundbreaking work in this area. The contributors view households as a crucial link to past activities and behavior, and by engendering these households, we can gain a better understanding of their role in prehistoric society. Gender-structured household activities, in turn, can offer insight into broader-scale social and economic factors.

First reference work to explore the research on gender in archaeology.

Two dozen leading archaeologists isolate a number of themes that were central to the process of increasing complexity in prehistoric Southwestern society, including increased food production, a greater degree of sedentism, and a dramatically increasing population.

Prehistoric economic relationships are often presented as genderless, yet mounting research highlights the critical role gendered identities play in the division of work tasks and the development of specialized production in pre-modern economic systems. In Gendered Labor in Specialized Economies, contributors combine the study of gender in the archaeological record with the examination of intensified craft production in prehistory to reassess the connection between craft specialization and the types and amount of work that men and women performed in ancient communities. Chapters are organized by four interrelated themes crucial for understanding the implications of gender in the organization of craft production: craft specialization and the political economy, combined effort in specialized production, the organization of female and male specialists, and flexibility and rigidity in the gendered division of labor. Contributors consider how changes to the gendered division of labor in craft manufacture altered other types of production or resulted from modifications in the organization of production elsewhere in the economic system. Striking a balance between theoretical and methodological approaches and presenting case studies from sites around the world, Gendered Labor in Specialized Economies offers a guide to the major issues that will frame future research on how men’s and women’s work changes, predisposes, and structures the course of economic development in various societies. Contributors: Alejandra Alonso Olvera, Traci Ardren, Michael G. Callaghan, Nigel Chang, Cathy Lynne Costin, Pilar Margarita Hernández Escontrías, A. Halliwell, Sue Harrington, James M. Heidke, Sophia E. Kelly, Brigitte Kovacevich, T. Kam Manahan, Ann Brower Stahl, Laura Swantek, Rita Wright, Andrea Yankowski

Throughout human history, gender has served as one of the ways in which human beings form their identities and then make their way in the world. But it is not the only way: We also discover ourselves through race, age, class, and other categories. Increasingly, archaeologists are recovering evidence of the ways in which gender has been important in identity-formation in the past, especially in its interaction with other social factors. In Identity and Subsistence, a number of scholars look at how the idea of gender has worked with respect to the formation of the self, masculinity and femininity, human evolution, and the development of early agrarian and pastoralist societies.

An authoritative guide on gender prehistory for researchers, instructors and students in anthropology, archaeology, and gender studies Provides the most up-to-date, comprehensive coverage of gender archaeology, with an exclusive focus on prehistory Offers critical overviews of developments in the archaeology of gender over the last 30 years, as well as assessments of current trends and prospects for future research Focuses on recent Third Wave approaches to the study of gender in early human societies, challenging heterosexist biases, and investigating the interfaces between gender and status, age, cognition, social memory, performativity, the body, and sexuality Features numerous regional and thematic topics authored by established specialists in the field, with incisive coverage of gender research in prehistoric and protohistoric cultures of Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Pacific

In Ancient Households of the Americas archaeologists investigate the fundamental role of household production in ancient, colonial, and contemporary households. Several different cultures—Iroquois, Coosa, Anasazi, Hohokam, San Agustín, Wankarani, Formative Gulf Coast Mexico, and Formative, Classic, Colonial, and contemporary Maya—are analyzed through the lens of household archaeology in concrete, data-driven case studies. The text is divided into three sections: Section I examines the spatial and social organization and context of household production; Section II looks at the role and results of households as primary producers; and Section III investigates the role of, and interplay among, households in their greater political and socioeconomic communities. In the past few decades, household archaeology has made substantial contributions to our understanding and explanation of the past through the documentation of the household as a social unit—whether small or large, rural or urban, commoner or elite. These case studies from a broad swath of the Americas make Ancient Households of the Americas extremely valuable for continuing the comparative interdisciplinary study of households.

Archaeology is one of our most powerful sources of new information about the past, about the lives of our ancient and not-so-ancient ancestors. The contributors to Women in Antiquity consider the theoretical problems involved in discerning what the archaeological evidence tells us about gender roles in antiquity. The book includes chapters on the history of gender research, historical texts, mortuary analysis, household remains, hierarchy, and ethnoarchaeology, with each chapter teasing out the inherent difficulty in interpreting ancient evidence as well as the promise of new understanding. Women in Antiquity offers a fresh, accessible account of how we might grasp the ways in which sexual roles and identities shaped the past.

In the early 1970s, understanding of the Mimbres region as a whole was in its infancy. In the following decades, thanks to dedicated work by enterprising archaeologists and nonprofit organizations, our understanding of the Mimbres region has become more complex, nuanced, and rich. New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology brings together these experts in a single volume for the first time. The contributors discuss current knowledge of the people who lived in the Mimbres region of the southwestern United States and how our knowledge has changed since the Mimbres Foundation, directed by Steven A. LeBlanc, began the first modern archaeological investigations in the region. Many of these authors have spent decades conducting the fieldwork that has allowed for a broader understanding of Mimbres society. Focusing on a variety of important research topics of interest to archaeologists—including the social contexts of people and communities, the role of ritual and ideology in Mimbres society, evidence of continuities and cultural change through time, and the varying impacts of external influences throughout the region—New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology presents recent data on and interpretations of the entire pre-Hispanic sequence of occupation. Additional contributions include a history of nonprofit archaeology by William H. Doelle and a concluding chapter by Steven A. LeBlanc reflecting on his decades-long work in Mimbres archaeology and outlining important areas for the next wave of research.