An Archaeology of Gender

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An Archaeology of Gender
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Terms and Concepts Before WE Get Started
What is Archaeology
What is Gender
How does Archaeological Theory Impact How We
Approach Gender
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Archaeology
the study of past humans based on investigation
of their material remains Or
Archaeology is is the discipline with the
theory and practice for the recovery of
unobservable hominid behavior patterns from
indirect traces in bad samples. (David Clarke)
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Two Primary Types of Archaeology
Prehistoric archaeology, including all past
Hominid populations without some form of written
record.
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Historic Archaeology
Depends how you define it -
is it a period of time, or is it -
a methodology, and thus text aided archaeology,
inclusive of all cultures that produced written
records
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Units of Analysis
If we assume that scientific method bridges
ideas, then units are the tools that construct
that bridge (Ramenofsky and Steffen 19983)
a way to measure the world...to partition and
specify a range of variability that is relevant
for particular research interests

(Ramenofsky and Steffen 19983)
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Unit content can be either empirical,
In the case of gender the content of unit
construction is very important
or conceptual
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Empirical units are derived from direct
observations of the physical world and are
correlated with something that is physical in
nature, such as a specific artifact or groups of
artifacts
They are defined by their relationship to groups
of items and are often derived through sorting,
and are considered natural units that can be
easily measure, weighed, and compared
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Conceptual units , in contrast are
abstractions that have no physical referent
(Ramenofsky and Steffen
19985)
Conceptual units are developed from concepts and
are imposed on phenomena, and are entirely
abstract, and are inferred indirectly from many
traits
(Ramenofsky and Steffen 19986)
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Gender Review
Definitions in Archaeology --
Gender - a conceptual abstraction established
and transmitted by culture through the
socialization process, and impacted by agency,
ethnicity, age, and class
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Therefore it is separate from the biological and
empirical notion of sexed individuals or
populations -
the concepts of sex and gender are used to
differentiate biological givens from cultural
expectations(Nelson 20043)
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While the biological realities of sex are, for
the most part, determined at birth, gender is a
learned behavior that is not determined by birth
and varies significantly from culture to culture
and from time to time
So - sex is plumbing and wiring, gender is
programing
and without this distinction between gender and
sex, studying gender roles in ancient societies
becomes a virtual impossibility (Arnold 2002239)
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Gender roles -
the differential involvement of men and women in
social, economic, political, and religious
institutions within specific cultural settings,
and represent a interconnected complex set of
social interactions and expectations making up a
network of connections that vary dependent on a
number of variables that change in varied
cultural settings throughout time and space.
(Conkey and Spector 199825)
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Gender Identity -
an individuals own feeling of whether she is a
woman or man, or some other gendered construct,
and may not be associated with their gender
identity assigned by other individuals within the
defining culture or cultures (Conkey and Spector
199825)
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Gender Ideology -
The meaning in given social and cultural
contexts, and highlights issues of gender, sex,
and reproduction, including any prescriptions
and proscriptions for any gender group (Conkey
and Spector 199825)
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Function of gender
Assuming the existence of a gendered world
outside of the biological sexed world, what is
the function of gender, be it two, three, or
seven?
Organize labor -
Determine sexual partners -
Now thats a good question -
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Archaeological Theory and Gender
Danger Will Robinson - Potential Sleep Hazard
ahead

• Three major archaeological paradigms
• Processual
• Post-processual
• Postmodern

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Processual ArchaeologyThe New/Old Archaeology
-Origins
-Deductive Reasoning
-Hypotheses Testing
-Project Design
Sally Binford
Lewis Binford
-Quantitative methods
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Concerns -
-Systems Theory
-Minimize cultural contact
-Individuals have no significant impact on
social-cultural change, making them passive
instruments, rather then active agents of change
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Postprocessualism - -
-As Ruth Tringham (1991) pointed out, unless you
consider the individual, you have an archaeology
of faceless blobs, and unless you are willing
to give your imagined societies faces, you
cannot envisage gender.
Ian Hodder
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Postmodern --
Text
Michael Shanks
Christopher Tilley
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Feminist postmodern critiques
- that given its manifest failure to expose and
correct sexist presuppositions, perhaps
scientific method is itself androcentric perhaps
extant forms of practice do not merely allow
androcentric bias to enter and persist but
actually generate this bias (Wylie 199143)
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Historical Context
While a feminist anthropology of gender started
in the 1970s, gender in archaeology was much
slower to take hold
Early work was done by Zihlman and Tanner in the
early 1970s, Clarke (1972), Flannery and Winters
(1976), and Sarah Pomeroy who looked at gender in
the Mediterranean
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The earliest gender conference in archaeology was
held in Norway in 1979 and published as Were
they all Men, in response to Man the Hunter
Shortly afterwards, in the context of
postprocessual archaeology the concepts feminist,
or gender archaeology emerged as a bona fide
sub-discipline
While Joan Gero and Alison Wylie published an
influential paper on gender theory in 1983, it
was Margaret Conkey and Janet Spectors article
in 1984 that is credited with launching the
current debates on gender theory
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- by taking to task how gender and women had been
addressed in archaeological research
- stating that archaeology was guilty of
substantiating a particular gender mythology by
promoting a set of culture-specific beliefs
about the meaning of masculine and feminine,
about the capabilities of men and women, about
their power relations, and their appropriate
roles in society (Conkey and specor 198412)
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That the profession was neither inclusive nor
objective in its consideration of gender in the
past, and that has been permeated with
assumptions, assertions, and statements of fact
about gender
The androcentrism took on several different
forms,
1- imposition of ethnocentric gender roles and
values on other cultures
2- that such roles were based on biological
determinants
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That anthropological androcentrism placed more
credence in the views of male informants then
females
Resulting in that male perspectives are taken to
be representative of the culture, whereas the
female view is typically portrayed as peripheral
to the norm.
Becoming - gender-exclusive rather than
gender-inclusive reconstructions of past human
behavior
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Thus - with a rigid division of labor based on
sex resulted in some artifacts being associated
with one gender as opposed to another
But - more importantly, it placed differential
values on different activities - with activities
associated with men as being more valuable


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Their review showed a professional literature
couched in a manner that presents the female
gender as limited to a number of domestic tasks,
while the male gender was portrayed as being
involved in a wide range of valuable tasks
The androcentric biases were so pronounced that
the contributions, activities, perceptions, and
perspectives of females are trivialized,
stereotyped, or simply ignored
(Conkey and
Spector 199823)
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Besides expressing concerns over interpretive
bias based in androcentric and ethnocentric
biases, and how they impacted scientific
research, this first wave of gender archaeology
also -
Addressed how female archaeologists have been
ignored by the history of our profession, as well
as-
- as issues of equity and equality within the
profession, illustrated by inequities, sexism -
and specifically with regard to fieldwork
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This says it all -
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The second major wave of feminist archaeology
focused on revisionist histories -
By attempting to identify women in the
archaeological record -
To view women as active agents creating their own
realities and resisting male oppression - and by
expanding our understanding or gender variability
in the past
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This resulted in a move away from the second wave
of gender research in archaeology and its
structuralist, symbolic definitions of material
culture (Gilchrist 199852)
To a belief that gender is not a material
correlate to be excavated, but rather looking at
gender as a complex conceptual concept that is
affected by issues of cultural expectations, age,
class, and ethnicity and is highly strategic
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Making gender as a process that is in a constant
state of flux, not a fixed state -
Included in this debate is -
Questioning the proposition that women have
always been oppressed by examining the divergent
roles that women have assumed as agents in
systems of domination
This third phase of an archaeology of gender
underscores the complexity of tying to answer
such multifaceted research questions in the
archaeological record
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Part of this readdressing of women in the past
includes -
-Socialization, childhood and motherhood
-Binary sets and public vs. private spheres
-Cross cultural comparisons and blurred lines
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-Socialization, childhood and motherhood
Western cultures generally derive gender from
sex, and historically recognize only two sexes
and two genders
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A review of archaeological literature on
motherhood and socialization presents a picture
of women restricted by their biological
characteristics associated with pregnancy,
lactation, and childbirth, and circumscribed-almos
t immobilized-by their presumed roles in
childcare
(Conkey and Spector 19848)
That child-rearing is a full-time, exclusively
female activity
(Conkey and Spector 19848)
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This has significant implications in evolutionary
theory -
If - womens work is the same, if it is
unchanging throughout time -
Then that implies that women work was not
central to culture and civilization...so it could
contribute to evolution, and thus was not worth
studding, or documenting

(Baxter 200517)
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Two aspects of Motherhood
-the biological and the social
Western perceptions of sex and gender have
blurred the lines between the biological and the
social
-Mycenaeans vs Minoans
-Hunter-gathers
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Binary sets and Public vs Private
Because we are left with one typological gender
system in use today - we are left with a much
reduced binary set of two types that are in use
in archaeological literature

(Seifert
19911)
These include, Gender hierarchy and
complementarity of men and women
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Gender complementarity - equality and
interdependence of both male and female gendered
members - each having some complementary
attributes
Gender hierarchy - implies one gender exerting
some degree of dominance, control, or oppression
over the other gender
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This results in asimple, binary-opposition model
of gender roles men hunt, women gather men
produce, women process men are wage-earners,
women are homemakers men are active, women are
passive
(Seifert 19911-2)
Resulting in expectation of separate spheres,
or public vs. private spheres of authority
where the constrained domestic sphere for
women...contrasts with mens public sphere

(Wright 1991196)
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Perceptions of Gender Dominance
Boadicea of Iceni
Artemisia of halicarnassus
Hatshepsuit
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Cross- Cultural Comparisons
-Sex does not always determine gender among
non-Western people, nor does it in modern
Western societies. It is important for
archaeologists to recognize the difference to
demonstrate that culture generates gender and not
biology
Crow two spirits, 1928
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Homosocial Households
- Wilk, 2003, Burg, 1983, Lindbaugh and Rediker,
2000
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Methods for Studying Gender in
Archaeology
There are 6 primary methods -
1- ethnography, including ethnohistory,
comparative ethnographies, and ethnoarchaeological
approaches
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2- Skeletal and Mortuary Studies
3- Text-aided research, including the use of art,
and mythology
4- Iconographic
5- Physiological studies
6- comparative zoology and gross physiology
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Physiological Approaches
As you may have noted there are some
physiological differences between male and female
biology.
Sorry - we are going to focus on wiring rather
than plumbing -
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Because inferring behavior from recent
populations to populations of archaic Homo
sapiens is, controversial, at best -
Homo erectus
Neanderthal
Homo habilis
Biological approaches to pre-modern hominid
populations have contemplated the reasons behind
the differences in modern populations
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So, inferring that these differences are the
result of millions of years of natural selection
- what are those evolutionary stimuli and how did
they impact sexed populations and gender
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Bipedal Locomotion
Lovejoy (1981)- bipedal locomotion was the prime
mover in human evolution forcing humans into
monogamous pairs BECAUSE -
Burdened by their biology, and reproductive
commitments, females had to stay home and take
care of the children
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Language and Social intelligence
Falk (2002) and Dunbar (1993)
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Brain Development accelerated around 2 million
years ago, resulting in a doubling of brian size
by 100,000 years ago -
So -- one approach has asked what, assuming a
common ancestor, is to look at behavioral
differences.
Falk (1998) concludes that there are only two
possibilities language and social intelligence,
with the conclusion that language is the smoking
gun of human evolution.
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S0 - whats the fit between data and theory - are
gender systems genetically hard-wired by an
evolutionary past of big game hunting and tool
making by males, and dependent submissive
childcare by females
Roosevelt (2002) came to some different
conclusions
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Roosevlet (2002) concludes that the gender
systems imposed on paleo hominids by researchers
resembled or mirrored Victorian (355), and Roman
gender vales of the chaste and loyal...wife
(Tyldesley 2008206, see also Fletcher 2004)
Rather than current data from anthropoid apes,
hominid sites and skeletons and living tropical
forgers.
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Story-Laden
composed through complex, historically specific
storytelling practices. Facts are theory-laden
theories are value-laden values are story
laden (Sperling 1991224)
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Skeletal and Mortuary
Text
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Without ethnographic temporal continuity - many
processualist studies have used mortuary studies
to consider male and female gender systems in the
past - specifically divisions of labor
Varna Necropolis
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Yet such approaches present concerns -
-System of Binary oppositions, what is not male
is female
-Gender malleability
-Who is assigning the grave goods to the burial
burials are the results of the practices of
mourners and not the deceased, and my be better
viewed as a reflection of adult remembrances,
as opposed to a reflection of the deceased
(Baxter 200594)
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Examples
Hassan and Smith (2002) - predynastic Egypt -

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Rubinson (2002) - Eurasian steppe, first
millennium B.C.
Text
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Skeletal material information
Nutritional evidence -
Dental hypoplasia, Harris lines, cortical
thickness of long bones, dental caries, vitamin
deficiencies, access to protein and carbohydrates
Sexual dimorphism-
Used to contrast differences in diet and
workloads
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Patterns of infection and disease -
-discernible - staphylococcus, streptococcus,
yaws, syphilis and tuberculosis
Episodes of childhood stress -
- Harris lines in the shafts of long bones,
enamel hypoplasia in teeth
Female parity and maternal behavior -
- Amount of pitting along the dorsal border of
the public symphysis, annular rings of tooth
cementum that form though out life, and strontium
to determine weaning age
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Determination of mortality -
Dance of the dead, the black plague
Plague dead, UK
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Iconographic -
Androcentric Biases -
Inaccurate representations of ideal versus actual
practices -
Authorship -
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Lepenski Vir or the Venus figurines of the Upper
Paleolithic in Northern and Eastern Europe
Who created them -
Depending on gendered authorship, the
interpretations change -
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Are they representations of male generated ideals
of female sexuality based in reproduction
Venus of Brassempouy
Venus of Mikulov
Venus of Laussel
Venus of Willendorf
Or, we interpreting a female gendered
representation of gender roles - or childbirth
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Classic Interpretations -
the point is not that art has never been
gendered at all, but rather that explanations of
Upper Paleolithic art have been mindlessly
gendered, according to Victorian norms and
ideals

(Nelson 200462)
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Examples for consideration -
Whitehouses consideration (2002) of Grotta di
Porto, Badisco Italy -
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Susan Pollocks (1991) study of women in Sumerian
culture -
Disjunction between the evidence presented by the
depictions studied
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Ethnographic Methods
Almost all routes to gender in prehistory depend
to a lesser or greater extent, and more or less
explicitly, on ethnographic or ethnohistoric data
for analogical comparisons of gender
associations with particular activities or
materials. (Gero and Conkey 199119)
Based on accepting current gender systems in
historical or contemporary societies and applying
them to past gender systems
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But, more importantly, they are based on the
conviction of ethnographic sources are accurate
and unbiased, and free from androcentric
predisposition.
The subtle, pervasive gender biases present in
past sociocultural research has resulted in an
overvaluing of male activities, and a devaluation
of female activities
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- !Kung Bushman (Zhun/twasi)
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Colonialism, and ethnography
Impact of time and space present problems in
reconstructing behavior, as does the impact of
colonialism on the archaeological populations
being studies
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Impact of the Spanish conquest and imposition of
Spanish customs, norms, and laws
on Puebloan society. Yet early researchers used a
direct historic approach and did not take into
account the impact of Colonialism
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Text-Aided Approaches
Barbara Olsens (1998) cross-cultural research on
women and children in Minoan and Mycenaean
cultures
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Scott (1991), Gender at Michilimackinac -
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Jane Austen
men have had every advantage of us in telling
their story. Education has been theirs in so much
higher degree the pen has been in their hands. I
will not allow books to prove anything
(Austen 1818242)
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Material traces of gender
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Gender has always been accessible in the
archaeological record, but for a number of
reasons, as researchers,have ignored it (Wylie
1991), or failed to identify it - The question
is how do identify it -
As you remember, gender research often involves
inductive tests based on inferences
As the quantity of diverse observations increase,
multiple lines of evidence, the relative strength
of an explanation also increases
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- Even with the recent past, there are problems
in identifying archaeological signatures of
gender, specifically that of exclusivity of male
or female use
Gender ideology predetermines gender roles and
thus gendered artifacts. If gender ideology
states that men and not women were miners, then
all mining artifacts are male.
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- Mining in Australia (Fleming 2007)
- Harmony, North Carolina (Stine 1992)
- 18th century American Military Sites (Starbuck
1994)
-Toys and gender in rural Victorian society
(Baxter 2005)
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The material culture appropriate for identifying
gender in the archaeological record should be
limited to artifacts that are overwhelmingly
belong to male or female individuals (Jackson
1994 Lawrence 2000 Spude 2005)
From there, researchers should be able to expand
the artifact associations, both economic and
social
what does that tell us about gender?
-
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Discussion, Thoughts -
Womanist Centered -
Behind Closed Doors, Public verses Private
Faces -
Malleability -
Multiple Lines of Evidence, and Multiple Ways of
Viewing the Past -
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Questions, Comments, Gestures