Publisher's Synopsis
In the last two centuries archaeologists, through excavation and the decoding of ancient languages, have revealed much about the peoples of the distant past, recreating lost cultures and describing civilizations of a complexity and sophistication at least comparable to our own. Yet the role of women in these ancient and prehistoric societies has until very recently been ignored. Such discussion as there is tends to reflect a curiously Victorian set of assumptions: there are women heroes and leaders, but the general run of womenkind is seen as domestic, supportive and subservient. This raises some interesting issues, for feminism in particular and for archaeology in general - what they are and what they mean form the basis of this work.;Why, for example, were women so long neglected in archaeology? Do female domesticity and subservience, supposedly characteristic of societies that were in many respects different from our own, represent a misleading transfer of modern values? If they do not, is contemporary feminism a departure towards social relations not previously encountered? And are answers to these questions to be sought in more research on gender and gender relations, or do the practice and theory of archaeology require radical rethinking? Alison Wylie considers the history and nature of these issues, where the truth may lie, and the theoretical perspective that might inform - and be derived from - the research needed to establish a balanced understanding of ancient socieities and of the material culture of historical societies. She illustrates her argument with numerous cases drawn from North American and European archaeology. The great archaeological discoveries of modern times have been achieved with one eye shut. The feminist perspective so ably advanced here shows how much more there is to be seen and to be understood.
