Gender Archaeology Research Articles

The archaeology of gender in historic America

The archaeology of gender in historic America

Discourse Through the Looking Glass: Gender in the Language of Archaeological Journals

This article addresses the extent to which the florescence of gender research in archaeology that arose during the 1980 and 1990s has changed archaeology. Is ‘gender’ everywhere or nowhere? The research presented in this paper assesses the extent to which concepts related to gender have become embedded within the research methods, themes and discussions of archaeological writing. This quantitative and qualitative study analysed 4487 articles within six key archaeology journals for gender-related words and their contexts. By closely examining the numbers, and patterns of usage of words, it was possible to quantify and assess the content of writing on gender as part of a large corpus of writing. The results show that while the notion of gender has permeated much of the archaeological literature, gender concepts have been adopted inconsistently and that gender is still a marginal concept in parts of the discipline. Consequently, the problems raised by gender archaeology during the 1980 and 1990s have not yet been resolved. There is more work to be done.

Medieval Life: Archaeology and the Life Course by Roberta Gilchrist

Medieval Life: Archaeology and the Life Course by Roberta Gilchrist. Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 2012. xv, 336 pp. $50.00 US (cloth). Roberta Gilchrist, archaeologist and author of such works as Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women and Gender and Archaeology: Contesting the Past, in this volume turns her attention to interpreting the material culture associated with the everyday lives of people in England from the mid-eleventh to the mid-sixteenth centuries. Her aim is to analyze the finds from nine different archaeological assemblages--ranging from urban sites in cities such as London and York to rural sites such as Wharram Percy to catastrophe sites such as the shipwrecked Mary Rose (1540)--using theoretical approaches derived from the fields of sociology, anthropology, and archaeology. Gilchrist's approach is deeply informed by theory, which views each human life as whole and integrated (as opposed to broken up into a series of stages) and provides a means by which human lives can be understood within their socio-cultural contexts. Gilchrist proposes in this book that medieval lives can be understood in terms of the life course, that is, from conception to the afterlife rather than the traditional definition of a human life lasting from birth until death. She provides examples from the nine assemblages to shed light on the connections between medieval beliefs and practices concerning the 'extended life course' and material culture. For those who are interested in life course theory and the archaeological approach to concepts such as embodiment and ritual, biography and agency, and time and memory (p. xii), Gilchrist's first chapter will provide a useful overview. The remainder of the book consists of five thematic studies of archaeological finds: bone evidence and its relationship to medieval concepts of age; dress evidence and its connections with medieval ideas about gender, sexuality, and life course transitions; the material culture of domestic environments and the extended life course; the material culture of medieval religious beliefs and practices, particularly in parochial and domestic contexts; possible evidence for the existence of heirloom objects and how this might relate to whether objects can be said to have agency. Despite the promise of the first chapter, medieval historians are unlikely to find much that is strikingly new in the application of life course theory to interpretation of the material objects under discussion. Gilchrist draws substantially on the work of historians who have published in the areas of social, dress, gender, and religious history, so for scholars working in these fields, there will be much here that is familiar. Historians may also be puzzled by Gilchrist's tendency to summarize information from historical scholarship by stating that medieval people believed or did a certain thing, giving the impression that the belief or practice was universal, and only later (or sometimes not) acknowledging that analysis of historical sources or archaeological finds indicates that there was likely considerable local variation. …

Picturing the Past: Gender inNational GeographicReconstructions of Prehistoric Life

AbstractArtistic reconstructions of ancient life are powerful blends of archaeological interpretation and imagination. Like other narratives about the past, they can project contemporary gender roles and relations on ancient peoples, and can reinforce or transform ideas about gender in the present. This article examines the construction of gender ideologies inNational Geographicillustrations of prehistoric life. Our analysis of 204 pictorial reconstructions from 1936 to 2007 reveals that women and women’s work are significantly underrepresented and undervalued, while exhibiting evidence of temporal change in response to societal factors and editorial influences. A vigorous archaeology of gender has had little impact on the magazine’s imagined past; in some respects, the ancient women depicted in the last twenty years are just as scarce, passive, and subordinate as they were in the postwar “backlash” of the 1950s.

BIAS GENDER: MASALAH UTAMA DALAM INTERPRETASI ARKEOLOGI

Gender bias is an important theme in Gender Archaeology. It is influenced by modern people thinking and it has influenced archaeological interpretation for a long time. As a result, archaeological interpretation of past society is not objective. This problem should be solved to reach an objective interpretation of people’s life in the past. The author argues that gender bias in archaeology can be solved by actively criticizing androcentrism and paying more attention to men and women’s relationship in the past.

Eldorado!: the archaeology of gold mining in the far North

List of illustrations Acknowledgments and contributors by Catherine Holder Spude Part I. Rediscovering Eldorado: an introduction to this volume by Catherine Holder Spude and Robin O. Mills 1. An Overview History of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rushes, 1880-1918 by Robert L. Spude 2. Theoretical Perspectives on the Frontier Mining Pattern by Donald L. Hardesty 3. A Proposed Model for a Placer Gold Mining Settlement System by Robin O. Mills 4. Predicting Social and Economic Function at Residential and Commercial Site Types in the Far North, 1880-1920 by Catherine Holder Spude 5. New Perspectives from the North: Comparative Opportunities and Challenges in an Archaeology of Eldorado by Margaret Purser Part II. Intermediate Coastal Transfer and Supply Settlements: Supplying the Upper Yukon through Skagway and Dyea by Robin O. Mills and Catherine Holder Spude 6. Already Here and Rich: A Brief Ethnohistory of Upper Lynn Canal by Thomas F. Thornton 7. Tobacco Pipes, Medicinals, and Decorated Dishes: The Archaeology of Gender and Economic Class in Households from Skagway, Alaska by Doreen C. Cooper and Catherine Holder Spude 8. Faunal Remains in Skagway, Alaska: Gold Rush to Working Class by David R. Huelsbeck Part III. Getting around the Landscape: Links in the Interior Transportation System by Robin O. Mills and Catherine Holder Spude 9. An Overview of Chilkoot Trail Archaeology by Eve Griffin and Karl Gurcke 10. Canyon City: The Archaeology of a Company Town on the Transportation Network to the Klondike by T. J. Hammer Part IV. Central and Secondary Distribution Settlements: Supplying the Mining Districts by Robin O. Mills and Catherine Holder Spude 11. Explaining Variability in Northern Gold Mining Saloons by Catherine Holder Spude, Robert M. Weaver, and Tim A. Kardatzke 12. Living at the Edge of a Boomtown: Transient Life in Dawson City during the Klondike Gold Rush by Michael Brand 13. Boom through Bust and Beyond: Changing Settlement System Functions at Coldfoot, a Placer Mining Town in Alaska by Robin O. Mills 14. Alder Smoke and Shoe Nails: Life in an Early-20th Century Mining Camp by Howard L. Smith, Robin O. Mills, and Catherine Holder Spude Part V. Extracting the Wealth: Sites on the Gold Creeks by Robin O. Mills and Catherine Holder Spude 15. Living the Solitary Life: Placer Mining Camps in Alaska, 1900-1950 by Becky M. Saleeby 16. Alaska Natives in the Gold Rush: A Look at Valdez Creek in the Early to Mid-20th Century by Robert E. King 17. Cabin Comforts: The Archaeology of Bachelor Cabins on Fish Creek, Alaska by Andrew S. Higgs and Robert A. Sattler References Cited Index

European Gender Archaeologies in Historical Perspective

This study presents an overview of the development of gender archaeologies in local academies across Europe, from the initial efforts in Norway in the early 1970s, to the founding of the multinational Archaeology and Gender in Europe (AGE) working group in 2009. In addition, the study seeks to show the scope of gender archaeology once contributions from different traditions in different languages are included, and to provide comparative historiographies for those European countries where gender archaeology is now a major strand of research. We hope that innovative approaches to the study of gender in the past will emerge in the future thanks to fruitful encounters between regional trends and developments.

Liv H. Dommasnes, T. Hjørungdal, S. Montón Subías, M. Sánchez Romero and N. Wicker, eds. Situating Gender in European Archaeology (Budapest: Archaeolingua, 2010, 309 pp., with illustrations, pbk, ISBN 978-963-9911-15-4)

The idea of forming a group of archaeologists concerned with gender archaeology in Europe was first devised in 2007 at meetings in Barcelona and Bergen. At the EAA Annual meeting held in Malta in 2...

Gender Thinking in the Making: Feminist Epistemology and Gender Archaeology

In this paper I suggest that gender archaeology has followed the three main feminist epistemologies as described by Sandra Harding (1986): feminist empiricism, standpoint theory, and feminist postmodernism. I explore the main principles of these orientations and discuss their use in gender archaeology, offering examples from Norwegian, Spanish and North American contexts. My purpose is to trace a genealogy of gender archaeology from the point of view of epistemology that will reveal its feminist character. Even though it has been developed within the processual and post-processual contexts of archaeology, a review of its epistemological principles will show that gender archaeology must be situated within a wider feminist framework.

Landscape for a good feminist. An archaeological review

In 1998 this journal (Archaeological dialogues5(2)) published an editorial titled ‘What is wrong with gender archaeology?’. Responding to this rhetorical question, the editor affirmed that indeed nothing was wrong with it; to the contrary, gender archaeology was as healthy as could be, ‘one of the most thriving fields within the discipline’ (Archaeological dialogues1998, 88). Nonetheless, the writer then proceeded to describe a pervasive, ongoing issue with the article review process. Any submission that addressed gender would elicit warm praise from a reviewer chosen for familiarity with or expertise in gender studies. At the same time, the article would meet with harsh criticism from a second reviewer, selected for area, time period or topical specialization. The result was a continuing dilemma of how best to choose a third reviewer (a dilemma likely familiar to anyone who has submitted an article on any less-conventional topic to many disciplinary journals, not only in archaeology). This polarized reception of gender archaeology, and an unwillingness to engage in a dialogue around it, were persistent and deeply troubling. Comparing claims of novelty in gender archaeology with similar statements made decades earlier by New Archaeology, the editor suggested that processual archaeology gained support only after it had proven its worth in specific case studies, only ‘when substantial work demonstrated that this was indeed rather different and promising’ (Archaeological dialogues1998, 89). Such an expectation would appear most sensible for any empirically engaged discipline.

Los nenes con los nenes, las nenas con las nenas: relaciones de género en el arte rupestre del sitio Los Cerrillos, Valle Calchaquí Norte (Pcia. de Salta, Argentina)

In the last decades, gender archaeology has gained increasing importance in world archaeology (see Gero and Conkey 1991; Brumfield 1996; Escoriza Mateu 2002; among others). Nonetheless, in our country this topic has been scarcely explored. In this paper, I seek to analyze the way gender relations were represented in a particular site of the Northern Calchaqui Valley during the Late Period -900/1470 DC- (Tarrago 1974). Through the study of the petroglyphs found in Los Cerrillos site, and centering in the analysis of anthropomorphic representations, I aim to explore the way gender relations were produced and reproduced through the narrative that Los Cerrillos rock art offered. I conclude that the male and female representations are quantitatively different, expressing an explicit discourse through which gender differences were highlighted.

Visible Men and Elusive Women

Early gender archaeology formulated two statements: men are visible, women are invisible, and men work in hard materials, women work in soft materials. We discuss these dichotomies in connection with nineteenth-century folklore and an excavated eighteenth-century cottage at a summer-farm. We conclude that much of the gendered order-of-work tasks broke down in pragmatic day-to-day life, especially by women crossing the gender border. However, social chaos was held at bay by ritual acts and magic objects.

Is Androcentric Archaeology Really About Men?

The article starts with a discussion of the relation between feminist archaeology and gender archaeology followed by a short account of how androcentrism may influence on archaeological research. By exploring two representative examples I will argue that androcentric archaeology mainly reproduces stereotype images of men and do not provide much new or real knowledge about prehistoric men or understandings of masculinity. Consequently, there is a need to study prehistoric men as gendered and I will argue that to include studies in men and masculinity into a gender archaeology based on feminist theory might challenge androcentric archaeological studies just as much as to study women in prehistory.

Feminismo, teoría y práctica de una arqueología científica

Este artículo revisa la arqueología feminista, fundamentalmente norteamericana, y su contribución a la comprensión de la arqueología como ciencia. Se sintetiza brevemente el origen y desarrollo de la arqueología feminista, su relación con la arqueología de género y la arqueología posprocesual, y su valor como crítica epistemológica de la disciplina. Se observa también el desarrollo de la arqueología feminista en España y su relación con la arqueología materialista histórica.

Identity and Difference: Complicating Gender in Archaeology

From its inception, the archaeology of gender was entwined with feminism. Engagement has engendered reconstructions of complex, diverse peoples and practices that are more equitable, relevant, and sound. Yet, for many archaeologists, the connection with feminist perspectives has frayed in recent years. Their studies of gender articulate dated ideas about women and epistemological frames that highlight duality and universality. Examinations of labor divisions typify shortcomings. To advance gender's study and archaeology, practitioners need to consider several concerns about identity and difference emerging from third-wave feminism. Gender is envisioned as intersection. Bioarchaeology, especially, will benefit from feminist approaches that reflect critically and regard gender in nonnormative and multiscalar terms. To this end, resistance to feminism must fade. Opposition stems from its imagined relationship with postmodernism, but conflation misconstrues feminism's sociopolitical commitment to emancipatory change. For their part, archaeologists can utilize feminist perspectives to diversify the field, explore difference, and tackle archaeological issues with sociopolitical resonance.

Gender, Matrial Culture, and Identity in the Viking Diaspora

As a theoretical support for the aims of theorizing the Viking Age as a diaspora, this paper reflects on the impact of diaspora on identity, especially gender. The concept of gender is considered from three positions and within the intellectual framework of gender archaeology. First, the development of a concept of gender as a fluid negotiated identity, made not given, is introduced. Thereafter the relationship between material culture and gender is considered, arguing that it is through material things and practices that gender gains substance and is experienced. Thirdly, the disruptive yet formative effects of diaspora are outlined from a gender perspective. Throughout the intellectual arguments are related to Viking-Age studies by reference to case studies within Viking-Age archaeology.

Ancient bodies, ancient lives: sex, gender, and archaeology

An accessible, though tightly argued book, which shows the importance of an open mind when dealing with the archaeology of sex and gender. All too often, Rosemary Joyce claims, reconstructions of sex and sexual identity have been shaped by perceptions that a heterosexual model with defined gender roles is the norm and that practice which differs from this is deviant. Instead she argues for much more diverse conceptions of gender and sex in ancient societies, with different stages in the life-cycle corresponding to different roles, and with much more blurring of any boundary between ideas of male and female within these roles. To demonstrate these points Joyce draws on a large range of archaeological sources, from skeletal analysis to artefacts and artistic representation, and from Palaeolithic Europe to Wharram Percy, via Iron Age Central Asia, and in particular her own specialism of Classic Maya society.

Clove plantations on nineteenth-century Zanzibar

Clove plantations on nineteenth-century Zanzibar were sites on which many recent immigrants from Oman and Africa constructed new identities within the complex social relations of colonial rule, enslavement and concubinage. Archaeological evidence relating both to architectural and ceramic remains is used within this work to interpret such multifaceted identities. Ethnographic and historical accounts of African societies have both shown that gendered identities across the continent are, and have been in the past, characterized by diversity. This article has a wider significance beyond the field of African archaeology, in suggesting that archaeologists working across Africa are ideally placed to make an important contribution to the field of gender archaeology in exploring such heterogeneous subjectivities.

Much More than Gender

Numerous publications on gender archaeology present case studies that incorporate gender in their analyses, but make little use of feminist theory and critique, and are ambivalent or negative to feminism. Aspects of Norwegian, British and American gender archaeology are discussed in relation to a desire for the ‘mainstream.’ The reasons for, and consequences of, a lack of feminist theorizing and engagement are related to Donna Haraway’s concept of situated knowledges.

Gender and Chinese Archaeology (review)

Gender and Chinese Archaeology (review)