Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory

by Joan M. Gero (Editor), Margaret W. Conkey (Editor)

This pathbreaking book brings gender issues to archaeology for the first time, in an explicit and theoretically informed way. In it, leading archaeologists from around the world contribute original analyses of prehistoric data to discover how gender systems operated in the past.

Genres: Archaeology, Nonfiction, Anthropology, History, Gender Studies

435 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 1991

Reviews

[Mary Fan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The subject of this collection of academic essays is very fascinating, as it challenges the assumptions around women and prehistory. Each article is well-informed and well-argued. The reason I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5 is because it's extraordinarily difficult to read. Yes, yes, I know it's a textbook and therefore is written in jargon, but what good is something informative if you're too sleepy to take in the information?

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fave quote (regarding stereotypes of only men making and using formalized tools): "...lithic studies are most frequently undertaken to erect a simple classification system that can be used as an adjunct to other spatio-temporal approaches, another tool, as it were, to sort culture groups on the basis of material culture correlates, to 'measure intellectual heaat', to erect a culture history of 'man'... The male gender-loading on tool production is maintained by modern males reproducing only the conventionally circumscribed range of tools by which Man-the-Toolmaker is evaluated and measured" (pp 166-167).

[Mike Perrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the key reads for archaeological theory.