In Pursuit of Gender

Worldwide Archaeological Approaches

Sarah Milledge Nelson, Myriam Rosen-Ayalon

• Publisher: AltaMira Press
• Year: 2001
• eBook ISBN: 9780759116764
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

Written by a distinguished group of feminist archaeologists, In Pursuit of Gender examines the role of gender in archaeology, an area that has long been neglected. The chapters in this volume represent sites and cultures that have been interpreted or reinterpreted from the perspective of gender, exploding old assumptions about women and the roles they held. Greatly illuminating the subject of gender from the perspective of their own regional traditions, the authors take the reader through an authoritative and comprehensive discussion of gender archaeology in Asia, Africa, North and South America. Societies represented include hunter-gatherers, early horticulturalists, incipient and well-developed states, historic communities, as well as ethnoarchaeological explorations. The chapters are characterised by a greater specificity in methods, and the emergence of a social archaeology that considers the agency of both men and women. In Pursuit of Gender advances the study of gender in archaeology with detailed data, a world-wide scope and carefully reasoned conclusions that move into new territory, paving the way towards further research in gender-based theory.

Table of contents

• GENDER AND ARCHAEOLOGY SERIES
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• 1 - Introduction
• I - GENDER IDEOLOGY
• 2 - Gender in the South Italian Neolithic: A Combinatory Approach
• 3 - Soul Birds and Heavenly Cows: Transforming Gender in Predynastic Egypt
• 4 - Through the Looking Glass: Reflections on Mirrors, Gender, and Use among Nomads
• 5 - Ideology, Power, and Gender: Emergent Complex Society in Northeastern China
• 6 - Beauty, Sexuality, Body Ornamentation, and Gender in Ancient Meso-America
• 7 - Men, Women, and Eland: Hunting and Gender among the San of Southern Africa
• II - GENDER ROLES
• 8 - The Impact of Women on Household Economies: A Maya Case Study
• 9 - Beyond Complementarity and Hierarchy: New Definitions for Archaeological Gender Relations
• 10 - The Enigma of Gender in the Archaeological Record of the Andaman Islands
• 11 - Gender Roles Depicted in Rock Art: A Case from Western Thailand
• 12 - Women in the Prehistory of Mainland Southeast Asia
• 13 - Mothers’ Workloads and Children’s Labor during the Woodland Period
• III - GENDER RELATIONS
• 14 - “Sein und Werden”: Gender as Process in Mortuary Ritual
• 15 - Women’s Lives Memorialized in Burial in Ancient China at Anyang
• 16 - The Female Figure in Umayyad Art
• 17 - Accessing Prestige and Power: Women in the Political Economy of Protohistoric and Early Historic Visayan Polities
• 18 - Gender in Japanese Prehistory
• 19 - Gender in Human Evolution: Sociobiology Revisited and Revised
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Contributors