Publisher's Synopsis
"Women and Men in the Prehispanic Southwest" takes a groundbreaking look at gendered activities in prehistory and the differential access that women and men had to sources and symbols of power and prestige. The American Southwest presents an ideal situation for investigating issues central to gendered research in anthropology because of the wealth of data available, the secure dating of sites in the region, and the presence of multiple "cultures" that survived into protohistoric times. The authors -including some of the most prominent archaeologists working in the Southwest today - probe the time period during which Southwestern populations shifted from migratory gatherer-hunters to sedentary agriculturalists and from living in small bands to settling in large aggregated communities. Their rich data sets allow them to examine gender in middle-range societies and begin to tease out important issues of why the division of labour and prestige structures changed along with increasing economic intensification or sociopolitical complexity.;The authors present valuable methodological and theoretical case studies which take a step forward researchers' ability to "read" gender in the evidence left behind by ancient societies.
