Ungendering Civilization

Ungendering Civilization

A pioneering and provocative collection, firmly anchored by the editor’s explanation of the conceptual framework. It shows that we cannot assume the cross-cultural event that women lose status with the “rise” of civilization, a notion that has tacitly driven much gender archaeology. By drawing our attention to all the ways in which and the reasons why we cannot essentialize either “the women” or “the gender system,” the volume forces a complete re-thinking of the issue of gender in/of “civilization”. A critical contribution to a theoretically informed exploration of past human social life. (Margaret W. Conkey, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley)

Ungendering Civilization offers a much needed scrutiny of the role of women in the evolution of states, critically addressing traditional views of male and female roles. Each chapter examines a distinct body of archaeological data, from Predynastic Egypt and Minoan Crete, to ancient Zimbabwe and the Maya, to determine what can justifiably be argued from the evidence. The collection also shows that cultural evolutionism is not benign; it sustains political views about gender, race, and political economy that are not supported by research. The example of gender demonstrates how archaeologists, many of whom would probably characterize themselves as feminists, inadvertently support a sexist view of the world by labeling poorlytested assumptions as science. K. Anne Pyburn is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University. She is the director of the Chau Hiix Project, which investigates the political economy of an ancient Maya community, and the MATRIX Project, http://www.indiana.edu/~arch/saa/matrix/.

Ungendering Civilization

Edited by K. Anne Pyburn

First published 2004 in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London, EC4P 4EE

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2004 selection and editorial matter, K. Anne Pyburn; individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-203-50118-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-57000-6 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–26057–4 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–26058–2 (pbk)

For Richard R.Wilk

Contents

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List of contributors Preface

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Introduction: Rethinking complex society K. ANNE PYBURN

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Gendered states: Gender and agency in economic models of Great Zimbabwe TRACY LUEDKE

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The use and abuse of ethnographic analogies in interpretations of gender systems at Cahokia LAURA PATE

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The “marauding pagan warrior” woman LENA MORTENSEN

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Tracing women in early Sumer LAYLA AL-ZUBAIDI

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Leaders, healers, laborers, and lovers: Reinterpreting women’s roles in Moche society CRISTINA ALCALDE

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The benefits of an archaeology of gender for predynastic Egypt GABRIEL D. WROBEL

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Contents

All the Harappan men are naked, but the women are wearing jewelry CANDICE MARIE LOWE

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Oh my goddess: A meditation on Minoan civilization SEAN P. DOUGHERTY

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Ungendering the Maya K. ANNE PYBURN

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Index

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Contributors

Cristina Alcalde received her PhD in Anthropology in 2003 from Indiana University. She also has an MA in Latin American Studies. Her dissertation fieldwork focused on the everyday experiences and forms of resistance of poor women in abusive relationships in Lima, Peru. Layla Al-Zubaidi studied Cultural Anthropology, Archaeology and Islam Studies at the Free University, Berlin in Germany, and at Indiana University, Bloomington in the United States. She worked in archeological excavations in Europe and the Middle East and wrote her MA thesis on cultural tourism at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Palmyra, Syria. She is currently based in Ramallah, Palestinian Territories, where she holds a position in a German Green Party political foundation, researching sustainable development, women’s rights, and freedom of expression Sean P. Dougherty has an MA in Classical Studies from Indiana University and is currently pursuing a PhD in physical anthropology at that institution. He has done field research in Belize and Egypt; his doctoral research concerns patterns of trauma among a nineteenth-century pauper cemetery population in Milwaukee, WI. Candice Marie Lowe is a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia, and a doctoral candidate in Socio-Cultural Anthropology at Indiana University. She has a background in feminist theory and Central Asian Studies, particularly in the client states of the former Soviet Union. In her dissertation, “Speaking Our Name: Multiculturalism and the Struggle for National Belonging Among Afro-Creoles in Mauritius,” she explores her interests in African diaspora studies, postcolonial nationalism, multiculturalism, gender, music, and social protest formations.

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Tracy Luedke is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology and Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Gender Studies at Indiana University. Her dissertation concerns healing in central Mozambique. Lena Mortensen is the Assistant Director of the Center for Heritage Resource Studies and a PhD candidate in anthropology at Indiana University. She specializes in the social context of archaeology with particular interests in heritage tourism and Central America. She has several publications based on her research on the interrelations between nationalism, politics, tourism, and science in the daily operations of the Copan archaeological park in Honduras. Laura Pate is a Prehistory Research Fellow at the Glenn Black Laboratory of Indiana University. Her research interests include mortuary practices and ceramic analysis of the native American cultures of the midwestern United States. She is pursuing a PhD in anthropology at Indiana University. K. Anne Pyburn is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University. She writes about archaeology and ethics, gender, and the Maya. She is principle investigator of the Chau Hiix Project (Belize) and director of the MATRIX Project. http://www.indiana.edu/~arch/saa/matrix/ homepage.html. Gabriel D. Wrobel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Mississippi where he specializes in bioarchaeology and mortuary practices. He has done fieldwork in Egypt and Belize.

Preface

This book began as a seminar at Indiana University. I had an idea that we might learn something if we looked at several cultures at the point in their history when evidence of status distinctions is first recognizable in their material record. I expected that we would find little that was concrete, as indeed turned out to be the case, and that what evidence we found would show clearly that women constituted a subordinate class. Much to my surprise, we did not find clear support for this. What we did find was that most archaeologists expect to find it, and without testing the premise, simply assume that it is supported when they interpret their data. As the participants worked through the literature on gender in early states, another issue became clear. Assumptions about gender and the division of labor in ancient cultures provide an excellent example of how the typological reasoning of cultural evolutionary explanations predetermines and drastically limits what we can know about the past. So while this book addresses the issue of the role of women in the evolution of states, we also question the fundamental assumption that there is much usefulness in teleological generalizations. Discounting assumptions about the division of labor causes the typology of cultural evolutionism to unravel. On the other hand, inspecting the intellectual history of such categories as race, gender, and chiefdom is a good empirical exercise which reveals the political usefulness that accounts for their never-ending popularity among western academics. Power comes not from being at the apex of the hierarchy of types, but from the ability to name and identify the types. A typology of people, whether organizational or biological, limits scholarly awareness of variation; in fact it limits our ability to see that the categories may actually be wrong. On the other hand, when these categories are reified in the context of political power, whether in an academic department or in a colonial plantation, human possibility is molded and constrained. This book addresses an intellectual division among archaeologists interested in societies with monumental architecture and written histories. On the one side are those who equate evolutionary models of cultural change with empirical science. They hold that ignoring the impact of natural selection on social structure or the biological basis of gender differences is a

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refusal to face facts and a turn toward intellectual nihilism. The alleged alternative view, that there are no facts and no knowable universe, is not really espoused by any archaeologists I know. However, more and more archaeologists have started to think about the past without relying on the traditional typologies, a situation which cultural evolutionists often consider a failure to evaluate data and the dishonest use of vague and meaningless jargon. This is not the case. Dropping the conventional vocabulary of cultural evolutionism results in confusion not because it discounts what we know about the past, but because it reveals how much we do not know. Testing the assumptions that underlie cultural typologies is where the real empirical work begins. Contrary to what many of my colleagues claim, adopting a more modest view of what we know and what can be known in not an attack on science, but an attempt to do better science, or, in the case of archaeology, an attempt to do something closer to science. And identifying and addressing the political context that shapes and influences our questions about the past and determines which data we accept as confirmation, is no less empirical than identifying political processes in the past. In fact, the present provides more data to guide us. So the division is between archaeologists taking a cultural evolutionary path and those who have begun to take a different direction that cultural evolutionists see as useless and unintelligible. This book attempts to make the change of direction more intelligible, by taking cultural evolutionism apart with its own tools. While it is true that some postmodern archaeologists have thrown out the baby with the bathwater, our goal in this book is to make clear what a very great deal of bathwater is drowning a very small baby. Many readers will be thinking that cultural evolutionism is dead and not at all a part of their own research or reasoning about the past, which is exactly what I thought when I began the odyssey of this book. The idea of an evolutionary progression from simple to complex, from religion to science, from instinct to reasoning, from matriarchy to patriarchy, is very old in western culture, and comprises the fundamental assumptions we share about the way the world works. Thinking without this implicit model is extremely difficult, as evidenced by the very many papers on early states that begin with a critique of cultural evolutionary approaches and then proceed to use them (with caveats, of course). And archaeologists invariably cast their research findings in evolutionary terms when speaking with the public. Most archaeologists regard cultural evolutionism as a benign oversimplification that is useful for organizing the material to be learned in introductory courses or speaking to newspaper reporters and television executives. The goal of this book is to demonstrate empirically that cultural evolutionism is not benign, that there are patterns to its assumptions and simplifications that substantiate political views about gender, and race, and political economy that are not really supported by archaeological research.

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Gender provides the example of how archaeologists, many of whom characterize themselves as feminists, inadvertently support a sexist view of the world by labeling poorly tested assumptions as science. There is a similar disconnect between archaeologists’ reconstructions of the rise of complex society and their political views on race and class in the modern world. Among the many readers of all or part of this work who gave valuable criticism and encouraging ideas are Mitch Allen, Kelly Askew, Gracia Clark, Margaret Conkey, Elisabeth Lloyd, Sarah Nelson, Chris Peebles, Robert Schmidt, April Sievert, Richard Wilk, Alison Wylie, and numerous seminar students who tested its usefulness as a text. Gender has become an important focus of scholarly research, no longer denigrated as something disgruntled women were politically motivated to tackle. The enormous quantity of literature generated in the last ten years testifies to the significance of this research for the archaeology of the twenty-first century. I hope authors whose work has been neglected or who see errors in our logic or fault our coverage of archaeological cultures will consider contributing to a second volume. K. Anne Pyburn June 2003 Indiana University

Introduction

Rethinking complex society K. Anne Pyburn

Professor Wolf at the door The ideas of a great many people are worked into the argument presented here, but I owe the greatest debt to Eric Wolf, who battled the hydra of cultural essentialism so effectively in Europe and the People Without History. In this work, Wolf first shows how western ideas about cultural purity and the discreteness of tradition were pollinated and then blossomed within the intellectual history of the discipline of anthropology. He then shows how the application of this model of isolates allowed ethnographers to see crosscultural similarities as the result of human nature rather than the result of contacts and interrelations. The result was a naive, inaccurate, and often inherently racist construction of cultural difference, promoted inadvertently by many who strove mightily to be open-minded through an unexamined belief in cultural relativism. Wolf ’s critique of anthropological constructions of culture works perfectly as a critique of anthropological constructions of gender. Like other aspects of culture that have a connection to human biology such as kinship systems or standards of physical beauty, gender relations are often treated as existing a priori outside culture and essentially immutable, just as simple societies unadulterated by western values of progress and consumption are seen to exist outside of history. From this perspective cultural expression of biological characteristics varies along an evolutionary continuum from bands to tribes to chiefdoms to states, but these differences are only seen to affect the terms and the details of performance. The underlying biological basis for kinship, beauty, or gender ensures that these characteristics are an important part of culture everywhere, and play virtually the same role in cultural evolution. Only the pathologies of modern civilization are said to deny the primacy of the nuclear family or the selective advantages of the division of labor. Within each culture it is the ethnographer’s job to identify timeless standards of beauty derived from phenotypic characteristics, systematic kin systems related to genetic relationships, and a gender-based division of labor necessitated by reproduction.

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It is not coincidental that aspects of culture most often associated with women are also the characteristics which imbue it with impermeability and timelessness. Women are everywhere today both empowered and controlled by biology (expressed culturally as beauty, kinship, reproduction, and the division of labor) in ways that men are not. Celebrities, media figures, and anthropologists tell us that “beauty is power,” and beauty that is culturally altered and not “natural” is stigmatized. The bond between mother and child is also considered biological and therefore inalienable, as shown by the recent examples of children forcibly returned to birth mothers after years with foster families. And journalists and scholars alike continue to see the care of children and “the home” as essentially female; stories that violate assumptions about the division of labor continue to provide the exceptions that prove the rule. The naturalized link between beauty, child-rearing, “private space,” and womanhood is sacred to western culture, and affects all the cultures participating in the modern world system. Needless to say these are folk models, but they continue to inform not only public opinion, but also scholarly research in a number of fields. Despite the fact that a number of feminist investigations have disproved the reality of such proscriptions in the present day and the recent past, a surprising number of intellectuals, including a number of feminist scholars themselves, continue to believe that the division of labor, which either subordinates women or at least separates the economic, social, and political spheres of women and men, is an historical if not a biological fact. Ultimately, the belief that all early civilizations independently developed the same division of labor has been an unexamined support for essentialist arguments about the role of women and men in the rise and functioning of the modern world (Tringham 1991). I argue that the cross-cultural parallels found in the status and treatment of women are more the result of history than of human nature or human biology. Ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological data with bearing on gender systems have come almost entirely from cultures with historically interconnected political economies. Furthermore, data considered relevant because they come from periods of early contact with “pristine” cultures, were collected either by explorers who were members of European patriarchies, or by ethnographers who were unconcerned about the bias of their own assumptions about gender. In the few cases where archaeological data are available from early nonwestern civilizations, such as the Maya or the Inca, investigation has not been aimed at questioning the universality of European gender distinctions, but at identifying the local variant. Whatever gender data are identified are construed in terms of the pre-existing essentialized model; since archaeological data are invariably sketchy for early periods, such constructions are usually seamless. In the nineteenth century, the unrestrained arguments of diffusionism eventually ran afoul of Galton’s problem, i.e. the problem of common origins and how historical links interfere with the even spread of cultural traits or

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assumptions about independent invention. As a result, over the past hundred years, both archaeological and ethnographic investigations have invalidated the age-area hypothesis and similarly simplistic explanations for cultural transmission, evolution, and change. Nevertheless, a trace of this perspective remains, especially in comparative investigations that look for widespread patterns in cross-cultural data sets. This problem has been addressed but not solved in the Human Relations Area Files (Murdock 1983), where the quantity of the data is expected to override investigative error and recording bias. But gender bias in the accounts of early explorers or the studies underlying the HRAF is unlikely to have been individualized or random; in fact there is a great deal of evidence that gender bias has been extremely systematic in western culture for many generations. The probability that a gendered perspective might create similar patterns in a wide variety of contexts seems extremely high. The observed patterns result not only from the assumptions of observers, but also from the patterns of exploitation employed, perhaps one might say “engendered,” during the rise of the modern world system. When Lévi-Strauss (1969) discovered that women are to nature as men are to culture, he meant to expose the cultural universals; instead he simply articulated European beliefs universally attributed to, imposed onto, and established within cultures studied, and exploited, by colonial powers. Gender relations, and scholarly analyses of gender relations, have played a very special part in the history of the world system and the rise of colonial powers [Engels (1884), Gunder-Frank (1967), Marx (1965), Wallerstein (1974)], and the history of social science and anthropology in particular is deeply embedded in the larger history of colonialism (Said 1980, Snead 1999). In particular, capitalism and capitalist projects make use of essentialized categories of people (not only genders, but also ethnic groups and economic classes or social statuses) in order to exploit local groups for profit. Any number of researchers have discussed this process; the point to be made here is that in spite of recognition of the historical patterns, feminist scholars have not entirely grasped the implications for understanding the history of women. Social anthropologists have begun to use new eyes to look at the present and the recent past (Leacock 1981), but consideration of early periods of human history remains the provenance of archaeologists, whose ideas about the origin of the modern division of labor and its role in early civilizations continue to be largely unexamined. Modern feminist writing has begun to invest intellectual energy into redefining the nature and significance of the division of labor in early cultures, without ever unequivocally demonstrating its existence. Ultimately it will be necessary to rethink many of the ethnographic models invented and given universality by inadvertently biased scholars, such as patriarchy and its non-existent parallel matriarchy, but also partriliny and matriliny and similar constructions that were embedded in an unexamined

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belief in the primordial basis of the division of labor. This project is beyond my scope here, beyond questioning of the application of such models to particular ancient cases. Feminist ethnographers have begun this work, but they are hampered by the reticence of archaeologists to attempt an unbiased observation of the only places and periods not affected by the European capitalist world system. This is the aim of this book, to start excavation of archaeological reconstructions of the division of labor in early civilized societies to begin to remove the layers of assumption that overlie the data. In some cases the removal of these layers reveals historical connections between ostensibly independent groups. In other cases, data are hopelessly mired in observer bias, so that no conclusions are possible. But there are occasional glimpses of early class-based societies that look nothing like what Engels expected. Such examples are few and likely to be hotly contested, but this is a revelation that is simultaneously a revolution.

Riding the second wave Ironically, this book about the history of women makes little attempt to summarize the history of gender studies in archaeology. The explosion of publications following immediately on Gero’s (1983) and Conkey’s work first with Spector (Conkey and Spector 1984) and then with Gero (Gero and Conkey 1991) has changed the discipline forever, but not through a single leap or a uniform movement. Summaries of contributions and trends have been provided at intervals along the way by Nelson (1997), Claassen (1997), Conkey and Gero (1991), Gustafsen and Trevalyan (2002), Bruhns and Stothert (1999), Gilchrist (1999), Hayes-Gilpin and Whitley (1998), Meskell (1995) and Wylie et al. (1994), among others. To a certain extent these developments are part of a larger change in the academy resulting from the rise of feminism as an intellectual discourse (cf. Farnham 1987, MacKinnon 1987, Schiebinger 1993, Lloyd 1995, Merchant 1980) and in anthropology in particular (Butler 1993, 1999, Haraway 1991, Harding 1986, Moore 1989, Rosaldo and Lamphere 1974, Strathern 1988, Weiner 1976, and other works). At this point a very long book would be needed to provide a comprehensive discussion of the contributions and changes resulting from gender analyses in archaeology, and no simple generalization can do justice to the breadth of the field. Nevertheless, it seems worthwhile to position the present work within the current, since approaches are now so diverse that a contribution to one may seem stagnant in another. It is probably fair to say that the river of second wave feminism (Gilchrist 1999) flowing from the processualist perspective has slowed to a rivulet. Fewer archaeologists are explicitly interested in locating female artifacts or simply adding women to a predetermined set of standardized roles. Alternative gender categories are frequently mentioned and gendering artifacts is usually seen to require more

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than one line of evidence. The nuanced analysis inspired by considerations of gender which focused scholarly interest on agency and intersubjectivity has led some archaeologists to go beyond gender to consider issues of sexuality and the body (Bevan 2001, Joyce 2000, Meskell 1999, Schmidt and Voss 2000), and strategies of power and identity (Gilchrist 1999, Hurst-Thomas 2000, Kehoe 1998, Schmidt and Patterson 1995, Watkins 2000). These approaches offer new ways of seeing into the past and new ways of interpreting data outside the materialist perspective of processualism. Such reflexive analyses of the political and social context of archaeological scholarship have undermined many of the basic assumptions of the New Archaeology. Nevertheless, current models of civilization, complex society, and early states still contain implicit assumptions about the universality of the nuclear family, male dominance, and gendered labor divided by public and private worlds. Scholars focusing on the development of political economy consider much postmodern discourse concerning the social context of research to be unscientific. In fact many proponents of cultural evolutionism have come to regard their stance as stemming the tide of nihilistic relativism and pseudoscience. Feminist discourse beyond the second wave and phenomenological arguments are regarded as attacks on science. The result of this divide has been that postprocessualists have failed to convey that the salient critique is not of science, but of poor science (Wylie 1996, 1997). Aged methodologies and standard interpretations have become enshrined in the field as empirical when they are nothing of the kind. Assumptions about human behavior and the role of natural selection in driving cultural change have become resistant to argument to the extent that contradictory data sets are used to support the same explanation, and research strategies that have been clearly shown to be ineffective continue to be replicated. As will be discussed below, these purportedly empirical studies invariably support the status quo, by pushing its origins into the distant past. Sexism, racism, poverty, inequality, and exploitation take on an inescapable quality when linked to very early points of origin, and these links are easy to forge when they are implicit in the research design before the research is done. On the other hand, archaeologists working on abstruse theoretical constructions with no overt applicability to policy or public discourse are also failing their discipline. Scientific analysis of origins, tradition, militarism, sustainability, and collapse are powerful tropes in the modern world system. The identification of such factors in the past of humanity or of any particular subset of humanity has the potential to impact the life chances of members. Can we ethically walk away from engagement with public awareness of human possibility? The intent of this book is to engage with assumptions about gender that underlie research on ancient civilizations. To do this it is necessary to engage

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with models of reality that most postprocessual scholars would rather simply leave behind. But the truth is that by avoiding the argument we have not abolished the false assumptions and in fact there is a resurgence of essentialist rhetoric in the wake of this abdication. In many circles such terms as civilization, states, collapse, and complex society are passé and refer to conceptions that are not so much unsupportable as uninteresting. But it is the argument of this book that evolutionary models are unsupportable in their own terms: they do not meet the standards of evidence that a positivistic stance requires. It is our belief that in order to forge new models and make new discoveries about the past, it will be necessary to take apart the old categories and arguments of cultural evolutionism. Deprived of the model all European and American children learn to think with, we may at last begin to glimpse the worlds of the past. This is, after all, the task Conkey and Gero identified as fundamental to the next wave. “Feminist scholarship in archaeology, demanding fundamental alterations in basic assumptions, first requires a painstaking retooling of definitions, data sets, textual sources, and functional assignments” (1991:7).

Women as “people without history” Wolf (1982) does not address gender directly, although he discusses how relations between men and women were affected by the economic changes encouraged and spread by European capitalism. When Wolf does discuss changes in the division of labor, his treatment is particularly instructive. For example, in discussing the economic relations that developed between Portuguese traders and the people of the Kongo (pp. 207–231), Wolf explains that Kongolese organization was matrilineal and a system of bridewealth and gifts initiated by royal lineages and redistributed to lower ranking lineages was the economic backbone of lineage power. He argues that participation in the slave trade with the Portuguese fundamentally changed this system. This new source of revenue made wealth and status objects available directly to lower ranking lineages, allowing them to compete for power with higher ranking groups and undermining the power held by ranked matrilineages. Wolf argues that matrilineality gave way to patrilineal clusters because participation in the slave trade required more manpower for slave hunting which in turn resulted in men laying claim to their own children produced by their own slaves. Wolf ’s argument rescues Kongolese men from essentialism but still leaves women without history. This happens in two ways. First, while Wolf rejects characterization of “peripheral” cultures as timeless and traditional, he accepts the existence of timeless matrilineality, a system “discovered” and recorded by European male anthropologists that allows women a visible position in social structure but still places control of most resources in the hands of men: uncles and brothers rather than fathers and husbands.

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Whether this might have been a biased interpretation of Kongolese culture is not discussed. Second, and more importantly, when Wolf describes the change from matrilineality to patrilineality, he attributes it to the need for more men to participate in the taking of slaves. This to him is implicitly a natural outcome of an emphasis on a violent mercantile economy. The possibility that women might have participated in warfare and raiding either directly or through economic control is not considered. Here is a classic situation that lends itself to critical questioning. A preexisting system in which women received some sort of recognition, pigeon-holed by anthropologists accustomed to an essentialized view of culture as “matrilineal,” becomes patrilineal as a result of interaction with western capitalism, in this case from Portugal. This construction goes unquestioned because the lack of participation by women in the new system is implicitly attributed to the nature of womanhood, not to the nature of the European influence. Would the Portuguese have been as comfortable trading with women as they were with men? Could the patriarchal view of the world and the essentialist European perspective of the Portuguese toward women have influenced the nature of change in lineage power? Almost certainly. Similarly in the 1920s Rattray (1923) recorded Asante complaints that since the British always disregarded their queen mothers, they stopped putting them forward in negotiations. It is beyond the scope of this book to make a case against the traditional anthropological view of Kongolese social organization or to rethink Asante matrilineal power; the point is simply to illustrate how implicit assumptions about gender shape historical constructions without ever becoming a topic of discussion.

The essence of womanhood The status of women, though clearly not uniform across time and space, is nevertheless thought to be uniformly subordinate throughout human history. In every known culture, past or present, women are portrayed as playing a lesser role in political and economic life. This generalization has inspired numerous studies to determine the significance of the “division of labor” for the origins of human culture and the rise of civilization. Traditionally, anthropologists (and others) attribute the pattern of crosscultural male dominance to biological differences between women and men, since gender domination is seen to occur in historically unrelated cultures that are believed to have only human biology or biologically based adaptive strategies in common. A recent book summarizing cross-cultural data on gender roles presents the problem perfectly (Pasternak, Ember, and Ember 1997). The three authors use Murdock’s World Ethnographic Sample (1983), his Ethnographic Atlas (1967), and snippets of ethnographic detail to characterize gender differences in a variety of societies. They conclude that in all cases women play subordinate roles to men, thereby proving that they

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have always played subordinate roles and that subordination and passivity are essential characteristics of womanhood, not culture. In politics, in economics, and in accord with ideology, women are considered in society after society to be weaker, less well organized, less important, and less likely to succeed politically and hold economic power than men. Cross-cultural similarities appear worldwide and support a seamless trajectory of cultural evolution from simple to complex navigated by genetic imperatives. So many societies are considered (or at least counted) that objections can arise only from those who “refuse to face the facts.” Whatever biases exist, we are told, are canceled out by the quantity and variety of data. A number of studies show that the contribution of women, and men’s recognition of it, has been underestimated by ethnographers (Leacock 1981). Ethnographic restudies, such as Weiner’s (1976) restudy of the Trobriands, show that the role of women has been misunderstood. More recently, Askew (1999) has shown that Swahili gender subordination is an historical legacy of Islam; Strathern (1988) has reworked perspectives on a number of societies; Ortner (1981) and Rosaldo and Lamphere (1974) have provided important overviews of the pervasiveness of assumptions about women’s roles in society. Nevertheless, these studies tend to be treated as special pleading or exceptions, and have little impact on the firmly held convictions that motivate most research into the distant past. Regardless of their empirical reality, beliefs about gender are as deeply embedded in western culture as are the tenets of science and the practices of social science, and have shaped the development of western knowledge (Lloyd 1995, Wylie 1997). These beliefs have determined not only the paths of research but also which gender would travel these paths. What we know about the history of the difference between women and men comes mostly from research by men with a particular cultural background that attracted them to the topic (Ashmore 2002). The manner in which deeply held beliefs about gender intersect with scientific analysis has been the subject of numerous discussions. Some scholars see this as a challenge to science; for example Haraway (1989) has argued that scientific reasoning is inherently gender-biased and therefore inherently male, an intellectual apartheid argument that can lead to the same assumptions as its antithesis: that the biological differences between women and men, and their consequent behaviors, make women and men incomparable and incommensurable. Grosz (1994) has argued that this is a more useful political stance than democratic arguments about the equality of the sexes, because neither the public nor the male dominated power structure of western science is receptive to the rejection of gender as a biological category that predicts ability, inclination, and ultimately social form and historical trajectories. Similarly, Gilchrist (1999) sees attempts to use data to construct a new understanding of the role of women in prehistory as falling into a masculinist trap. Gilchrist and Grosz agree that since poor science and thin scholarship in a racist or sexist context have promoted essentialism,

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neither science nor scholarship can be trusted as an antidote for bias. Ironically this leaves policy makers and social scientists with no basis for decision making other than preference and power; exactly the situation that postmodern feminists decry, and lay at the feet of science. Nevertheless, the fact remains that a fair amount of what has been accepted as scientific has never been examined at all (Mukhopadhyay and Higgins 1988). Furthermore, the pattern to the scientific facts that have been accepted uncritically conforms to western folklore about gender. This pattern is readily discernible in anthropology texts that purport to describe crosscultural universals by identifying similarities in ancient material culture. A good example is Barber’s (1994) book on women and weaving, which begins with the assertion that women weave everywhere because it is compatible with childcare. She then identifies string skirts in early European cultures from Gravettian to Greek, claiming them to be irresistible to men and empowering to wear, for which assertion she offers support from her own experience of wearing tassels. Such an essentialist perspective on a cultural group would be heaped with ridicule and rejection, but Barber’s book has been heralded as a truly important and scientific contribution, perhaps because this is the sort of reasoning the scientific establishment expects (and prefers) from women. The problem with this approach is simply that under the guise of induction, it fails to consider the origin or the varying context of the facts it identifies (Handsman 1991, Nelson 1997, Stone 1997). The vast majority of anthropological information about other cultures, and especially about “pristine” cultures documented early in the history of colonialism and exploration, was collected and recorded by European men. Many of these men were brilliant scholars and ethnographers, but rarely was gender the focus of their study; both the facts they selected as meaningful and the manner of their questioning reflect ideas about gender held before they went into the field. Malinowski knew that women practiced forms of wealth and status accumulation, but saw the Trobriand women’s system as a subordinate subset of the male system, not requiring direct analysis (Weiner 1976). Gregory Bateson (1958), one of the few anthropologists of his day to focus on gender, nevertheless constructed a description of a Naven ceremony as an inversion of male dominance that verifies its existence. He envisioned only two genders and assumed that female must necessarily be the marked category. The brilliance of these ethnographies is not in question, the issue is simply that they all have the same “biological” assumptions, and at least some of the cross-cultural continuity recorded was related to the common origins of the recorders as much as to the parallels in the systems they observed. And if this is true about the best studies, there can be no doubt about the perspective that pervades many of the more pedestrian studies summarized in the HRAF. In fact some of the most cherished examples were recorded by adventurers

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and merchants who not only had no reason to query their own biases, but actually had an impact on gender relations in the cultures they witnessed and exploited. Spanish, English, and Portuguese missionaries and traders actively reorganized local cultures for their own purposes, as did Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, and Arabs in earlier centuries of western history; it should be no surprise that they saw local gender categories and behaviors in terms of their own beliefs about women and men and their own desires for companionship and commerce. The central thesis here is that the subordination of women and the scientific identification of gender roles have histories, sometimes intertwined so that most recorded cultural similarity is homologous rather than analogous.

Animal muddles The first obstacle to arguments against human cultural universals is always western mythology about human biology. Very long traditions of philosophy and religion underlie what scientists accept as verified truth about the biological basis of gender systems. At the center of many alternative perspectives and disagreements is the perceived tension between the influences of nature (heredity) and nurture (environment) on human development that underlies much western folk wisdom. This tension has been dramatized throughout western history in everything from Oedipus Rex, to Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, and “Baywatch,” and where European and Eurasian folklore is concerned, “blood will out.” The reasoning behind the argument presented here, that early state societies should be examined closely for evidence of male dominance rather than assumed to provide it, does not depend on biological arguments. Logically, there is no reason to be concerned about whether testosterone is the proximate cause of the modern world system, since our focus here is on identification of gender roles in particular societies in transition to complexity, not the ultimate causes of that transition. But experience has shown that questioning beliefs about gender is often construed as anti-science and a failure to face the facts of human biology, which make studies like this one irrelevant, unnecessary, and ignored. As one woman remarked to a CNN interviewer in response to a query about the propriety of President Bill Clinton’s sexual behavior in the White House, “We know what men are like, why is this an issue?” Consequently, a brief statement about biological models is worthwhile, even though the topic is broached with no intention of a complete discussion. In a recent summary of Gender in Archaeology, Nelson (1997) describes the way in which focusing on the origins of humans and human behavior both reifies and validates the status quo in the modern world. First of all, the decision to focus on the origin of one particular characteristic rather than another reifies that characteristic as timeless and essential in human history.

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So for example, the study of the origin of stone tool manufacture is deeply embedded in a system of beliefs and assumptions about what makes humans human. Stone tools have been studied mostly (though certainly not exclusively) by men (Gero 1991, Spector 1991), and the origin of tool making is usually associated with increased flexibility in human adaptation through an increased emphasis on learned behavior and reduced reliance on instinct. Tool use has long been associated with enlargement of the brain. Stone tools are also considered evidence of a male–female division of labor and the rise of male hunting behavior (Brace 1988). Justification for this assumption is usually drawn from the ethnographic present of groups where records indicate (accurately or not) that stone tools were manufactured and used by men (Sassaman 1998). Often groups that supply these data were incompletely observed and far from any “pristine” state, but the a priori assumption that men are the tool makers has long made anthropologists comfortable with this circular reasoning. Men made tools in the past, because they make them in the present; men make tools in the present because they made them in the past. The division of labor between men and women is basic to human biology; all we need is a small amount of data to show how and when the underlying genetic imperatives evolved. The important point here is that it makes a difference how an anthropologist frames a research question. It has become professionally important for physical anthropologists to identify the earliest human fossils, and anthropologists have tied the definition of humanity to the division of labor. Consequently it is commonplace among hominid specialists jockeying for professional recognition, to discover evidence of a gender-based division of labor. Not surprisingly the identification of divergent patterns of gender behavior is frequently asserted on the basis of data much too slim to rule out competing hypotheses. For example, one popular argument proposes that bipedalism arose because males ranged widely to procure food and needed free hands to carry it back to a mate. Food sharing between males and females would have arisen from a need for meat, a need for sexual access, and a need for the protection of females and young. These are certainly a possibility, but they are logical scenarios based on almost no data, and there are innumerable other ways to explain the significance of the data available on the origin of bipedalism. This type of extrapolation can only be characterized as “fast and loose.” It is more than simply ironic that the underlying motive of origins research is to understand how humans differ from other animals, since such studies invariably make broad assumptions that similar behavior indicates a common origin, especially between primates and hominids. Few anthropologists today would accept the argument that pyramids exist in Mesoamerica and Egypt because of a common origin; but it is widely accepted that polygamy and male sexual aggression among baboons and humans is explained by common biology.

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In reality, male dominance in the animal world is not nearly as simple a proposition as was once thought (Mukhopadhyay and Higgins 1988). Recent work focusing on female behavior has shown that females create and participate in social hierarchies and political scenarios (Smuts 1987). The importance of this work is not that males and females do the same thing (although they frequently do), but that scholars have privileged male behavior as political and indicating social dominance with selective consequences, while constructing female behavior as subordinate and contingent. Why would a higher death rate and more frequent acts of fatal aggression among males necessarily be equated with political dominance? What exactly is “political” in the context of a baboon troop? If the question is “what is the origin of male dominated political systems?” then the data on males are what count, and only male strategies will be taken to indicate the origin of political behavior. Clearly other questions are possible and most of the propositions that currently stand cannot rule out competing hypotheses without circular reference to the ethnographic present and problematic fossils (Marks 2002). Most of these arguments can be inverted as has begun to be shown by Falk (1998), Smuts (1987), Zihlman (1989), and others. By protecting their offspring and determining leadership in the next generation, female baboons could be said to maintain political dominance by averting physical danger while effectively making most selectively important decisions. Females might be determined to be the more political sex, since male behavior more often deteriorates into physical violence. A similar piece of circular reasoning concerns the significance of size on political and social dominance. Evidence that males are larger is considered evidence of male domination; this is particularly important to the interpretation of the fossil record, where evidence of actual behavior is scarce, but where hominid fossils suggesting sexual dimorphism have been used to argue for male dominance in the prehuman past. The reason for this emphasis of course is that human males are statistically larger and more physically powerful than human females. Surely this is the proof of a biological basis for human male dominance. The opposite possibility could be constructed from observations of bonobo (Pan paniscus) sexual behavior (De Waal 1997). In general, bonobos exhibit less sexual dimorphism, competitiveness, and aggression over food, space, and mates than do common chimpanzees, but much more frequent and varied sexual encounters between individuals of both the same and different sexes. Sexual contact, furthermore, seems to be strongly associated with contexts in which competitive behavior arises among common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), and has been argued to serve to defuse sources of friction within the group. In addition, like many other social primates, bonobos form relationships between individuals that seem to take advantage of what biological information they have: genetic relationships between females and offspring. Females form strong bonds with each other and with

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their offspring. Since promiscuity makes paternity unknown, only male bonds through a relationship with the mother or with siblings can have reliable selective significance. Since females can recognize their offspring, they have a better chance of maintaining a selective advantage in the next generation through cross-generation political alliances than males, who are more likely to find competitors than allies. In fact, since female bonding is so pervasive and successful and also provides sexual satisfaction, the slightly larger size of males may be a response to males’ subordinate political position, which selects for aggressive antisocial behavior. Males are forced to maintain a high degree of sexual tension, readiness, and aggression as a result of female political dominance, which results in higher male mortality and perpetuates their subjugation. Without their size and aggressiveness, males would have little impact on troop behavior or organization, and few chances to mate with females. There can be no claim that this scenario is the only correct interpretation of primate data, but it is no more speculative than more common male-centered arguments; it merely make males into the marked category. Whether animal behavior is studied for evidence of the genetic predispositions of human behavior, or to identify functional correlations between parts of a sociopolitical system that are likely to reoccur in many contexts, it is generally accepted that the best source of analogy comes from chimpanzees because they are our closest living biological relatives. As already noted, there are two kinds of chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes or common chimpanzees studied most famously by Goodall and her team (1971, 1986, 1990), and Pan paniscus or bonobos, studied by Kano (1992) De Waal (1997) and others. Both types of chimpanzee are believed to share 98 percent of their DNA with modern humans (Marks 2002) and presumably they share even more with each other, since they are more similar to each other in habitat, development, phenotype, and behavior than is either to modern humans. They are also closer in time to their common ancestor than to the ancestor they share with modern humans. Nevertheless, the two types of chimpanzee are quite distinct. As noted, bonobos are less aggressive, sexually dimorphic, competitive, and violent, and more sexually active and likely to practice food sharing than common chimpanzees. These are exactly the behaviors that have been argued to indicate the origins of human political behavior; if chimpanzees and bonobos differ this much, why should human behavior be assumed to derive in a predictable way from either? Why should chimpanzee genes, which incorporate a significant degree of species divergence, be indicative (much less definitive) of behavior among primates even more distantly related? Perhaps it is exactly the replacement of chimpanzee-style political behavior and sexuality with a learned set of alternatives that distinguishes humans as a separate species. Chimpanzees are neither living fossils nor inadequate humans; they are a separate modern

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species. They cannot show us exactly what we came from, much less what genes make modern humans do (Marks 2002). One final point is important in this context. Recently Goodall (1990) has suggested that the Gombe chimpanzees she observed exhibited some aberrant behavior as a result of the impact of her presence (she fed them) and other environmental change that is affecting their social life. If this should turn out to be so, and common chimpanzees are more like bonobos when undisturbed, it would suggest a huge amount of flexibility in those behaviors treated as most relevant to the origins of human gender systems. It seems clear that whatever the genetic commonality between humans and other primates, political and social behaviors are the most flexible and very unlikely to be determined by genes in a simple way.

Family values: the functional models Even in more modest studies (e.g. Whyte 1978), not reliant on simplified poor quality HRAF-type data or animal models, and where detailed crosscultural studies are presented as supporting the ubiquity of male dominance to a lesser degree, the assumption of inequality is still there before the data are collected. For example, Whyte states that, though no societies are dominated by women, this does not mean that men dominate women in all societies in the same ways and to the same degree. Nevertheless “Women never seem to dominate men in all of social life, but the degree of male dominance ranges from total to minimal” (p. 167). The absence of dominance is never discovered. Feminists have put forward a number of arguments to lighten the load of this observation. They tell us that child raising is just as important as politics, gathering provides more food than hunting, women provide the power behind the throne. But some scholars find these explanations frustrating. While it is sexist to assume that one role is more important simply because men play that role, it is difficult to agree that child-rearing and political power should be measured against each other and treated as alternatives – they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Why should a woman not hunt, gather, bear children, and wear the crown? There are, of course, plenty of exceptions. Boudicca, Cleopatra, and Margaret Thatcher all broke the rules of female behavior and wielded enormous political power in their own right. There are new data from Eurasian where female graves contain armor and weapons, although excavator Davis-Kimball (2002) suggests women were priestesses or transvestites rather than soldiers or third gender. These options confine female power to the metaphysical or to the imitation of men. Women have always owned property and made political decisions. There is no evidence that all women are incapable, physiologically or even within the confines of

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most ideologies of performing exactly the same tasks as men. But usually – statistically – they do not. Since this model treats the subordination of women as a statistical probability rather than a cultural universal, its explanation is as much functional as biological. It is not genetic limitations of size or thought patterns or hormonal imperatives that keep women out of the public sphere, it is the simple fact that women are hampered by children. Pregnancy and lactation reduce energy and mobility; small children require constant care not compatible with hunting, raiding, or campaigning. Proponents of this view argue that it is more convenient for women to gather near home, make pottery, scrape hides, and cook than go hunting with a huge belly or make a political presentation while breast-feeding. Besides, as a US politician recently said, “You don’t put your breeding stock on the firing line.” The implication here is that such inefficiency would jeopardize the biological success of the human species, and that the age-old division of labor that protected females but put men in charge is at the root of human origins. Groups that failed to develop this division would not be as competitive. This behavioral model, like the more simplistic and straightforward genetic model, drives the origin of sexism back three million years and fixes it securely in natural selection, absolving such practices from moral evaluation, just as do the more blatant genetic models. So although not necessarily encoded in DNA, to be sexist is to be human. While this is a perfectly good logical model, it does not fit ethnographic reality, past or present. Many of the observations made by male ethnographers from the United States and Europe simply applied their expectations to what they saw, assuming that the economic contribution of women was inferior to and contingent on the contribution of men. That women provide most of the food and do most of the provisioning in huntergatherer cultures was eventually noted, but somehow it was never seen to contradict the assertion that women do less economically important work because they have children. A variety of recent studies have discounted the western elite model of adult females as natural full-time caregivers (MacCormack and Strathern 1980). But the astonishing thing is the number of ethnographers, cultural studies specialists, and especially archaeologists who still begin their research with these same assumptions. Literature on the goddess culture in Europe offers a good example of this situation. Although the slimness of the data and the sexism of almost all interpretations have been pointed out repeatedly (see Russell 1998 for a wonderful summary of this literature), generalizations and assertions about the European mother goddess continue to appear. Goddess literature both by women and men has been a litmus for sexist tendencies: one scholar has recently proposed that women (expressing their female power) made bottom-heavy goddess figurines because in looking downward at themselves they would see the type of distorted image believed to be commonly made in

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early Europe. Unfortunately for this myopia theory (women were apparently unable to look at each other), the obese top-heavy figurines that have so inspired discussion are actually rather rare among collections of Paleolithic figurines, which include slim women, men, and (mostly) androgynous representations (Russell 1993). In part the belief in behavioral continuity over vast reaches of time and space has to do with the conflation of poverty with tradition, as well as a deep seated ethnocentrism among western and western-trained anthropologists (after all, an anthropological perspective is, by definition, a western perspective). All over the world, people are labeled as traditional when the truth is that they are simply poor (Pyburn 1998, Wilk 1991). People cling to old things when they do not have any new things; and they continue cheap ways when they have no access to the time, technology, and education necessary to employ more costly solutions. In modern America, the convention of living in nuclear families (which has a short history and a rather modest statistical reality) makes child care available only to those who can pay for it. Poor women and men cannot make enough money to cover the cost, so the only economic choice is for someone to stay home; the law says that must be an adult and the sociopolitical system dictates that men can make more money in the marketplace. Although the historical facts tell a very different story this is now considered the traditional mode for US families. The poor do it because they have to, and the rich, who can really live comfortably on a single income, do it because it is traditional, as evidenced for them by the behavior of the socially unreconstructed poor. This digression into what people do and consider correct in the United States is important because it is necessary to better situate prevalent models and assumptions about gender. No one who has ever lived in a village in a developing nation could believe that women stay home to take care of children rather than going to work because it is more efficient. Families in difficult economic circumstances simply cannot afford the luxury of wasting the labor of an adult female, or anyone else for that matter. Many ethnographies have made this point and Nelson (1997) discusses it elegantly. Nevertheless, the tenacity of its hold over social theory and gender studies especially among archaeologists justifies further elaboration here. Let me use an ethnographic anecdote that should make clear the fallacy of this sort of reasoning. When my daughter was a baby and I was working in Belize, I soon realized that, in contrast to my experience in the United States, it was possible to visit the homes of friends in the village where I worked and have a conversation, despite the fact that we all had small demanding offspring. In fact, as soon as I entered the door, my child would usually be snatched up by eager hands and whisked away until I was ready to leave. I was always a bit uncomfortable in these situations, because I was accustomed to knowing exactly where she was all the time and who had her. Much of the time in the village she seemed to be the center of attention for children hardly

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larger than herself. Naively, I thought her alien looking white hair and exotic origin must have made her an interesting curiosity to Creole children, who seemed strangely lacking in toys, either store-bought or homemade. Then I hired Debra Jones (not her real name) to take care of my child while I ran an archaeological project. Ms Jones was 23 years old and had recently graduated from Belize technical college, but had no work and was eager for a paying job. She seemed perfect if a bit overqualified for the job of baby-sitter, since she had been raised in a big family and had a mother who stayed home and kept house and cooked and “did” for eight children. Each day Ms Jones came out to the archaeological site, where I and my family and students were living, to take care of Elvia, age 4, and keep her occupied and out of trouble while I dug and my husband wrote. It was immediately clear that Ms Jones could not do this job. Elvia was constantly running after me and clinging to my knees and preventing my husband from writing anything with constant interruptions. Both Jones and Elvia were clearly bored, and I realized that Jones had no idea what to do with a 4-year-old child to occupy her. They finally settled into lessons in a school-like set up, but 4-year-olds cannot study math and reading for eight hours a day. The camp cook, also a mother from the village, allowed Elvia to help knead dough, but it was clear that she was spoiling the boss’s child, not treating her as she would have treated a child of her own. Eventually Jones partially solved the problem by bringing her younger brothers and sisters and a few miscellaneous cousins out to the site whenever they could get out of school. This worked, although the kids still seemed bored and frustrated and I could not understand why Debra Jones was too lazy to take care of one little girl, but had to bring her younger family members to do it for her. My lazy theory was rather shot down by the fact that I constantly found her volunteering in the project laboratory or the kitchen and working very hard. Since this incident I have lived with my family in a Creole village and I know what the problem was. Adults do not take care of small children. Infants are cared for by 8- to 10-year-olds (both boys and girls). Almost no one breast-feeds babies. Toddlers are watched by 5- and 6-year-olds, and by anyone who is near them (because they are so mobile and they are not herded or confined the way US children are), including the family dogs, who alert family members when the smallest children stray out of the yard. Children older than about 3 run around freely between houses in little packs, cadging food from adults and stealing it off fruit trees and out of gardens. At mealtime they expect to eat wherever they are, though they avoid houses where the food is scarce or not good and are pretty careful about wearing out their welcome. They also expect to be sent on errands or to help with chores in whatever house they are playing or eating. Some children shoot birds and small mammals with sling shots and cook them in the forest by the time they are 6 or 7.

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Belizean village children have a language dialect that only children speak and they have a culture that has little to do with adults. Interaction with adults occurs when there has been a violation of adult rules (Did you steal Miss Gloria’s shirt?), or when the adult wants something from the child (Take this plate of food to your father out in his field), or when the child wants something from the adult (Can I have money to go to town with my big brother?). There is no doubt that adults are in control, but children rarely get themselves into situations that involve adults. Most of the time, children play with, watch out for, and care for each other. I also realized that there were destroyed, neglected toys all over the place that children had played with for 15 minutes and thrown down never to pick up again. This is because possessions can cause envy and quarrels that tear the social fabric of child culture, so toys are immediately played with by everyone, usually more roughly by the children who covet them. Parents who decide a special toy must be preserved put it on a high shelf and leave it in the box. Destruction of the toys destroys jealousy. The treatment of toys is just one example of many that indicates a strong child-culture with non-adult values and motivations exists in this context. Village children have each other to play with, which is demonstrably more important to them than dolls or plastic guns provided by adults. Who needs a baby doll when you have a 3-week-old cousin whom you can hold and change and feed as much as you want? Clearly this is a case study from a single village, and things will not be exactly the same all over the world. Interestingly, a colleague of mine recently brought his Filipino wife and their six children to the US and tried to live on the salary of a visiting assistant professor. The family almost starved since the cost of child care prevented the wife from working. She was wretched and astonished that she was unable to work, since she was fully employed at home and never expected to become a household prisoner in the US. She eventually left her husband and took the children home to her village, where she could have a “normal” life holding a full-time job to support her children. At the very least, it should be clear from the foregoing that assumptions about the efficiency of a particular gender-based division of labor should be scrapped. Anthropologists cannot at the same time hold that women are incapacitated by pregnancy and childbirth and must be protected during lactation, and that women do the bulk of heavy physical labor in most cultures, because both are biologically programmed and natural. While heavy physical labor is the norm for women in most cultures, protection and coddling of pregnant and lactating women are not. Where women are excused from labor on the basis of physiological processes, it is mostly other women and children who make up the deficit.

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Postmodern science: resisting the bad questions One reason why the anthropologists’ conviction about the universality of male dominance has persisted is that it blinds scholars to the bad questions it generates. We ask questions that assume the answer, or construct hypotheses that cannot be ruled out with contradictory evidence. “Why are women excluded from politics?” contains the assumption that we already know they are excluded, all we need is to find it in a particular context. Any evidence to the contrary will automatically be treated as exceptional or “proving the rule.” Tautological questions are bad science in any discipline but they are especially bad for archaeologists to pose because they place weight on negative evidence. In archaeology, where symbols of wealth and power are often discovered without clear gender associations, it is not uncommon for artifacts to be casually gendered by the archaeologist according to current practice or ethnographic analogy that is implicitly or explicitly gendered. Beginning with the assumption that studying weaving is studying women certainly precludes the possibility of finding out anything new about gender; this sort of approach simply extends our beliefs into the past. There is ample evidence that counters the assumption that male dominance will be symbolized and enacted in the same or even comparable ways cross-culturally (Strathern 1988). How can we know that a particular behavior pattern necessarily indicates male dominance? An example of perceptual difficulties may be illustrated with another ethnographic example. Richard Wilk is an ethnographer who did his first field work among the Kekchi Maya of southern Belize (Wilk 1991). He tells the story of an interview that he once carried out with a village elder. The interviewee was an old man who was well respected and of high status. His equally elderly wife was ostensibly excluded from this discussion between men by staying behind the walls of her house in her “private space,” while the men conferred out front in the open. As the ethnographer began to ask the old man questions, however, the old woman made her presence known. “How long have you been married?” Wilk asked. “45 years,” said the old man, but an irritated voice from inside the house said, “47.” Without blinking, the old man said, “47.” “How many grandchildren do you have?” asked Wilk. “19,” said the old man. “21, you idiot,” said the voice from the house. “Uh, 21,” corrected the old man. “Gee,” said Wilk, beginning to feel uncomfortable, “how long have you lived in this village?”

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The old man hesitated in silence for a moment until “Since 1942,” said the voice behind the wall. “Since 1942,” said the old man, as though he had just come up with it himself. In effect, the voice behind the wall controlled this entire interview, although the visible old man behaved as if only he could hear the voice. Of course the Kekchi have been identified as patriarchal and when Wilk first told me this story, I thought the old woman was amazing to stand up to her husband after years of domination or that perhaps this was an indication of the latitude allowed post-menopausal women, but now I have changed my mind. If the man had been behind the wall, and the woman out front having her every word challenged and contradicted, I would have taken this as an indication of male domination. So if the woman is behind the wall, I see the wall as an indication of male dominance. If the woman is in front of the wall, I see the voice as an indication of male dominance. I realized that there were no conditions under which I would be able to see a woman not dominated. Unless we ask questions that can be contradicted, we cannot get anywhere by collecting more data.

Women with a past So if we reject the biological basis and the blanket functional explanations of gender subordination, where does the cross-cultural continuity come from? I have already suggested that HRAF data are profoundly affected by observer bias, but this idea deserves exemplification and expansion. This is the premise developed by Wolf (1982), who shows clearly that the origin of much cultural continuity and cross-cultural similarity is not the result of cultural isolation, but of historical contact and interaction. Both cultural universals and local idiosyncrasies, once thought to be evidence of essential humanness and racial imperatives, can be understood as reactions to exposure and subordination to a larger world. For a variety of historical reasons western scholars, historians, philosophers, and social scientists have developed a theory of cultural variety and ethnicity based on the concepts of independence and tradition. Wolf outlines this process brilliantly, showing how an essentialist concept of culture has resulted in historical reconstruction that leaves some (many) people without history. Cultures outside Europe are described as “cold,” timeless, traditional isolates, whose members are “living in the past.” This construction creates the essentialism it describes by justifying and promoting hegemonic economic and political interactions with “traditional, ahistorical” groups. According to Wolf:

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people of diverse origins and social makeup were driven to take part in the construction of a common world. They included the European sea merchants and soldiery of various nationalities, but also native Americans, Africans and Asians. In the process, the societies and cultures of all these people underwent major changes. These changes affected not only the peoples singled out as the carriers of “real” history but also the populations anthropologists have called “primitives” and have often studied as pristine survivals from a timeless past. The global processes set in motion by European expansion constitute their history as well. There are thus no “contemporary ancestors,” no people without history, no peoples – to use Lévi-Strauss’s phrase – whose histories have remained “cold.” (Wolf 1982, p. 385) Wolf ’s book is a treatise against cultural essentialism that makes its case through analysis of the historical data on global cultural interaction. Because of the broad sweep of the book, data tend to be generalized and summarized for particular cultures and time periods; nevertheless, his case for the mutual formation of cultural alternatives even under antagonistic conditions is compelling. Wolf shows on a case by case basis how culture after culture was dramatically affected by trade and economic relations with Europe during the fifteenth century. He makes clear that he does not mean to privilege a particular century as the only era in which interconnections between cultures occurred, but only that this was a particularly important era. The age of exploration witnessed the intensification of contacts across great areas of the globe and was the period when many of the cultures that we frequently consider historical isolates became deeply involved in a global system of interaction and exchange. And although Wolf focuses on a period in history for which we have at least some written accounts, it is clear from his data and his arguments that few cultures were ever isolates, but had interconnections and interactions beyond their borders throughout their existence. We can now turn to an ethnographic example of how the rise and institutionalization of core–periphery hegemony can play out through gender, effecting subordination of a local group by changing the status of women without seeming to threaten the status quo.

The riddle of the rodeo queen Having discussed biological and functional explanations for the political subordination of women, I now turn last to examine the historical processes of globalization. These are the mechanisms of capitalism and mercantilism that have created a homogenizing situation for gender in the modern world and at the same time blinded us to the origins of that homogeneity.

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For Marx, the hegemonic relations of capitalism were the focus of discussion. Consequently, Wolf ’s heuristic use of Marxist categories similarly embeds gender in class and political economy without further elaboration. I do not propose to challenge the writings of Marx, but there are two points to be made in this context: 1

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Categories are not hegemonic sui generis and the assumption that all social complexity is synonymous with the subordination of women (as though they were a social class) should be questioned (Strathern 1988), not assumed. The assumption that the rise of civilization means a decline in the status of women must be questioned with archaeological data, because ethnography came too late to find more than a few “pristine” cultural isolates. Conquistadors, merchants, and missionaries were not passive observers of the people they killed and enslaved; merchants and adventurers were not following a “prime directive” like the “Star Trek” characters who are forbidden to interfere with local cultures.

Explorers who did find “virgin” cultures, such as those Europeans encountered in the New World, observed what they needed to see and what they were equipped to understand, so their observations require verification. Additionally, the observations of merchants and conquerors require scrutiny for evidence of the sort of impact their intrusion had on local systems. This is especially the case regarding gender issues, since particular assumptions about male and female differences are so deeply embedded in the psyche of Europeans, conquerors and scholars alike. And as Marx argued, gender roles were very likely to be rapidly and profoundly impacted by capitalism. We may question nineteenth-century assumptions about the archaeological past and Engels’ (1884) confidence that the status of women would always decline as a whole with the rise of economic classes, but there is no doubt about the impact of capitalism on the condition of women in the modern world system. Gender is clearly tied into this economic system and may possibly always be vulnerable to redefinition under conditions of change in political economy. But this is a question to ask of archaeological data, not a basis for assumptions about the past, much less the source of proof that an ancient people was “civilized.” “The essence of capital is its ability to mobilize social labor by buying labor power and setting it to work” (Wolf 1982, p. 354). Concentration of capital in the dynamic European core resulted in the creation of peripheral (Wallerstein 1974) and underdeveloped areas (Gunder-Frank 1967). Wolf accepts this hegemonic dichotomy, but points out that this perspective leaves underdeveloped peripheries without history and argues that we must examine wider linkages to understand how specific cultures “were drawn into the larger system to suffer its impact and to become its agents” (p. 23). To ignore

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the specific historical processes involved in the incorporation of varied peoples into the world-system is to essentialize these “peripheral” cultures as “traditional,” denying them participation in the creation of world history. By the same token, to ignore the specific historical processes that incorporate women from varied cultures into an essentialized timeless model of femininity ignores the history of women’s experience. We must try to understand not only how but also why women and other culturally defined groups came to participate in their own exploitation. And besides looking at how hegemony was worked out on the basis of individual cultures, we must also try to understand how women developed certain types of resistance (Scott 1985) and how colonized and dominated groups managed to have an impact on the development of the core cultures. These are the real foci of a study that may gather new information rather than repeating essentialist categories. Focusing on the implications of Wolf ’s model for understanding the history of gender relations and gender studies brings the issues of voluntary participation in an exploitative system, modes of resistance, and reciprocal impact immediately into the foreground. Wolf ’s model suggests some ways in which essentialization and homogenization of the periphery take place, but he does not consider the special place of gender in this process. Our task must be to explain how women have become essentialized in similar but not the same ways in a variety of cultures that have remained distinct, despite the homogenizing factors of economic globalization and the world system. The crux of the argument must be to explain how women have been essentialized and victimized without casting all women as inherent, natural, genetic, complicit, or even traditional victims. The answer is that this happens in two ways: women either accept or resist essentialism and commoditization, but either way they become oriented to a single set of defining criteria. Capitalism globalizes gender roles by essentializing both gender and class; in the west, gender is usually a subset of class, with women responsible for upholding the respectability of their particular economic group (in contrast to the reputation of the group, which is more skewed toward the behavior of men). Cohen, Wilk, and Stoeltje (1996) provide examples of a classic context of global hegemony where women are the focus: beauty pageants. The issue that motivates cross-cultural studies of pageants is “Why women?” This common focus is an example of a cross-cultural situation that can be construed to suggest something essential, something biological about the male gaze and female attractiveness. In reality, pageants are used to establish the continuity of “essence” that they are believed to represent. Wilk (1996, 2002) describes how the rise of pageants does not simply homogenize perceptions of beauty or subordinate local conceptions of femininity and sexuality, but instead globalizes the terms of discussion and debate. Writing about the Central American country of Belize, Wilk asks why

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the Belizean liberal party (the PUP) that stands publicly against European and US exploitation of Belize, the commoditization of its citizens, and colonialist values should support beauty pageants. Is this a sign that Belize has achieved a level of political development where the division of labor reaches its highest form? Perhaps, but the evolution of beauty as a means of political expression is historical in an important way. The commoditization of women, the elevation of a focus on the “natural beauty” of local resources (which include women), identifies the new nation state with the first world exploiters, rather than the “exploited.” If “we are just as good,” as an advertisement for a locally produced drink once proclaimed in a full page advertisement in a Belizean newspaper, we value women as a natural resource rather than as producers and we use resources for leisure entertainment rather than for (re)production. We are wealthy enough to have unused land and trophy women without work or skills who starve to be beautiful (not because they have no food). So the answer is not the biological basis of the male gaze or the impact of sexual selection on the commoditization of women, but that in western culture, gender is one of the primary terms of the debate about class. What it means to be respectably modern in a global context economically and politically controlled by Europe and the United States is closely tied into a hegemonic definition of what it means to be a man or a woman. You must know what a woman is in order to compete on the world stage, you must show a very particular western type of discrimination to supply a candidate who can win the contest. But because winning involves accepting the commoditization of citizenry, winners from the periphery are acceptable to the hegemonic powers, which similarly commodify their own. Belize shows it is as powerful as the US in its own country, and proclaims itself modern and affluent enough to play by global rules. Wilk (1995, 2004) shows how participation in this global dialog in which the west sets the terms of the debate even though there is cultural exchange and disagreement creates a structure of “common difference.” Pageants provide an ironic agency to the oppressed. Asante queen mothers may have been ignored, but beauty queens get press coverage. Participation on the “global stage” gives a tiny group (or an individual woman) a chance to answer back. Competition is partly resistance; native beauties without the anorexic characteristics of global beauties may be strong local favorites symbolizing the autonomy of local values. But it is also acceptance, since the idea of such competitions is often recently absorbed; and local women may be proudly held up as beautiful enough to compete on global criteria. There is an important connection between pageants that focus on European-style beauty and those that focus on culturally embedded beauty (the most beautiful Maya woman, the most beautiful cowgirl, the most feminine transvestite), which brings us back to Wolf. These are the pageants that identify, define, and legitimize cultural essences and traditions as

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timeless. Through them marginalized groups both accept an ahistorical and commoditized role in the world system, but also seize this designation as a source of power. The beauty of Maya women must be measured in Mayan terms, since each culture must have its own unique and traditional take on human physiology. Demonstrating this demonstrates the continued vitality of a culture in modern terms; paradoxically such pageants validate peripheral cultures in the global present by subordinating a local ideal to a global structure, even if the local ideal must be created for this purpose (a fact which surely makes these pageants seem even more irrelevant and benign at the local level). The terms of the debate are imposed, but the outcome looks different locally. Indigenous people triumph over the world system by commodifying women in local terms; globalization proceeds as local cultures accept the commoditization of women as a structure of common difference, as a natural part of their “traditions.” This is a classic example of Scott’s (1985) arguments about domination and resistance. Pageants legitimize social groups by attributing their system of values to the biological characteristics of beauty and thereby naturalizing them, by making them intelligible to the world system by translating their organization into the global vocabulary of common difference, and by giving them access to a wide audience, a global one if they are extremely successful. Western patriarchy sees local pageants as “cute,” “charming,” and utterly appropriate evidence of subordination. Local groups see them as subversive or expressions of autonomy, despite their acceptance of globalizing frames of evaluation and a commodifying stance toward participants. And of course, the men who are in charge do not feel their power and control are threatened by the subordination of women. In fact, in many cases both historical and recent, the commoditization of women has been a means to increase national political power and economic development through the disempowering of women. The sacrifice of female autonomy is made to seem acceptable to women and men who have been convinced that this is a natural expression of both genders. The anthropological interpretation of Venus figurines as “primitive” expressions of a male gaze follows these same principles, since it provides such a clear example of the manner in which an aesthetic standard of quality associated with biologically female characteristics has been used to essentialize culture. Paleolithic standards of beauty must by definition be the most primitive of all; the opposite pole of the continuum that ends in modern anorexia. But rather than evidence for the biological origin of human sexual aesthetics, the Willendorf and other early sexed figurines might be interpreted as proof of the extreme antiquity within European tradition of an intellectual tie between cultural integrity or even claims of superiority and a particular aesthetic sensibility focused on gender. The purportedly primitive Venuses, which have long been said to exhibit an emphasis on fertility, are probably too obese to succeed biologically in a hunter-gatherer economy, and

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may or may not have been considered erotic. Known societies privilege neither a Willendorf nor a Barbie presentation of sexuality consistently. Since Paleolithic Venus figurines are now acknowledged to be quite rare, the possibility that they were expressions of ethnicity developed within a larger realm of human interaction where many forms of aesthetic were in play should be reconsidered. It is irresistible to suggest that they may have originated one of the earliest structures of common difference pertaining to the definition of “beauty” or simply “human” rather than a definition of “woman.” Many groups apparently responded with local aesthetic expressions, since this is consistent with the wide distribution and variety in form of such objects. And in this context it is extremely interesting to note that the majority of figurines were not clearly female; in fact, the majority were not gendered at all. The insidiousness of this kind of cross-cultural participation is that it seems politically and economically harmless; what could be the harm of picking the most beautiful woman in the world, especially if she is granted a scholarship to assure her future economic well-being. Most women say they participate in beauty contests for the educational opportunities they can win (Cohen, Wilk, and Stoeltje 1996). By accepting the commoditization of women, developing nations accept competition for an honor which, if they compete successfully, gives entrée into a system of global commoditization which subordinates developing nations. Pageants serve to commodify and domesticate women, and in commodifying women men also fall into their global place, thereby dissolving the danger of the liminal by making it salable. The successful commoditization of gender situates competing nations in a class system where developing nations and economic peripheries rank low, no matter which woman wins the contest. In fact the more passionate the struggle to win, the deeper the penetration of the world system. As many authors have pointed out the labor power of women is controlled by men in a capitalistic society in a way that is very much parallel to core–periphery relations or development–underdevelopment phenomena as described by Wallerstein and Gunder-Frank. In the nature–culture dichotomy that is basic to a western world view, men are cultural, women natural. In his attempt to emphasize the “nobility” of savages, Lévi-Strauss argued, as have many other western anthropologists following Rousseau, that this dichotomy is a human universal, thus bringing all people into line with the basic western definition of decency. Violation of these boundaries is uncivilized and inhuman, it gives a “bad” impression, it makes a dangerous statement. In how many spy movies does the evil Russian female agent fail to be “natural” by using her “cultural” knowledge like a man to sabotage the supermacho American male hero? Better still, how often is she brought to heel by the American hero’s sex appeal that overwhelms her intellect by reaching her natural female instincts to love him?

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There is already a good case for the antiquity of this dichotomy in western cosmology and philosophy. But if Wolf is correct that western history essentializes culture incorrectly, and that culture has always been global, it seems reasonable to ask whether the essentialization of women has not been a product of this history and the globalization of the world system, carried out through innumerable hegemonic deals and relationships, exemplified in recent times by global beauty pageants. In each culture Europeans contacted they found what they expected: savages, Orientals, others. And in each culture they met, Europeans paid, rewarded, empowered, punished, destroyed, discouraged, recorded, or failed to record local customs according to their western desires, beliefs, sensibilities, and perceptions. Beauty pageants are situations in which women acquiesce to or resist globalizing processes; but both of these responses require another layer of analysis. Regardless of the response, the interaction between core and periphery, civilization and savage, men and women, results not in a monologue but in a dialogue. The precise outcome of this conversation is never exactly predetermined (Wilk 1996), since participation amounts not so much to a hegemonic relation of dominance of one by the other as to agreement on the terms of the discussion, which will not be the same in every cultural context. Here it becomes clear that there is more than one model of domination that is salient. The capitalist core, the male hierarchy of the developed nations may understand domination in one way, but the groups dominated may understand domination very differently. That is, economic domination of culture A by a core power B may make it possible for A to dominate culture C. From the perspective of A, there is now a steady market for goods allowing them political domination of a rival group. From the perspective of B, A is now a part of the empire. The point of interaction between A and B may be initiated and handled largely by B, but to A the result of allowing themselves to be dominated is increased economic and political control within the sphere of their most immediate interest. Future discussion and negotiation between A and B will be guided both by B’s hegemonic intent and by A’s similar intent toward C. To frame a less hypothetical example; among modern Belizean Creoles an important cause of divorce and strife within families is control over children. Husbands want their children raised by their maternal relatives, women want them raised by their maternal relatives, and the power struggles that ensue often last a lifetime. Embracing the essentialized role of woman as caregiver and full time stay-at-home mother may result in a female victory of control over her family in return for giving up economic equality within the family. Of course this is a stylized example, no individual case is this simple. The point is to show how domination occurs at many levels simultaneously and though adversaries must agree on the terms of debate in order to interact, the dominant core culture cannot completely control either the benefits that flow from its domination or the destruction to its own integrity that often results

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from the accommodation it must make to succeed in individual cases. In this context it is interesting to note that Belize also has a Mrs Belize pageant. Beauty pageants and other ethnographic studies of globalization show the complexity and subtlety of the interplay of capitalist processes with local categories of affiliation, competition, and gender in the modern world. Clearly there is too much variation to subsume these distinctions as class boundaries. They also show the insidiousness of the bad ethnographic question and the superfluity of the simplistic generalization. The argument that knowledge of the cross-cultural range of women’s roles and statuses is compromised by hegemony of the world system, the historical context of the recorders, and the credulity of their intellectual descendants emphasizes the importance of archaeology for understanding gender. While there can be no doubt that archaeological data are limited in ways that ethnographic data are not, I believe that we are dependent on archaeological reconstructions more than previously recognized, since they are often the exclusive record of societies outside the modern world system. If we winnow carefully the ethnohistorical biases in our records and the bad questions used in our beginning propositions, we may find that we do indeed have something new to say. At the very least, what is shown by the studies initiated here is that the pattern of gender distinctions shown among very early states is equivocal, rather strange, and very, very interesting. Engels would probably have been surprised.

The remaking of nations I began this research by rejecting belief in the primordial and genetic basis of gender inequality and attempted to approach ancient data as though current knowledge of the past were all filtered by the ahistorical lens described by Wolf. I organized a project for a group of students to investigate archaeological sources on a number of early complex societies. Each researcher approached a body of archaeological data for the first time to test the proposition made by Engels (1884) and accepted by so many subsequent authors that the rise of states and economic classes must necessarily include the domination of women and their reification as a social class. What do the data really show? The first generalization to be made is that in none of the cases examined are the data either simple or clear. While this is not surprising at first glance, since no one expected to be able to literally “dig up gender,” in light of another observation it is decidedly so. In none of the cultures examined were status distinctions difficult to identify archaeologically. Had this been the case, the culture would not have qualified for our sample of course, but the point to be made is that the absence of clear evidence of the subordination of women exists in the context of cultures famous for their representation of status distinctions in general. We found this to be true time after time. Since

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cultures without evidence of status distinctions do not usually get counted as states, it seems a likely possibility that the manner in which states are defined and identified archaeologically is based on sexist assumptions about what behavior counts as political, what organizations function as economic, and what material culture indicates either. The second generalization to be made concerns the situation in which we found ourselves when we attempted to reanalyze data collected and analyzed by scholars with a competing agenda, however implicit. We immediately ran into the empirical legacy of bad questions. For archaeologists studying early states, this appears embedded in the various evolutionary definitions that have been advanced to identify states. Since the domination of women is accepted from the outset of empirical research and data gathering as signifying the existence of a complex society (as opposed to a more primitive tribe or chiefdom, where roles are expected to be less rigidly and hierarchically defined), any evidence of gendered behavior is interpreted in this light. Hatch provides a classic example: some females of the Dallas culture of Tennessee “were buried with domestic utensils such as shell spoons,” (italics added), whereas some male burials “were set apart by the addition of lumps of mineral pigment . . . possibly used in connection with body painting preparatory to community ceremony which only this subset of males was permitted to attend” (1987:11). If the contexts of these artifacts had been reversed, no doubt the men would be seen as attending gendered “spoonbased” ceremonies and the lumps of pigment would have been explained as a cosmetic. Archaeologists consistently ask “How were women subordinate?” or “How subordinate were women?” but not “Were women subordinate?” At a deeper level, however, is the issue of the definitions inherent in standard models of cultural evolution, which modern archaeologists sometimes try not to use, but with little success. In these models, which organize human history into a progressive success story for technologically inclined groups, the rise of the state is the rise of organic solidarity and the shift from an ideologically based hierarchy to an economically based hierarchy. In chiefdoms rulers display pomp and circumstance to reify power and hold onto it; in states they control the means of production (Childe 1951, Brumfiel and Earle 1987). Objective as these determinations seem, they define the salient characteristics of cultures that rise to civilization in terms of roles that, in Europe, are believed to be naturally filled by men. So men, who are expected to be more mobile than women, more aggressive, and more daring, begin long-distance trade and learn to manipulate it, wage warfare, and begin specialist production and market economies. Women may weave, scrape hides, make pottery, raise children, marry and sire kings, accumulate wealth and property, fund wars and economic ventures, and marry outside their home settlements, but unless men do these things they are not historic political acts or specialist economic accomplishments. Negative evidence for

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female status is accepted as meaningful, similar blank spots in the archaeological record for men get serious investigation.

Questionable states Because of the research focus on Wolf ’s premise, all investigators participating in the project were critical of ethnographic analogy, and many rejected it outright. Furthermore, several investigators question traditional ethnographic categories, long considered determined by the incontrovertible biological realities. Matriliny defined by ethnographers as a system privileging brothers over husbands, but never really putting women in charge, cannot and should not be assumed to have been the only alternative to patriliny and patriarchy before the world system. Recollection of exactly who created these categories and on what basis and in what context they did so, is sufficient grounds for treating them as testable propositions, rather than as the only options. Similarly, the idea that multiple genders are characterized by men, women, lesbians, and homosexuals, who are either inauthentic women or inauthentic men, is ethnocentric. This construction still envisions only two genders, and only acknowledges that either could be enacted to some degree by either of two sexes. The idea of multiple genders is something much more complex indeed, that even the most sophisticated ethnographers can easily misunderstand (Jacobs et al. 1997). The possibility of such a construction in prehistory seems as great as the probability that archaeology will show clear evidence for it seems small. Nevertheless, it should be clear why western scholars of the past must remain alive to the possibilities, and not buried in their own assumptions and ethnographies inherited through the patrilineages of the discipline. To test Engels’ proposition as a scientific hypothesis, each investigator focused on a particular group at the point of its transition to complexity, to statehood, to civilization. This led to problems, since this transition is hard to identify (even controversial) in most cases and partakes of the very same evolutionary assumptions that plague gender studies. Was Zimbabwe or Cahokia or Viking Denmark really a complex society? A state? Are we seeking objective characteristics or are we measuring the Moche against Greece, or the Harappans against Washington? As serious scholars of the rise of states have long known, there are no typical cases. Even those cultures used to construct the original prototypes for the traditional model of bands to tribes to chiefdoms to states, such as Mesopotamia or Egypt, are much better known now than was the case when anthropologists and archaeologists first articulated the “scientific” version of cultural evolution. So we simply looked at a variety of relatively unrelated groups during the period when each group began to show evidence of social status distinctions based on economic differences. This seemed the closest we

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could come to testing Engels’ original proposition against non-European, or pre-European societies. Of course the nature of status differences in early states is invariably an issue of debate among archaeologists, even when such distinctions show up clearly in the archaeological record. Almost every case study resulted in a debate not only about the status of women, but about the status of their culture. And invariably, the stronger the public role of women, the less likely archaeologists are to characterize a culture as a civilization. Were women powerful because state organization had not developed or because the state that had developed did not subjugate them? Ultimately we were able to show that the onset of social classes with economic and political reality and a decisive signature in the archaeological record clearly corresponds to the subjugation of women as a subordinate class only in Mesopotamia, where it may have existed already. One thing these studies consistently demonstrate is that cultural evolutionism involves so much misunderstanding and essentializing of the division of labor and the significance of gender that it is high time for a revision. Another problem we faced was the obvious historical inter-relatedness of several of the civilizations investigated. While it would be ridiculous to claim cultural continuity between Mesopotamia or Greece and Viking Scandinavia, it would be equally foolish to ignore the history of Scandinavian or Zimbabwean economic and political interaction with early expansionist states, even before the transformational impacts of Christianity and Islam. Having made a case for the impact of capitalism through the world system on the role (and the perceived role) of women, yet I am not willing to assume that only industrialized capitalism can use or has used a capitalistic mechanism of dispersal and control. Another way to characterize the phenomenon might be as the “underdevelopment of women.” It is important to recall that those areas sometimes referred to as “secondary states” are cultures whose “otherness” has been used to reify anthropological and archaeological categories of political organization and gender, and therefore merit special scrutiny. Of the groups investigated, the most poorly documented by archaeology are the ancient residents of Great Zimbabwe. Among these Bantu-speaking cattle herders evidence for the rise of a market system and long distance trade intensified the primordial subordination of women – or so says the argument. In Chapter 1, Tracy Luedke looks at these data and finds that archaeologists see relationships between men changing, while relations between women and men are fixed; clearly the same essentialist bias that Wolf identified in studies of nonwestern societies and which appears in most literature on the rise of social complexity, albeit a version specific to Africa. Arguments to the contrary would immediately be taken as arguments against regarding Great Zimbabwe as civilized, and it is clear that common processualist notions of the rise of the state have a profound if implicit gender bias built into them.

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Despite the uniqueness of each complex society that we examined, there was a peculiar continuity in the evolution of the archaeological approach in each case, not so much in terminology or actual field methodology, but in the sequence of assumptions and the hypotheses chosen for investigation, and in the progression of research from essentializing everybody, to essentializing women. Scholars studying at Great Zimbabwe have regarded its inhabitants as ahistorical exactly as Wolf ’s model predicts (Beach 1998). And in particular, in discussions touching on gender, women are invariably expected to be especially culturally conservative, though this assumption may be either implicit or explicit (Connah 1987). The most recent gender research has begun to question some of the timelessness imputed to Zimbabweans by earlier scholars, and new constructions of gender and women’s roles have been considered, but these tend to be as essentialized as the alternatives they critique (Hall 1995, Lane 1995, 1998). In the end, if we truthfully answer the question “What do we know directly from archaeological data about the ancient women of Great Zimbabwe?” the answer must be “almost nothing.” If we then follow by asking whether the ethnohistoric and ethnographic records of groups used to provide analogies for Zimbabwean societies have been influenced by the world system or biased by an unconscious masculinist perspective, the answer must be “certainly.” To date, study of the remains of Great Zimbabwe has added absolutely nothing to our knowledge of women; all that has occurred is that preexisting knowledge and beliefs about women have been extended into the past, on behalf of Great Zimbabwe. As with several of the societies we investigated, the Moundbuilders show much evidence of social rank and status differentiation, but scholars cannot agree about whether the distinctions had an economic reality rather than strictly an ideological or political one. For our purposes, we decided that this did not matter and that if it was clear that only some people had longer lives or plentiful material wealth, we would consider the group eligible for inclusion. Our first problem was to ask what is known about gender in the time periods of the earliest states. After that, we could go into issues of definition and questions about Engels’ true meaning. In Chapter 2, Laura Pate finds that among the Moundbuilders, gender distinctions are not clear from archaeological data, but gendered assumptions prevail among archaeologists to the point that data relating to women’s roles are not only ignored, but avoided (Hauser 1990). Distributions of material wealth and the symbolism of status hierarchy do not follow the expected patriarchal path. Instead, there is evidence that women may have acted politically (Emerson 1997). Here we hit the wall of definition; were the Moundbuilders really a civilization? Does their failure to exhibit other earmarks of western states such as writing indicate a failure to develop a truly complex society and therefore provide an inadequate comparative example? Or have our investigations been so predetermined that evidence of these other factors has been missed or discounted? The same intellectual bias

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against female labor and activities biases archaeologists against seeing complexity unlike our own as complexity none the less (Galloway 1997). Is it at all realistic to see kin organization as an alternative organizing principle to political organization or economic differentiation? Looking at the public roles of Viking women in Chapter 3, Lena Mortensen finds plenty of data on the resistance and the competitive success of women in a complex society (Stalsberg 1991). Despite the powerful mythology of the masculine Viking (Jesch 1991), Viking women clearly participated as full members of their political economy (Sawyer 2000), but of course the Vikings provide a classic example of a complex society that most archaeologists do not define as a state. At the same time, to treat Viking culture as independent of western tradition and history would be ridiculous; there is no sense in which gender roles in ancient Scandinavia could be considered to have been independently invented or unaffected by the rise of the European economic world system. In fact, there is reason to believe Vikings were instrumental in spreading western values and seeding early economic and political integration, since they clearly shared the ideal of males leaving home to raid and trade while women kept the home fires burning (Dommasnes 1982). Though not properly construed as outside western tradition, the status of Vikings in modern archaeology again highlights the problems of definition involved in the investigation of states. No early culture is more swamped by masculinist preconceptions than Sumer (Wright 1996), nor has any locale inspired a more imperialist attitude (Said 1980). In fact, early Sumer has been one of the most popular loci for the instantiation of Marxist theory (cf. Rapp 1977, Zagarell 1986). Layla AlZubaidi’s examination of Sumerian women in Chapter 4 shows that their contribution to their state was almost exactly the same as that of men, though men are distinguished by degree of wealth or level of activity rather than absolute differences of opportunity or dominance (Asher-Greve 1985). As with many early states, the visibility of women in ceremonial contexts is not considered evidence of genuine authority, economic control, or political autonomy (Nemet-Nejat 1999, Pollock 1991, Winter 1987). More importantly for this study, the history of the rise of the world system may mean that the position of women in ancient Sumeria is homologous or even ancestral to their situation in modern nation states. Lambert (1987) argues that gender roles were considered part of the divine ordering of the universe – clearly the same type of naturalization of gender categories common to extant civilizations. Nevertheless, there is some question about whether the categories were naturalized by the Sumerians quite as much as by Lambert. Sumerian women were acculturated into a world system that had as much to do with creation of the modern world system as with isolation from it. Aside from the traditional lauding of Mesopotamia for all the historical “firsts” (agriculture, irrigation, writing, legal codes, trading empires) occurring there, the use of naturalized gender categories in the

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service of a hegemonic political economy (van de Mieroop 1989) may also be attributed to the Middle East, perhaps even as another “first.” Nevertheless, Al-Zubaidi’s interrogation opens the tantalizing possibility that even in Mesopotamia, gender subordination may have become the norm sometime shortly after the establishment of class distinctions. Looking at literature on the Moche of Peru in Chapter 5, Cristina Alcalde finds that the same preexisting assumptions guide most interpretations (Baudin 1961, Rodriguez López, 1994). For example, depictions of female sexuality are said to symbolize passive fertility, whereas male sexuality is said to symbolize active virility, despite the fact that Moche women are depicted in art and represented in burials as wage earners, professional curers, wealthy elites, priestesses controlling elaborate ritual events, and lesbian lovers (Benson 1972, 1988, Campana, 1994, Verano 1994). Interestingly, the transition to state-level organization is accompanied by the appearance of depictions of female supernatural beings in iconography and the burials of markedly elite women (Alva and Donnan 1993, Hocquenghem and Lyon 1980). Yet Moche women are generally said to have held inferior social roles to men. Representations of sexualized male/female pairs receive essentialist interpretations: whatever act is shown, archaeologists assume that women are not enjoying it. Population movements and a lack of identification with the ancient Moche on the part of modern residents of the Moche homeland make cultural continuity doubtful (Silverblatt 1988), yet ethnohistory and recent ethnographies continue to be used to support conclusions about gender hierarchies in the Peruvian past (Niles 1989). Despite the quality of preservation and the quantity both of remains and of the studies of them (Capel and Markoe 1996, Watterson 1991), Gabriel Wrobel in Chapter 6 finds that the information on predynastic Egypt is more equivocal than expected. Easy assumptions about subordination are contradicted with the striking amount of legal and economic independence (Robins 1993, Johnson 1996), and even political influence (Fischer 1989) afforded elite women. Instances of equal treatment of males and females in death result in the usual interpretation: kin organization. But also as usual, it is not possible to tell whether women were necessarily empowered by the reliance on kin ties, or as equal members of a complex society (Anderson 1992). While the economic and historical significance of the apparent connection between Egypt and Mesopotamia has been questioned (Hassan 1988), in the context of this book, the nature of this interaction is crucial. Since changes in gender hierarchy may be concomitant with certain economic and ideological and political exchange, in the final analysis, it may be inaccurate to regard Egypt and Sumer as utterly independent developments. As with other early civilizations, the classical focus on palaces and the artifacts of elite life has left issues of the division of labor and changes in the lives of ordinary people during the rise of a state hierarchy relatively unexplored in Egypt. Wrobel’s observations on the literature of burial data

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from the Predynastic period show that although evidence for status distinctions skyrocketed in this era of rising bureaucracy, clear gender distinctions were vague. Many discussions are typified by the situation at the cemetery of Tarkhan (Ellis 1992), where the discovery that more grave goods appear with female interments than with male has been met with the counter that status was indicated by the size of the burial hole, which may have been larger for men, though looting has made these measurements unreliable in many cases. Other authors have reached different conclusions based on more nuanced data sets (Bard 1992, Castillos 1982). Wrobel’s expertise as a physical anthropologist makes possible his critical analysis of numerous recent analyses of human remains from cemeteries. In every case, without the preexisting assumption that women were subordinate by the modern definition of that term, the case for the dominant role of men is seriously weakened if not altogether undermined. Archaeologists’ confidence in what is already known about the role of women has led them to overlook some crucial questions. Wrobel found human osteology a potentially useful avenue of investigation, making the case that interrogating gender can wring new data from old skeletal collections, and result not only in alternative lines of reasoning, but in better science. The most challenging case was undertaken by Candice Lowe who researched Harappa. She reports her findings in Chapter 7. The paucity of clear data on status differentiation has encouraged imaginative reconstructions of Harappan social organization. While there can be no doubt of the social complexity and stratification of cultures of the Indus Valley, the exact nature of social ranking remains unclear and many scholars have argued for an egalitarian system (Miller 1985, Wenke 1990). Others maintain that the degree of organization and specialist production, along with certain architectural details and apparent centralization of both residence patterns and trade, make political hierarchy more likely (Wright 1989, Kenoyer 1989). Data from this culture are extremely vague, but numerous statues of men and women depict men naked while women are shown wearing jewelry. There is no empirical way to be sure that the presence of decorative apparel indicates lower status than nudity; were the situation reversed, the dominance of men would certainly be asserted. The two traditional interpretations of this, either that the Harappans did not develop true civilization or that clothing on women is an indication of subordination, are both examples of assumptions that need serious testing. More recent analyses of Harappan material considering skeletal evidence and evidence from specialist manufacturing make this picture even more confused. Despite the difficulty of sexing juveniles, physical anthropological analyses of human remains from Harappa have been used to suggest that there was more stress on female children, and the presence of more dental caries among women has been used to support the idea that women had a poorer diet (in Kenoyer 1989). Of course the burial data most clearly reflect

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that more gracile children experienced greater skeletal stress, not at all an unlikely situation regardless of gender if children were treated equally, and that women’s diet was different does not rule out the possibility that it was actually of higher status, or of equal status to that of men. Analysis of specialist production has led several authors to argue that Harappans were organized by kin ties rather than by an economic or political hierarchy (Hegde et al. 1993, Kenoyer 1989, Wright 1989). Extant jajmani systems are used to provide analogy, with caveats about the likelihood of change over time. Nevertheless these studies fall into the same essentialist trap familiar from our observation of research on other groups. It is possible that the Harappan case is the exception that proves the rule, since women do appear to be relatively undifferentiated from men, and even superior in some contexts, but according to Engels a kin-based society would be expected to empower women. If production is kin based, then women’s role in the family would assure them a prominent place in the social order. I am not ready to accept a gender-based dichotomy in the sources of sociopolitical and economic power, and the data from Harappa and the Indus region are too inconclusive as yet. Improved analysis and clearer address of the issue would certainly repay the analyst. The greatest surprise regarding the societies researched came from recent work on the Agean. Association with the infamously misogynist Greeks caused us to anticipate a similarly unequal treatment of women by men among the earlier Ageans. Sean Dougherty’s discussion of Minoan culture in Chapter 8 certainly encountered the western romance with essentialized Classical cultures. The desire to see what Europeans thought was uplifting in their predecessors, although in sharp contrast with the exoticism applied to the New World and cultures to the east of Europe, nevertheless resulted in stereotyped portrayals of gender (Evans 1930) echoed in the more sophisticated but still under-examined interpretations of more recent scholars (Talalay 1994). The interplay of disciplinary history with discovery provides a more informative explanation for our view of Minos than a simple summary of extant data. Iconographic analyses have challenged the pan-European mother goddess theory, as well as the gender hierarchy so often imputed without support (Marinatos 1995). Recent work by Rehak (1998) on Bronze Age Agean art in general even indicates the possibility of a gender reversal in the iconography of early representational art that appeared with the rise of social distinctions. The portrayal of women places them in a distinctly superior position over men in much iconography of these early cultures. In my own investigations I found that Maya women, invariably constructed as “keepers of tradition,” are especially prone to being seen living in an epic past. Evidence from their daily lives is mixed casually with evidence taken from the ethnohistoric documents of Spanish missionaries during the conquest and colonization of Maya lands by Europeans, and from present day

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women living in modern nation states (McAnany 1995, 2001). The bias of recorders who were not only altering the Maya system as rapidly as possible, but who had promised their god to eschew the wicked influence of women, is almost never discussed, and modern practices are recorded as authentic only if they correspond to gender stereotypes (Restall 1995). Consequently, discussion of Maya gender systems invariably confirms the a priori assumptions of the investigator. As with most investigations into the archaeology of gender, the absence of evidence is the major support for the dominance of men. For example, a recent article on male dominance among the Maya argues that the prevalence of men in Maya art indicates domination of the political order by men (Haviland 1997). But where the situation is reversed, as at Harappa, few scholars argue for the domination of the political order by women. One alternative that has been discussed is the possibility that representations of men in Maya art should be understood in terms of their intended audience (Joyce 2000, 2001, 2002), and that these representations may have been intentionally provocative if not erotic. Such a construction, while not at all improbable, would certainly be the one given if most representations were female. Quantities of female representations are consistently written off as goddesses “representing” rather than wielding power, or as “pin ups” intended for a dominant male gaze (Joyce 2000). As with most osteological studies, those purporting to identify clear sex differentiation invariably make the tautological mistake of dividing the data by sex at the outset of the research and then analyzing the two resulting populations for evidence of differences. In addition, while problems of sample bias are sometimes mentioned, the repercussions of such bias are never discussed fully. If only elite populations are considered, or if they are disproportionately considered, what does this mean about the significance of the sample? And even if differences appear between male and female interments, must they necessarily be evidence of subordination, and never just evidence of difference?

In the end Marx and Engels knew only one history – the history of capitalism, the history of the world that the west told to itself. The question is not simply whether Engels was right that women are necessarily dominated by a capitalist or any other economic system, but whether historians and the agents of history and cultural change who gave us our records essentialized women and accepted the view of Marx and Engels that the domination of women was inevitable with the rise of the state. Of course scholars and politicians did and do see the low status of women this way, as a consequence of capitalistic exploitation, or as a consequence of cultural evolution. But even in situations where this is true, it is no longer interesting simply to identify gender subordination; it is time to ask for specifics and to investigate

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historical connections. And archaeologists need to continue to ask whether we are really finding clear evidence of the domination of women by men in early states. If we fail to find it, is it because the cultures we investigate were not states, not capitalists, or not sexist? Or is the problem really that the discredited but still ubiquitous theory of cultural evolution is holding up our vision of the past? The contributions summarized here are very preliminary studies. Nevertheless, the failure to find unequivocal support for the patterns of gender distinction long considered well established suggests that further investigation would be worthwhile in a broader field. Other scholars have argued that capitalism commodifies women; Wolf argues that capitalism essentializes cultures. Capitalism also essentializes women in order to commodify them, but this is an historical process that situates women outside of history in the same way as the world system creates underdeveloped peripheries. Like geographic peripheries, women are characterized as natural, traditional, fertile, uncivilized, dangerous, pacified with trinkets, and in need of government control. But women have used this liminal status outside history as a source of power and a means of survival and resistance, even though we have been unable to reset the terms of the debate to allow for the possibility that women have history. Archaeologists, even many feminist archaeologists, continue to use the inadequate tools of cultural evolutionism to think with. But we can begin to reevaluate the data; we can begin to look at prehistory for evidence of other ways of framing gender and we can insist that essentialism is wrong. Perhaps in this way we can begin to ask questions that will give more objective, more interesting, and more useful answers. Despite their sketchy and preliminary nature, and it has been extremely difficult to keep the burgeoning literature on gender from so many culture areas up to date enough to send this book to press, the following chapters strongly suggest the hypothesis that historically, class creates gender, and not the reverse.

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Tringham, Ruth E. (1991) Households with faces: The challenge of gender in prehistoric architectural remains. In Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory. Ed. Joan Gero and Margaret W. Conkey, pp. 93–131. Oxford: Blackwell. van de Mieroop, Marc (1989) Women in the economy of Sumer. In Women’s Earliest Records from Ancient Egypt and Western Asia. Ed. Barbara S. Lesko, pp. 53–66. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Verano, John (1994) Características Físicas y Biología Osteologica de los Moche. In Moche: Propuestas y Perspectivas. Ed. Santiago Uceda and Elias Mujica, pp. 307–326. Trujillo: Asociación Peruana para el Fomento de las Ciencias Sociales. Wallerstein, Immanuel (1974) The Modern World System. New York: Academic Press. Watkins, Joe (2000) Indigenous Archaeology: American Indian Values and Scientific Practice. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Watterson, Barbara (1991) Women in Ancient Egypt. New York: St Martins Press. Weiner, Annette (1976) Women of Value, Men of Renown, New Perspectives in Trobriand Exchange. Austin: University of Texas Press. Wenke, Robert J. (1990) Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind’s First Three Million Years. New York: Oxford University Press. Whyte, Martin K. (1978) The Status of Women in Preindustrial Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wilk, Richard R. (1991) Household Ecology: Economic Change and Domestic Life among the Kekchi Maya in Belize. Arizona Studies in Human Ecology. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. —— (1995) Learning to be local in Belize: Global systems of common difference. In Worlds Apart: Modernity Through the Prism of the Local. Ed. Daniel Miller, pp. 110–134. Routledge: London. —— (1996) Connections and contradictions: From the Crooked Tree Cashew Queen to Miss World Belize In Beauty on the Global Stage: Gender, Contests, and Power. Ed. C. Cohen, R. Wilk, and B. Stoeltje, pp. 217–233. New York: Routledge. —— (2004) The Olmec, Miss Universe, and the Valley of Oaxaca. Journal of Social Archaeology 4(1): 81–98. Winter, Irene J. (1987) Women in public: The disc of Enheduanna, the beginning of the office of EN-priestess and the weight of visual evidence. In La femme dans le Proche-Orient Antique. Ed. Jean-Marie Durand, pp. 189–201. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. Wolf, E. (1982) Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wright, Rita (1989) The Indus Valley and Mesopotamian civilizations: A comparative view of ceramic technology. In Old Problems and New Perspectives in the Archaeology of Southeast Asia. Ed. Jonathan Kenoyer, pp. 145–156. Wisconsin Archaeological Reports, Vol. 2. Madison: Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin. —— (1996) Technology, gender and class: Worlds of difference in Ur III Mesopotamia. In Gender and Archaeology. Ed. Rita Wright, pp. 79–110. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Wylie, Alison (1996) The constitution of archaeological evidence: Gender politics and science. In The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, Contexts, Power. Ed. P. Galison and D. Stump, pp. 311–343. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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—— (1997) Good science, bad science, or science as usual? Feminist critiques of science. In Women in Human Evolution. Ed. L. Hager, pp. 29–55. New York and London: Routledge. Wylie, Alison, Margaret C. Nelson, and Sarah M. Nelson (eds) (1994) Equity Issues for Women in Archaeology. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, Number 5, Washington DC. Zagarell, Allen (1986) Trade, women, class, and society in ancient Western Asia. Current Anthropology 27 (5): 415–430. Zihlman, Adrienne (1989) Gender: The view from physical anthropology. In The Archaeology of Gender: Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Chacmool Conference. Ed. Dale Walde and Noreen D. Willows, pp. 4–10. Calgary: Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary.

Chapter 1

Gendered states Gender and agency in economic models of Great Zimbabwe Tracy Luedke

African archaeology has been slow in coming to the topic of gender. This does not mean that there has not been much said and implied about gender in the writings of Africanist archaeologists. On the contrary, where gender is not explicitly addressed may be where it is most profoundly embedded in scholarly perspective and most radically reliant on assumptions and essentialisms. This seems to be the case in the scholarship on Great Zimbabwe. While very little is said about the nature of the gender roles and ideologies that may have existed on the Zimbabwe plateau, assumptions about the gendered division of labor and male primacy in political life have led to a body of scholarship which places the rise of the state firmly in the male domain. Women are at best considered pawns in the social and political maneuvering of men, signifiers of male power. This essentializing of gender roles and ideologies is particularly entrenched because it is entwined with another strand of essentializing, that which regards Africans and African cultures as timeless and unchanging, without history, incapable of innovation. The women who lived and worked at Great Zimbabwe are thus doubly essentialized, as examples of women’s timeless, economically marginal roles and as the bearers of primal African cultural systems. These assumptions are utilized in a sleight of hand in which the processes of state formation are assumed to have been the work of men alone, and the profound social changes accompanying these processes are nonetheless assumed to have had no effect on gender roles.

Theorizing gender and the state The feminist anthropology of the 1970s included a number of approaches which attempted to locate the watershed dynamic or event that might provide a universal explanation for the subordination of women. Ortner (1974) suggested the root of gender inequity lay in the universal symbolic differentiation between nature and culture. Rosaldo (1980) located it in another binary opposition, that of the public versus the private domain. A third attempt at a universal explanation was undertaken by feminist scholars drawing on Engels (Leacock 1981; Sacks 1982). These scholars built on

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Engels’ model in The Origin of Family, Private Property, and the State, which suggested that the transformation of gender ideologies which accompanied private property and state formation constituted the “world-historic defeat of the female sex.” The model was attractive to feminists in part because it allowed a way out of what di Leonardo has called the “feminist conundrum” (1991). Feminist anthropologists struggled with the contradiction between denouncing male domination in all its guises and honoring the anthropological mandate of cultural relativism. Engels’ model solved the conundrum by locating the source of women’s subordination not in cultural ideologies but in the history of global political economy. For Engels, the creation of economic and political inequalities inherent to the state was accompanied by equally profound changes in gender hierarchies within family and society. In short, women lost out, as economic opportunities gave men the leverage and the incentive to establish social control over women and children. Engels considered the family a microcosm of the larger society of which it was a part. Thus power dynamics among individual family members mirrored those between classes, such that for modern capitalist society, “in the family, [the husband] is the bourgeois; the wife represents the proletariat” (p. 744). For Engels, this social configuration constituted only a temporary stopping point on the evolutionary road to the revolution. Ironically, while Engels describes this patriarchal stage in political economic terms, the “original” condition of “mother right” is described in essential, biological terms. Even in this most materialist of analyses, biology is the starting point; gender, and specifically women’s identities, are based in biological reproduction, and, significantly for a discussion of politics, this identity is defined as inherently communal. Thus, even in a model which attends to the gender implications of profound social and economic change, women are described as being affected by this change, not themselves effecting it (cf. Silverblatt 1988). Thus while Engels’ model in one sense resolved the feminist conundrum, it also created new theoretical problems. All of these universalizing models came under critique during the 1970s and 1980s. The elegance of explanations based on nature versus culture, private versus public, and the disempowering of women in state formation fell prey to the plethora of counter-examples, the difficulties of applying categories like “public” and “private” to the multitude of configurations and conceptions cross-culturally, and a general critique of evolutionism. This feminist theorizing and re-theorizing took place in the context of certain trends in the social sciences. A number of scholars in the 1970s and 1980s were engaging in what di Leonardo glosses as a “history and critique of science” approach (di Leonardo 1991: 20). These scholars argued for “attention to history rather than structure, for the recognition of short-term, nonrecurrent historical regularities or of sheer randomness in human affairs” (di Leonardo, 1991: 19).

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In this camp was Eric Wolf ’s Europe and the People Without History (1982). Wolf recognized the effects that the assumption of and search for an unfolding narrative about the past had on anthropological scholarship. Western conceptions of history as unilineal and developmental had the effect of turning history into a “moral success story” (Wolf 1982: 5). This story assumed that the way things have arisen historically is not one of many possible trajectories of events that might have occurred, but the result of a natural and inevitable progression toward the emergence of nations and cultures whose essential identities are ahistorical. It is a process of “turning names into things”: “By endowing nations, societies, or cultures with the qualities of internally homogenous and externally distinctive and bounded objects, we create a model of the world as a global pool hall in which the entities spin off each other like so many hard and round billiard balls” (6). The reification of cultures by anthropologists grew in part out of the methodology of fieldwork. The need to limit one’s fieldwork in time and space led to the demarcation of boundaries of an identifiable cultural whole as the limits of the researchers case study. Thus “a methodological unit of inquiry was turned into a theoretical construct by assertion, a priori” (14). Wolf, in contrast, privileges intersocietal processes over decontextualized case studies: Once we locate the reality of society in historically changing, imperfectly bounded, multiple and branching social alignments . . . the concept of a fixed, unitary, and bounded culture must give way to a sense of the fluidity and permeability of cultural sets. In the rough-and-tumble of social interaction, groups are known to exploit the ambiguities of inherited forms, to impart new evaluations or valences to them, to borrow forms more expressive of their interests, or to create wholly new forms to answer changed circumstances . . . “A culture” is thus better seen as a series of processes that construct, reconstruct, and dismantle cultural materials, in response to identifiable determinants. (387) Wolf ’s critiques are useful for thinking about all kinds of essentialisms, although Wolf himself focuses on the essentializing of culture, nation, and society and does not attend to gender. Feminist archaeologists’ critiques have recognized similar dynamics in past research, particularly with a focus on what this means for theorizing gender. Much as Wolf identified Western approaches to history as a “moral success story” (5), Conkey and Williams recognize in archaeology a “methodology of narration” (Conkey and Williams 1991: 104). The pursuit of a continuous narrative about the past informs the “origins research” (104) that is so prevalent and favored among researchers of the human past. Conkey and Williams suggest that “origins research” is fundamentally essentialist and promotes “the definitions of

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phenomena in terms of their putative essential features: what are the essential features of the earliest hominids, of the pristine states, of the division of labor? If, however, one holds that there are only states, in particular historical settings, or that gender relations and the division of labor are socially and culturally constructed and highly variable, then there is nothing essential to be located at a point of origin; there is nothing essential about gender nor about women’s experience” (p. 113). Conkey and Williams’ desire to get beyond archaeological essentialisms regarding the course of human history is important in relation to Engels and his critics mentioned above, for, as Conkey and Williams point out, the specific story that archaeological narratives tell privileges the rise of the state as a key, recognizable evolutionary moment. The origin of the state, the rise of “civilization,” is posited as a basic dividing line in human history, a qualitative and immutable shift in the nature of human social life (Conkey and Williams 1991: 106). Thus a critique of archaeology that takes both Wolf and Conkey to heart must pay particular attention to presentations of the “rise of the state.” The insights of Engels, Wolf, feminist anthropologists, and feminist critics of archaeology provide the framing questions for this paper’s attempt to make sense of how archaeologists and ethnohistorians have modeled socioeconomic processes and relationships at Great Zimbabwe. Following Engels I ask in what ways gender ideologies are formed or transformed in the process of state formation. From Wolf comes the impetus to uncover historically specific social identities and relations, to identify and critique the ahistorical assumptions about gender and culture that are so often employed. From Wolf and Conkey and Williams, the recognition that it is not just that essentialisms about gender and culture are parallel, but that they are intertwined, mutually constitutive, and mutually reinforcing. Archaeologists’ models for the processes which gave rise to the state centered on Great Zimbabwe bear many of the assumptions critiqued above. Like Engels and subsequent theorists, these models provide an unfolding narrative which for all its depiction of profound transformations, clings to certain assumptions about the essential natures of the individuals and social groups involved: men as public producers, women as private reproducers; men as actors, women as acted upon; men as innovative, women as static; men as central, women as incidental. Despite the shortcomings of Engels’ model, it should not be abandoned entirely. The insight that political economic transformation fundamentally entails or is perhaps even dependent upon transformations in gender roles, gender relations, and the gendered division of labor is crucial and undeniable. But less should be assumed about the “natural” state of men, women, or any other social group, either before, during, or after such political economic transformations. The question should be: what are the productive and social roles of men and women and in what ways do they precipitate and in what ways are they transformed by political economic change?

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My more immediate interests in this paper are in examining the gender implications of archaeological explanations for the mechanisms that gave rise to the state centered on Great Zimbabwe, which controled much of the Zimbabwe plateau between 1275 and 1450. I am interested in the ways in which archaeological evidence is used in models of the rise of the state, in terms of what those models imply both about the role of women’s production in the transition to statehood and the shifts or continuities in women’s roles and status that accompanied that transition. I am looking as much at what is not being said as at what is being said about gender and the roles of women in these models. For despite a general lack of explicit discussion of these aspects of social relations within the state, there are telling assumptions to the models of the state being employed. Specifically, the state (and the “people” or “nation”) is implicitly gendered male by the researchers describing it; the gendering of the state is accomplished first by attributing the rise of the state to specific economic and political activities which are considered or assumed to be part of a male domain. Aspects of productive life that are known to have been or may have been equally or wholly women’s domain are denied a role in state formation. The gendering of the state is also accomplished by a discourse about patrilineality which envisions women as chattels in the system, ignoring that, if a world full of ethnographic analogies is any indication, even in the most patriarchal of patrilineal systems, women have some leverage and recourse, if only by virtue of the fact that they are valuable to the economic status of their fathers. These social scientific discourses about the nature of the Zimbabwe state are also discourses about gender. Discussions of early state formation in Zimbabwe characterize men as the innovators, as the movers in a process that is fundamentally about change, development, progress. Women and their products, on the other hand, are relegated to the position of signifying men’s economic and political power; women are the “moved” not the “movers” in these political and economic processes. In deconstructing these models, I will give particular attention to which aspects of economic life are privileged and suggest that this privileging has gender implications. Further, I will suggest that the depiction of women as static is tied to more general depictions of African cultures as static, as incapable of indigenously generated innovation, a legacy, in Zimbabwe, of what Garlake (1982) has called the “settler paradigm.” I would suggest that this legacy informs particularly the depiction of women implied by archaeological models of the rise of the Zimbabwe state. Women are relegated to the background in these models, implicitly tied to an unchanging primal culture. I will approach this by examining what archaeologists have suggested about the two “prime movers” that are offered as the mechanisms for the rise of the Zimbabwe state: cattle and trade in luxury goods with the east coast of Africa. I will begin by contextualizing the example with

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background on the history of investigation of archaeological sites on the Zimbabwe plateau.

Archaeology on the Zimbabwe Plateau The region under discussion is the Zimbabwe plateau, the 4 000–5 000 foot high plateau which is the watershed between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers. Ecologically the plateau is characterized by temperate rolling plains covered in savanna woodlands. The plateau offered many resources to its early inhabitants: agricultural land, timber, wild animal resources, and a supply of building materials in the form of granite domes which exfoliate sheets of rock that are easily broken into building materials (Garlake 1973: 15). As many as 150 stone-walled hilltop ruins have been identified on the plateau. These sites are referred to as Zimbabwes, the Shona word which has been variably translated as meaning houses of stone, venerated houses, and court, residence, or grave of a chief (Connah 1987: 192). Most of the Zimbabwes are situated throughout the Zimbabwe plateau, with a particular concentration on the edges of the plateau, but several outlying Zimbabwetype sites have also been located as far away as coastal Mozambique. Great Zimbabwe is the most impressive of all of the stone-walled ruins of the region. The site is located near Masvingo in south-central Zimbabwe and consists of a series of stone ruins covering an area of 720 hectares. The site includes a multi-chambered stone ruin perched on a hilltop and a series of stone ruins on the floor of the valley below, dominated by the extraordinary “Great Enclosure,” an elliptical enclosure formed by a stone wall 244 meters in length and in places 5 meters thick and 10 meters high. It is no wonder that these dramatic structures have attracted a great deal of attention, popular, scientific, and political, over the years. The ruins at Great Zimbabwe were encountered in 1871 by Carl Mauch, a German geologist who was searching for the gold of King Solomon’s mines. Other early investigators shared Mauch’s delusions and spent their time looking for evidence to support the thesis that Great Zimbabwe was built by Phoenician colonists and represented the biblical Ophir of Solomon. In 1890 the area was occupied by Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa company. Rhodes encouraged the view that the site represented the work of “ancient colonists” as it buttressed his claims to sovereignty and legitimacy in Africa. Recognizing “the considerable propaganda value that evidence of ancient foreign settlement , preferably white and successful and with Biblical origins, would have” (Garlake 1982: 1), Rhodes consciously evoked parallels between the Phoenician colonizers and the British. In 1891, 1892, and 1902, several investigators worked on the site in search of evidence to support this hypothesis. These were not trained archaeologists, and they were clearly pursuing a very specific agenda. In fact, these investigators succeeded in

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doing considerable damage to the site. Of note in this regard is a journalist named R. N. Hall, who was hired by the British South Africa Company. Over two years he excavated almost the entire site, removing trees, undergrowth, the excavation heaps of the two previous investigations, fallen stones around the outside of the walls, and at least 3–5 feet, and in some places 12 feet of stratified archaeological material (Garlake 1973: 72). Thus imperialism left marks both tangible and intangible on Great Zimbabwe. In 1905, the first trained archaeological excavations were undertaken by David Randall-MacIver, who confirmed that the site was indeed indigenous. This work was followed by Gertrude Caton-Thompson’s excavations in 1929. Summers, Robinson, and Whitty’s excavations of 1958 established a chronology for the site, and provided the basis upon which all further archaeological work rests. Later important researchers include Thomas Huffman and P.S. Garlake. These researchers established an archaeologically derived chronology of Great Zimbabwe which dated the beginning of stone wall building and evidence of social stratification to 1275. Great Zimbabwe continued as a major regional power from this time until it was abandoned around 1450. Despite substantial archaeological evidence for Great Zimbabwe’s indigenous origins, claims to the contrary were made by Rhodesian nationalists as late as the 1970s. In particular, the Rhodesian Front regime of 1962–1979, intent on declaiming anything that might buttress African claims to equality and sovereignty, denounced archaeologists whose work supported Great Zimbabwe’s African origins and censored museum displays, guide books, and articles that suggested the African origins of the site (Garlake 1982: 1). Despite archaeologists’ uniform acceptance of indigenous origins, Garlake, one of the primary researchers of Great Zimbabwe, still detected in 1982 the legacy of this “settler paradigm”: Although no archaeologists attempted to investigate the traditional culture or history of the Shona people, each brought to his research a whole range of assumptions about Shona society. These were derived entirely from the accepted settler views on the Shona people which were as much a part of the settler ethos as were their views on Great Zimbabwe. The settler paradigm has thus governed all protohistoric research in Zimbabwe even though archaeologists all recognized the absurdity of the settler view on the origins of Great Zimbabwe. (Garlake 1982: 3) This legacy explains in part the privileging of certain topics over others, for example, the attention to elite as opposed to commoner sites, and the attention to establishing the identity of the inhabitants and the nature of early migrations throughout the southern region. Less attention has been given to some crucial aspects of social life. Great Zimbabwe is something of an

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extreme example in this regard, but it serves as a reminder of the importance of interrogating the politics that lie behind and inform social scientific research. This need for interrogation applies both to the ends to which research results are put as well as the very nature of the topics pursued and, perhaps most tellingly, those not pursued. Archaeological analysis has provided an image of Great Zimbabwe’s political economic position and context in its heyday, although there has been little analysis of the internal social workings of Great Zimbabwe society, owing partly to the lack of excavation of non-elite sites. The image that emerges is of the stone ruins referred to as Great Zimbabwe representing the center of political authority of a large state. The stone buildings would have been the site of residence of the ruling elites, as well as centers of political and religious activity. Outside of these stone walls were the densely packed mud houses of the commoners who made up the population of this capital city, a population which has been estimated to have been as much as 18,000 (Huffman 1984). This capital city was the apex of a much larger state, made up of a network of lesser Zimbabwes and regional populations, all of which probably showed allegiance to and paid tribute to the central governing body at Great Zimbabwe (Connah 1987: 199). Consensus as to this general picture of Great Zimbabwe’s significance in the landscape gives way to multiple interpretations regarding the more important questions of why and how Great Zimbabwe came to occupy this position as the head of a large, centralized, stratified political entity. Several prime movers have been suggested as the economic mechanism that gave rise to the state centered on Great Zimbabwe. Of these the two that have received the most attention are cattle and long distance trade. It is to these economic models for the rise of Great Zimbabwe that I now turn.

Cattle Analyses of Great Zimbabwe often give primary importance in economy and society to the role of cattle. Archaeological approaches to faunal remains found on the plateau have focused on quantity and age composition with an eye towards understanding the role of cattle in the economy of the Zimbabwe state. This role is suggested by the volume of faunal remains and by ethnographic analogy to have been significant: “It is well known that cattle are the most important source of wealth in many of the traditional Bantu speaking societies of southern Africa. Their presence in considerable quantities in Late Iron Age faunal samples throughout the region is an indication that this role may have its origin in the distant past” (Thorp 1995: 2). One of the earliest and oft-cited studies of faunal remains is Brain’s analysis of faunal remains from the midden below the hilltop ruins that are a part of the Great Zimbabwe site (Brain 1974). Brain found both that there were a

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great deal of cattle remains among the refuse from the stone-walled ruins and that a very high percentage of the cattle (75 percent) were immature. However, remains at other sites (at elite Mapungubwe sites, Voigt 1983; at commoner Great Zimbabwe sites, Sinclair 1984; at elite Khami sites, Thorp 1995) show a pattern of slaughter of adult animals more in keeping with “traditional” herd management strategies geared towards maintaining herd size as a source of wealth as opposed to using cattle for food. Thorp’s restudy of Brain’s data and comparison of it to other studies of faunal remains from the plateau indicate that the slaughter pattern in evidence at Great Zimbabwe is an anomaly which indicates the degree of social differentiation between elites and commoners (Thorp 1995: 73). Sinclair suggests that the difference may indicate that the elites who lived within the stone-walled enclosures appropriated the animals from the commoners living outside the walls and that their preference for young animals may have been a form of conspicuous consumption (Sinclair 1984: 51). Remains from Manekweni (Barker 1978), the only Zimbabwe tradition site in Mozambique, also show evidence for social differentiation in use of animal resources; faunal remains at that site show that the elites ate beef, whereas commoners ate mutton. Thus the faunal evidence is used in the service of several claims: that cattle, as opposed to other animals, dominated the herds; that the herds were large and an important source of wealth; that the evidence for differential uses of animal resources implies social stratification; and that this stratification, which exists throughout the plateau, is particularly notable at Great Zimbabwe, which is the capital and apex of the state system. The archaeological evidence for the centrality of cattle at Great Zimbabwe and other Zimbabwes coupled with the ecological context of the region led Garlake to suggest that a particular variety of cattle pastoralism gave rise to the state centered on Great Zimbabwe (Garlake 1978). Garlake suggests that the positioning of Great Zimbabwe and other Zimbabwes near the edges of the Zimbabwe plateau may indicate that one of the inhabitants’ primary concerns was transhumant pastoralism, in which cattle would have been taken to lower lying areas off the plateau in the dry season in order to take advantage of lowveld vegetation and to the plateau in the wet season to take advantage of highveld vegetation (Garlake 1978). However, despite the evidence that cattle played some role at Great Zimbabwe, Connah (1987) cautions that this evidence may not indicate that cattle played a significant overall role in the larger economy. The consumption of large amounts of young beef by the elites who occupied the stone ruins may not indicate much if anything about the diet or subsistence economy of the majority of the population. Connah points out the distinction shown at Manekweni between an elite diet of beef versus a commoner diet of sheep, goat, and wild game (Barker 1978). Again, the class bias of data from great Zimbabwe may have encouraged a misinterpretation of the economy with both class and gender implications.

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Another approach to interpreting the role of cattle in the economy and society of the Zimbabwe state can be seen in Huffman’s interpretations of settlement patterns. Huffman employs a structuralist spatial analysis based on Adam Kuper’s concept of the southern African “Bantu cattle culture” to argue for the material and symbolic centrality of cattle, demonstrated through a symbolic encoding of constructed spaces (Huffman 1981, 1982, 1986, 1987, 1996). This approach rests on the idea that the spatial arrangement of settlements reflects cosmology and a “cognitive system” (Huffman 1986: 302). Huffman detects two settlement patterns in southern Africa: the Bantu or Central Cattle Pattern and the Zimbabwe Cattle Pattern. Huffman builds on Adam Kuper’s model of the Bantu Cattle Pattern (Kuper 1980), a settlement pattern in which a ring of houses are arranged around a central area that includes cattle byres, grain storage bins, elite burials, and the men’s court: “the cattle were in the center because they were the principal form of wealth. Indeed, among the southern Bantu, cattle were the main avenue to wives and children and therefore to power, success, and status. As is well known, men acquired rights over women by exchanging cattle, and cattle belonged almost exclusively to the domain of men” (Huffman 1986: 296–8). This central area was the site of boys’ initiation ceremonies and a center of male activity, whereas backyards contained the grave sites of women and low status men (p. 300). Thus Huffman’s analysis reveals a worldview enacted through spatial expressions of dichotomies of high status/low status: right/left: inside/outside: male/female. Huffman answers criticisms of applying recent ethnographic examples across time and place to all southern African communities going back a thousand years by saying: the Bantu Cattle Pattern is a cognitive system, rather than an ethnic identity . . . This pattern . . . appears to be limited to Bantu speakers who are predominantly patrilineal and who exchange cattle for wives. Therefore the presence of this pattern in the archaeological record is persuasive evidence for a distinctive culture system wherever it appears. There seems no reason not to accept the presence of central cattle byres with burials and storage facilities as sufficient evidence for the entire spatial pattern and corresponding culture system. If this cluster of traits is diagnostic, then it is possible to extend it to . . . many iron age settlements. (1986: 302) Huffman describes a second settlement pattern, the “Zimbabwe Culture Pattern,” which is an elite settlement pattern such as that at Great Zimbabwe (1986: 304). Although he describes this pattern as different, in that cattle byres were no longer in the center of the settlement, elites were buried on hills as opposed to in byres, and stone-walled hilltop edifices distinguished the residences of political elites, he takes pains to show that the Zimbabwe

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Culture Pattern evolved directly out of the Bantu Cattle Pattern, as a result of trade and the associated social stratification, and reflected the same cognitive organizing principles (Huffman 1986: 304). Huffman suggests that this transformation took place as a result of the influx of wealth from trade in luxury goods, a shift which took place at Mapungubwe, the predecessor to Great Zimbabwe, and continued at Great Zimbabwe: “The transformations . . . show that the Zimbabwe culture evolved from the Bantu Cattle culture through the economic stimulus of the East Coast Trade. The wealth from this trade . . . was used for bridewealth and other traditional transactions, and so the early trade goods augmented the traditional wealth in cattle” (Huffman 1986: 319). Applying his principles of “cognitive system,” Huffman discerns male and female entrances to the hill complex. He also continues to apply the idea of essential cognitive organizing principles to his spatial analysis; for example Render’s Ruins, in which a cache of goods was found, must have been the king’s first wife’s house because “according to Shona custom, the only person with the right and duty to take care of a leader’s possessions is his first wife” (p. 311). This spatial/symbolic analysis at times runs to the Freudian. Upright pillars of stone are taken to indicate the male part of a building, whereas vertical slots in the architecture indicate female areas, and places where pillars are inserted in slots are sites of ritual activity associated with fertility (Huffman 1984, 1986). Huffman is then clearly arguing for trade as the prime mover in the rise of states on the Zimbabwe plateau, a model which will be discussed more fully later. However, Huffman’s model is also relevant to a discussion of the role of cattle in the rise of the state, because it illustrates claims about the symbolic role of cattle in the society in contrast to the faunal remains analyses which focus on the materialist aspects of cattle in the economy. This distinction is discussed by Hall (1986), who uses Giddens’ structuration theory to distinguish between the “allocative” and “authoritative” aspects of resources as they are employed in power relationships: in the case of cattle, allocative components would include hides, meat, and milk, whereas authoritative components would include cattle being used in marriage transactions (Hall 1986: 84). Hall’s approach is meant as a critique of both structuralist and materialist approaches and argument for cattle playing both symbolic and economic roles simultaneously. Huffman’s model, then, is a suggestion for the centrality of cattle as an authoritative resource. There have been several critiques of Huffman’s approach (Hall 1984; Collett, Vines, and Hughes 1992; Beach 1998; Lane 1995, 1998). Lane takes Huffman to task on his use of the Bantu Cattle Pattern model, and his critique of the “abuse of ethnography” in the study of southern African Iron Age societies is useful more generally for making sense of Huffman’s and others’ claims of cultural continuity and the implications for social analysis:

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the logical extension of Huffman’s arguments is that the first Bantuspeaking, agricultural communities to settle in southern Africa possessed a settlement system and ideology that were sufficiently robust to survive approximately five-hundred years of population growth, settlement change, territorial expansion and migration and a further fifteen-hundred years of settlement consolidation and economic transformations up to the modern era. Similar long-term continuities in social and cultural practices are relatively scarce in other parts of the world. (Lane 1995: 56) Lane also recognizes the fundamental implications of such a claim: that African societies are inherently static and incapable of change, resting on primordial customs and beliefs. The beliefs and practices that are assumed to be maintained across space and time are often gendered, such as the assumption that bridewealth is universally existent and important in cattle keeping southern African societies (pp. 56–61). This again speaks to the way that the essentializing of “culture” and gender are intertwined. Women are often considered more firmly tied to culture and more resistant to change than men. One of the earlier researchers of Zimbabwean prehistory based his analysis of pottery on the idea that African societies were inherently not innovative, and that this resistance to change was particularly due to women, who “shared the inherent conservatism of the sex” (Schofield 1948 in Garlake 1982: 3). Thus assumptions about the timeless, static nature of African culture subsume perhaps even more firmly entrenched assumptions about the primordial nature of women’s roles. Another recent critique of Huffman’s work is that of David Beach, the primary ethnohistorian of the Shona (Beach 1998). Beach’s main critique is that Huffman treats Great Zimbabwe as “a single community, almost as a village writ large, and as a static one in which the entire pattern of settlement remained more or less the same over at least two centuries” (Beach 1998: 55). However, Beach does not criticize the basic assumptions of Shona cultural continuity. As Stahl points out in her CA response to Beach’s article, “[w]hile Beach is clearly concerned with history and the balance of change and continuity, he too treats ‘the Shona’ as an enduring entity associated with a relatively stable set of practices but is less clear than Huffman about the theoretical stance that informs his study” (Stahl 1998: 67). Stahl’s point is crucial and echoes critiques of Huffman’s work by Lane (1995) and Hall (1987). What is lacking from these critiques is any recognition that the specific currency of Huffman’s characterization of a timeless Shona cognitive system is gender; specifically it is a model which posits a Shona cognitive system in which the fundamental organizing principle is the opposition between male and female; further, this cognitive system is suggested to have been literally enacted in people’s actual everyday behavior. What is needed here is a feminist critique. Conkey and Gero (1997) have recently assessed the

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course of research in the archaeology of gender/feminist archaeology. They point out that two of the strengths of the larger body of feminist scholarship are participation in “interlinked critiques of essentialism and scientific authority” (p. 425) and a related recognition “that politics and the substantive products of knowledge are essentially inseparable” (p. 427). A more recent discussion by Lane of gendered theorizing of organization of space in past southern African societies makes the most explicit attempt to date to tie feminist critiques and understandings of gender to theories like Huffman’s. Lane stresses the “multivocality of material culture” (Lane 1998: 179). The fact of this multivocality undermines any model that would posit one, unchanging set of beliefs about gender, followed by all members of a society at all times. As Lane points out, such models do not account for the fact that the members of social groups, such as men and women, will perceive and act on the world differently because of their differing perspectives, that there is also much difference in perspective and experience within social categories, and that gender identities are not fixed, but change throughout an individual’s lifetime (Lane 1998: 179–181). I would add to this list a basic aspect of human social life well known to cultural anthropologists and others who work with contemporary populations: that people often say one thing and do another, that cultural ideals about behavior and belief are often quite different from people’s actual behavior and beliefs. To apply this to Huffman’s analysis of symbolic spatial arrangements within the Great Zimbabwe ruins, even if space is arranged with a male–female dichotomy in mind, that does not necessarily tell us anything about the actual roles or activities of men and women. There is a difference between an ideology about the opposition between maleness and femaleness and the actual practices of individual people. And especially in designing the architectural space meant to act as a marker of class status and political power, a more conscious, overdetermined use of certain ideological principles may have been deployed. What is important for the purposes of this paper, is that in both approaches to the role of cattle in the economic and symbolic dynamics of Zimbabwe, certain underlying assumptions remain constant. In both models it is assumed that the qualitatively different role of cattle as opposed to other aspects of the subsistence economy gave cattle a special role in individual accumulation and the rise of the state. Researchers recognize that cattle were only one aspect of the subsistence base, and in fact may not even have been the most important aspect: “Direct archaeological evidence is limited but ethnohistorical evidence suggests that it was grain cultivation, particularly of sorghum and millet, that provided the basic staple foods . . . The role of livestock in this mixed economy was largely to cushion the effect of crop failure in bad years and, particularly in the case of cattle, to provide a means of amassing wealth in a negotiable form” (Connah 1987: 203–204). However, this recognition of the importance of agriculture is only given lip service, as illustrated by the lack of research done on agriculture.

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The lack of attention to agriculture as part of the subsistence economy and the privileging of cattle’s role in the rise of the state have gender implications. As Boserup’s work (1970) has shown, African women are often the primary agriculturalists. There is certainly both ethnohistorical (Beach 1980) and historical (Schmidt 1992) evidence to support the idea that women were the primary agriculturalists, although both men and women worked the fields at certain times of the year. Beach, the primary ethnohistorian of Zimbabwe, states, regarding the Great Zimbabwe state, “Very roughly, labour was divided, with women working in the fields and men handling most of the other branches of production, but this was not entirely rigid and depended a good deal upon the time and place in question” (Beach 1980: 91). The emphasis on cattle is tied to assumptions about cattle’s role in men’s procurement of wives through bridewealth in a patrilineal system. Cattle constitute wealth in Shona society, it is argued, because cattle act as a means for a man to increase his constituency and power by acquiring a wife or wives and control over the children of these marriages. The ends to which the emphasis on patrilineal bridewealth transactions are put are exemplified by Beach’s statement: “It is known that the Shona – for which, read Later Iron Age – people used to offer a bride-price of cattle to their fathers-in-law in return for their wives as far back as the sixteenth century” (Beach 1980: 15). Thus, “the Shona People” were apparently all male. The emphasis on cattle herding and the role of cattle in patrilineal bridewealth payments over the role of agriculture and women’s roles as farmers acts to place credit for the rise of the state firmly in a male domain. Male economic accumulation is posited as the foundation of the state (cf. Segobye 1998: 227–233). This is particularly striking, when one considers that elsewhere the rise of intensive agriculture and surplus food production are the focus of models of state development. Such models are common among scholars focusing on Central Mexico (Sanders et al. 1979), and Egypt (Wenke 1999) among other places, where, not surprisingly, intensive agriculture is constructed as under the control of men, though women do still sometimes provide labor.

Trade Another model offered for the rise of the Zimbabwe state stresses the importance of trade (Huffman 1972). There is evidence for trade contact between the plateau and the coast from the first millennium onwards, with glass beads from outside of southern Africa first appearing in the archaeological record throughout the plateau in the seventh and eightth centuries. The beads are of Indian and Persian origin, indicating that Arab traders carried these items at least as far as the coast. By the tenth century, the southern African coast and the plateau had been integrated into the trading network that spanned the Indian Ocean (Pwiti 1991). Although these early beads are evidence for what was being imported from the coast, there is little

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early evidence for what was being exported. More substantial evidence for the nature of exchanges between the plateau and the coast first appears in the archaeological record in the eleventh century at the sites associated with Mapungubwe, the plateau state that was the precursor to Great Zimbabwe. The people of Mapungubwe appear to have been trading primarily ivory and to a lesser extent gold to the coast: pieces of ivory have been found in the archaeological record; there are scattered accounts by explorers and coastal traders which mention ivory coming from the hinterland; gold grave goods have also been found at Mapungubwe, which indicates that they were involved in mining. There is also evidence that Mapungubwe was involved in an intra-plateau trade in ivory bracelets, which were mass produced (Voigt 1983; Hall 1987: 81–82). The shift of political power from Mapungubwe to Great Zimbabwe was accompanied by a shift from ivory to gold as the main item of export for coastal trade. The shift is explained as a response to the increasing demand for gold from the coast and the fact that there were greater gold deposits on the plateau than in the Limpopo valley at Mapungubwe (Pwiti 1991). Early Arabic and Portuguese sources indicate trade between Sofala, on the Mozambican coast, and the interior. Gold was the most important commodity in the trade, although ivory and copper were also traded, and cloth, beads, and glazed ceramics were imported from the coast. Thus the general history that emerges from the archaeological evidence is that southern African societies first came into trading contact with the outside world around the seventh century. In order to obtain the goods available from the coast, such as cloth and beads, these societies began to exploit tradable commodities, at first ivory and then gold. The intensity of the exploitation and trade of these items increased until about the thirteenth century at which point the control of this trade played a central role in state formation. By this time the entire region had become an important part of a trading network that stretched as far as India and China (Pwiti 1991). The most important evidence for external trade at Great Zimbabwe comes from a cache of goods found in 1903 by Hall at Renders Ruin, one of the smaller ruins in the complex of ruins that constitute the remains of the city of Great Zimbabwe. This cache included evidence of external trade in the form of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century items including a glazed Persian bowl, Chinese celadon dishes, fragments of engraved and painted Near Eastern glass; there were also a piece of coral, an iron spoon, an iron lamp with copper chain, a copper box, copper rings, two bronze bells, several tens of thousands of glass beads, brass wire, and cowrie shells (Garlake 1973: 131–133). This trove has usually been interpreted as a treasury for the city or as the cache of a visiting trader. Further evidence of external trade exists in the form of an early fourteenth century coin from Kilwa which was found in another part of the site.

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There were items at Renders which also evidence internal trade networks: 30 kg of iron wire, 100 kg of iron hoes, axes, chisels, cakes of copper, ivory, two bronze spearheads, three iron gongs and rods, a soapstone dish, gold sheathing, gold beads, and gold wire. The gongs show sheet metal work and welding, neither of which were practiced at Great Zimbabwe, but which were practiced at Ingombe Ilede, in the northwestern part of the plateau; further evidence for trade with Ingombe Ilede includes a copper X-shaped ingot found at Chumnungwa, a Zimbabwe to the southeast of Great Zimbabwe. The inhabitants of Ingombe Ilede were mining copper and trading it for gold and iron goods; the lack of glass beads at Ingombe Ilede is taken to indicate that the people of Ingombe Ilede were primarily involved in the intra-plateau trade (Connah 1987: 212). The relative importance of the internal and external trades has been debated. Some researchers claim that external trade itself was of primary importance in the rise of the state (Huffman 1972); others have suggested that this internal trade predates the external trade, that the external trade was important but that it facilitated state formation rather than originating it, by capitalizing on the existing trade system (Connah 1987: 212). The primary proponent of the model in which trade with the East African coast provided the mechanism for the rise of the Great Zimbabwe state is Huffman (Huffman 1972). He suggests that trade stimulated the rise of the state through leaders’ monopoly of the wealth stemming from trade. Given a tribal society with some social stratification, the chief is the most wealthy person. Because he entertains visiting dignitaries, donates to weddings and funeral feasts of his people and supports other function, his wealth is constantly recycled within his tribe. Once trade contacts with an existing state organization are established, the chief invariably monopoloizes the tribal end of it. Since the new wealth is far in excess of that which is normally generated within the system, it cannot be redistributed, and wealth and political authority become increasingly concentrated. People can then be hired to perform a duty instead of cooperating through a system based on kinship ties. An army, or police force, can be established to collect taxes to support the government, and the functions of a state emerge. (Huffman 1972: 364–365) Huffman further suggests that the insertion of trade wealth into the local economy was consonant with existing social strategies for the accumulation of wealth and power. New wealth resulting from trade is presented as intensifying existing patrilineal economic arrangements, but not as fundamentally reordering them: trade items simply replaced cattle as a means of acquiring and controlling women and thus building political power (Huffman 1986: 319). The model, then, relies on elite men’s exclusive

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control of trade through elite men’s exclusive control of the product which was the basis for Great Zimbabwe’s involvement in regional and international trade: gold. Gold mining has a long history on the Zimbabwe plateau, dating back to at least AD 1000. (Phimister 1976, Huffman 1972), with some claims for as early as AD 600. (Summers 1969). The earliest direct radiocarbon dates were taken from charcoal left in the mines by firesetting, a technique in which heat from fire is applied in the mine shaft to crack rock. The earliest of the radiocarbon dates come from Geelong and Aboyne mines, with dates of 1170+95 (Geelong) and 1230+80 (Aboyne), confirming that gold mining was taking place at least by this time (Summers 1969). Although gold is considered to have been the basis of Great Zimbabwe’s involvement in regional and international trade, it is suggested that gold mining remained a marginal activity (Phimister 1976). Mining was extremely labor intensive and was carried out in the winter months between harvesting and planting, when the labor could be spared. Gold was either panned from alluvial deposits or mined from quartz reefs, in which case miners dug down into the reef, sometimes as deeply as 25 meters. Miners then had to heat, crush, and wash the ore, a process which entailed a great deal of labor and yielded a small amount of gold. It appears that most of the gold that was mined ultimately went to trade, as there are very few gold items in the archaeological record at Great Zimbabwe. However, the lack of gold artifacts could also be the result of subsequent looting by amateur “archaeologists” and other adventurers. It has been suggested that mining was done by commoners but that gold smelting and luxury ornament manufacture were done inside the elite settlements (Swan 1994). There is evidence within the elite structures of Zimbabwe for gold smelting and smithing, including gold crucibles, tongs, molds, burnishers, and residue of gold-bearing quartz (Garlake 1973: 116). One difficulty in interpreting the nature of early mining is that much of the evidence for this early mining was destroyed by subsequent mining operations in the early part of this century (Connah 1987: 202). However, gold mining is one of the few aspects of economic activity for which there is some archaeological and historical evidence as to the division of labor. Phimister and Summers have suggested that gold mining may have evolved out of agriculture. Surface indications of Basement Complex rocks, the ancient rock in which gold deposits on the plateau are found, include the presence of fertile red clay soil, as distinguished from the sandy soils found over other kinds of geological formations. Summers suggests that the problem of prospecting for gold “could have been partly solved by agricultural experience” (Summers 1969: 15). Phimister finds further evidence for connections between mining and agriculture in the use of tools and techniques adapted from agricultural processes: the main tool used in mining was the agricultural hoe and the milling of excavated ore was

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accomplished through a grinding process very similar to that used for grinding grain (Phimister 1976: 11–15). As mentioned above in the section on cattle herding, women were and are the primary agriculturalists on the Zimbabwe plateau. It thus seems feasible that the individuals who put their agricultural expertise, tools, and techniques toward gold mining were women, that gold mining relied on the technologies of women. More direct evidence indicates women’s involvement in mining. Summers (1969) reviewed all the archaeological work on prehistoric mines on the Zimbabwe plateau and found that 16 human skeletons had been uncovered during excavations of precolonial mines. These skeletons are interpreted as those of miners who were caught when mine shafts caved in, which is supported by the placement of the skeletons as well as the particular damage done to them in the collapse (pp. 19–33, 136). Of these 16 skeletons, at least nine have been identified as female (p. 136). There is no question, then, that some, and perhaps a significant number, of the miners were women. The archaeological evidence that Summers reviews comes from all over the plateau and spans the time frame from the earliest mining dates known through the nineteenth century. A notable set of data in terms of tying women’s mining to Great Zimbabwe comes from the evidence at Aboyne Mine, which Summers excavated himself. As mentioned above, Summers radiocarbon dates the mine to 1230+80 (p. 28). This mine is located fairly close to great Zimbabwe, approximately 120 miles away (p. 161). Aboyne mine excavations yielded four skeletons. Of these, Summers identifies two as female, one as male, and the fourth remains undeterminable (Summers 1969: 22–28). Thus, in Aboyne Mine, we have evidence of a gold mining operation, within the dates of the reign of great Zimbabwe, within the region of great Zimbabwe, at which women were miners, and perhaps even the primary miners. There are then several pieces provided to the puzzle of how gold mining fits into the economy, which can, although they have not been, be examined for what they might imply about women’s autonomy, control of resources, and participation in economic activity. It is clear from the skeletal evidence that at least some of the miners were women. This also makes sense in terms of the probability that women were also the primary agriculturalists. As Phimister and Swan suggest, gold mining was a labor-intensive, marginal activity which could only have been carried out in complement to other seasonally oriented work, like farming. As well, as Phimister and Summers suggest, gold mining techniques and technologies probably evolved out of those for agriculture. Since the economic and political strength of the state is suggested as resting at least in part on the state’s (elite men’s) control of the trade of this extracted gold to the coast in return for other kinds of luxury items, then it must follow that the state exercised some amount of control over these mining activities. It is suggested that the mining itself was locally run, but the results of the mining were extracted from the populace in the

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form of tribute to the rulers (Hall 1987: 97). There is no suggestion by researchers that this was directly forced labor; it is suggested that it was indirectly forced by the need to pay tribute. This would suggest that women gold miners were either extracting gold, and then using it directly to pay tribute for themselves and/or their families, or they were working in the mines for wages, which they were paid by an intermediary who took control of the gold. Either option would suggest that economic resources passed directly through the hands of some women. Although families have often been assumed to be communally sharing economic units, there is much evidence that this is not always the case. There is particularly a great deal of evidence from Africa that married couples do not pool economic resources, that women maintain control over their own economic resources. What this would imply is that women involved in gold mining on the Zimbabwe plateau had access to the wealth which was the basis for the power which was the basis for the state. This possibility undermines assumptions that the economic resource of gold was controlled solely by men. There is also evidence that the production and trading of gold may not have been monopolized by the elite that constituted the state to the extent indicated in Huffman’s model. In fact, it appears that much of common people’s daily lives were carried out independently of the ruling elite in their stone-walled enclosure: “To the common villager tending her gardens or minding his herds. The state organization may never have been a factor. Regardless of any benefits that may have accrued from membership in a powerful hegemony, village disputes, inheritances, weddings, and funerals were still decided at the local level” (Pikirayi 2001: 150). Elite control of gold may also have been symbolic more than actual. Herbert has pointed out the connections in many past and present African societies, including Great Zimbabwe, between metal objects and political power. She suggests that the archaeological evidence of the smelting and/or smithing of metals within the confines of the walls of Great Zimbabwe as well as the hoarding of various metal objects in Renders Ruin may indicate that the rulers of Great Zimbabwe wanted and needed to assert their control over these objects and their production (Herbert 1996). Perhaps then it was worked metal or the process of working metal over which the elites had control and not gold per se. In this case, it is possible to imagine that common people dealing in gold dust with visiting traders would not contradict the elite’s exclusive claims to gold objects such as jewelry, tools, or ritual objects. This harkens to Hall’s distinction between the instrumental and symbolic significance of particular resources. The symbolic meanings of gold and control over gold as a political symbol may not have coincided entirely with economic meanings and economic control of gold. Conversely, Pikirayi has suggested that the elite rulers may not have been directly involved in mining or trading but in regulating trade (Pikirayi 2001: 148). It is hard to imagine that total control of an activity taking place across such a wide area would have been possible.

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Either possibility suggests that commoners had access to and control of at least a portion of the gold they extracted and may even have traded it independently. Sinclair suggests that peasant miners may have traded gold for themselves (Sinclair 1984: 52). This opens the possibility that commoner women who mined gold may also have claimed ownership of and traded the products of their labor. In this model, women emerge as economic actors whose expertise regarding and access to the region’s most valuable commodity may have meant a great deal in terms of their economic, political, and social positions within Great Zimbabwe society and their role in the rise of the state. However, according to many archaeological models, what was fundamentally reordered by the economic transformations associated with the rise of the state was not the relationships between women and men, but the relationships amongst various groups of men. The aspect of the trade which is stressed is its role in men’s accumulation of power through their control of women, which at a certain volume, allows these men further control over other men. Thus, the development of class is shown to grow out of gendered relationships, but those gender relationships are not shown to have in turn been transformed by shifting economic realities. It is imaginable that these trading activities had other kinds of social effects as well, particularly in women’s roles and gender relations, however this possibility is nowhere discussed. But the evidence presented here of women’s involvement in gold mining and trading implies that there must have been at least some changes in gender roles wrought by the economic and political transformations associated with the rise of the state. There is clear evidence that the switch from a subsistence economy to an exchange economy on the plateau was accompanied by changes in social relationships in the form of class stratification. That these profound economic and social changes would have taken place without any changes in gender roles and relations seems unlikely. In the models posited by archaeologists, massive economic and social change and innovation is clearly shown to take place but gender is assumed to have remained a constant. Women are thus excluded both from any role in the growing of the state and from experiencing any effects as a result of its growth.

Conclusion The emphasis on cultural continuity, particularly in terms of women’s roles seems to be grounded in the desire of researchers to identify the ideological glue that maintains the cohesion of the state; there is an assumption that communities are prone to breaking apart, that fission is the normal state of affairs. Culture, particularly in the form of gender roles, is used to maintain the narrative quality of descriptions of the past. In this narrative about the state, it is men who are fissioning, men who are the innovators whose desire

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for accumulating goods and power lead to the rise of the state. However, these men’s activities are still informed by the ideologies of a timeless “tradition.” Women are the signifiers of this tradition, the glue that cements men’s relationships, particularly in their form as an exchange commodity between male lineages. That the two prime movers suggested as the mechanisms for the rise of the Zimbabwe state both concerned male accumulation, which intensified the ability of men to control women, might be read as bearing out Engels’ hypothesis: the rise of the state resulted from and fed the empowering of men socially and economically. I do not question Engels suggestion that changes in gender relations were part and parcel of the economic changes of state formation. I do question his vision of the nature of gender roles and relations before, during, and after these transformations. In the literature on Great Zimbabwe, gender relations are rarely considered either before or after the transition to statehood. In these models, women do not contribute to or participate in this transformation and the resulting economic and social changes elicit no change in gender roles or relations. Engels at least recognizes that gender roles and relations were transformed in the process of these political economic changes. However, ultimately Engels’ model rests on women being inherently, “naturally” communal, as reactors to the “real” activity of men and without any agency of their own. In some ways then there are similar assumptions in Engels’ model and in the models proposed by the Great Zimbabwe researchers I have described here. In both cases, whether gender ideologies are suggested to have changed over time or not, women are seen as adjuncts to a social world based on the activities of men, an assumption which is belied by the archaeological and historical evidence. That these disparate models have this fundamental similarity illustrates the degree to which gender is essentialized. Feminist scholars have realized that feminism is not just about attending to gendered identities, but is a commitment to interrogating all kinds of essentialisms and all patterns of inequity (di Leonardo 1991: 27–31). For Great Zimbabwe and other cases like it, this is a crucial perspective, for it reveals the dialectical relationship between essentialisms about gender and culture and their implications for the analysis of state formation in past societies.

References cited Barker, P.T. (1978) Economic Models for the Manekweni Zimbabwe, Mozambique. Azania 13: 71–100. Beach, D.N. (1980) The Shona and Zimbabwe 900–1850. New York: Africana Publishing Co. —— (1998) Cognitive Archaeology and the Imaginary History at Great Zimbabwe. Current Anthropology 39(1): 47–72.

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Boserup, Ester (1970) Woman’s Role in Economic Development. New York: St Martin’s Press. Brain, C.K. (1974) Human Food Remains from the Iron Age at Zimbabwe. South African Journal of Science 70: 303–309. Collett, D.P., A.E. Vines, and E.G. Hughes (1992) The Chronology of the Valley Enclosures: Implications for the Interpretation of Great Zimbabwe. The African Archaeological Review 10: 139–161. Conkey, Margaret W. with Sarah H. Williams (1991) Original Narratives: The Political Economy of Gender in Archaeology. In Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era. Micaela di Leonardo, ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. Conkey, Margaret W. and Joan M. Gero (1997) Programme to Practice: Gender and Feminism in Archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 411–37. Connah, Graham (1987) A Question of Economic Basis: Great Zimbabwe and Related Sites. Chapter 8 in idem, African Civilizations: Precolonial Cities and State in Tropical Africa: An Archaeological Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. di Leonardo, Micaela (1991) Gender, Culture, and Political Economy: Feminist Anthropology in Historical Perspective. In Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era. Micaela di Leonardo, ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. Engels, Friedrich (1884) The Origin of Family, Private Property, and the State. New York: International Publishers. Garlake, P.S. (1973) Great Zimbabwe. Aylesbury: Thames and Hudson. —— (1978) Pastoralism and Great Zimbabwe. Journal of African History 19(4): 479–493. —— (1982) Prehistory and Ideology in Zimbabwe. Africa 52(3): 1–19. Hall, Martin (1984) The Myth of the Zulu Homestead: Archaeology and Ethnography. Africa 54(1): 65–79. —— (1986) The Role of Cattle in Southern African Agropastoral Societies: More than Bones Alone Can Tell. South African Archaeological Society, Goodwin Series, 5: 83–87. —— (1987) The Changing Past: Farmers, Kings and Traders in Southern Africa, 200–1860. Cape Town: David Philip. —— (1995) Great Zimbabwe and the Lost City: The Cultural Colonization of the South African Past. In Theory in Archaeology: A World Perspective. P.J. Ucko, ed. London: Routledge. Herbert, Eugenia W. (1996) Metals and power at Great Zimbabwe. In Aspects of African Archaeology. Gilbert Pwiti and Robert Soper, eds. Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications. Huffman, Thomas N. (1972) The Rise and Fall of Zimbabwe. Journal of African History 12(3): 353–366. —— (1981) Snakes and Birds: Expressive Space at Great Zimbabwe. African Studies 40: 131–50. —— (198) Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the African Iron Age. Annual Review of Anthropology 11: 133–150.

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—— (1984) “Where you are the girls gather to play”: The Great Enclosure at Great Zimbabwe. In Frontiers: Southern African Archaeology Today. Hall, M., ed. British Archaeological Reports International Series 207. Oxford: BAR. —— (1986) Iron Age Settlement Patterns and the Origins of Class Distinctions in Southern Africa. Advances in World Archaeology 5: 291–338. —— (1987) Settlement Hierarchies in the Northern Transvaal: Zimbabwe Ruins and Venda History. African Studies 46(1): 73–116 —— (1996) Snakes and Crocodiles. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Kuper, Adam (1980) Symbolic Dimensions of the Southern Bantu Homestead. Africa 5(1): 8–23. Lane, Paul (1995) The Use and Abuse of Ethnography in the Study of the Southern African Iron Age. Azania 29–30: 51–64. —— (1998) Engendered Spaces and Bodily Practices in the Iron Age of Southern Africa. In Gender in African Prehistory. Susan Kent, ed. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Leacock, Eleanor (1981) History, Development, and the Division of Labor by Sex: Implications for Organization. Signs 7(2): 474–91. Ortner, Sherry (1974) Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture? In Women, Culture, and Society. Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, eds. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Phimister, I.R. (1976) Pre-colonial Gold Mining in Southern Zambezia: A Reassessment. African Social Research 21: 1–30. Pikirayi (2001) Cattle, Gold, and Copper – Traders, Chiefs, and Kings. In The Zimbabwe Culture. Lanham, MD: Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Pwiti, Gilbert (1991) Trade and Economies in Southern Africa c. AD 700–1200. Zimbabwea 3(1). Rosaldo, Michelle Z. (1980) The Use and Abuse of Anthropology: Reflections on Feminism and Cross-cultural Understanding. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5 (3): 389–417 Sacks, Karen (1982) Sisters and Wives. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Sanders, William T., Jeffrey R. Parsons, and Robert S. Santley (1979) The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilisation. New York: New York Academic Press. Schmidt, Elizabeth (1992) Peasants, Traders, and Wives: Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870–1939. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Segobye, Alinah (1998) Daughters of the Cattle: The Significance of Herding in the Growth of Complex Societies in Southern Africa Between the Tenth and Fifteenth Centuries AD. In Gender in African Prehistory. Susan Kent, ed. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. Silverblatt, Irene (1988) Women in States. Annual Review of Anthropology 17: 27–460. Sinclair, Paul (1984) Some Aspects of the Economic Level of the Zimbabwe State. Zimbabwea 1(1): 48–53. Stahl, Ann B. (1998) Comment on Beach. Current Anthropology 39(1): 66–68. Summers, Roger (1969) Ancient Mining in Rhodesia and Adjacent Areas. Salisbury: Trustees of the National Museums of Rhodesia. Swan, Lorraine (1994) Early Gold Mining on the Zimbawean Plateau. No. 9 in the series Studies in African Archaeology. Uppsala: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis.

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Thorp, Carolyn R. (1995) Kings, Commoners, and Cattle at Zimbabwe Tradition Sites. Harare: National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe. Voigt, E.A. (1983) Mapungubwe: An Archaeozoological Interpretation of an Iron Age Community. Pretoria: Transvaal Museum. Wenke, Robert J. (1999) Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind’s First Three Million Years. New York: Oxford University Press. Wolf, Eric (1982) Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chapter 2

The use and abuse of ethnographic analogies in interpretations of gender systems at Cahokia Laura Pate

Introduction In the last two decades, archaeologists have begun both to investigate gender systems in prehistoric societies and to examine the effects of contemporary conceptions of gender on prehistoric models. American Bottom researchers, however, have virtually ignored these issues in their analyses of Cahokian culture. Their references to gender are few and far between and tend to be fairly insignificant. Moreover, despite some evidence to the contrary, past Native American gender systems and modern American ones are assumed to be very similar. The trivialization of gender, its simplification and misinterpretation, and its exclusion from analyses have far-reaching implications for conclusions about Cahokian culture as a whole. The case of the southeastern “chiefdoms,” as they are called, is particularly important for this study. To some extent, it was the investigation of these archaeological cultures – of Moundville in particular – that first translated the idea of ranked societies into an archaeologically useful concept (e.g. Peebles and Kus 1977). Much of the subsequent theorizing about the rise of civilization has incorporated ideas from interpretations of these sites (Drennan and Uribe 1987), and this theorizing has had a profound impact on the interpretation of the American Bottom. Thus, for most archaeologists, Cahokians and their neighbors were the people who didn’t quite make it; they developed a certain degree of complexity, but not quite a state. Centralization of population, long-distance trade, specialist manufacturing, and status-related differences in diet, housing, burial location, and wealth all developed at Cahokia, but population is not considered sufficiently dense, trade not sufficiently essential, specialists not sufficiently full-time, and status distinctions not sufficiently complex to count as state-level development. One thing that the authors of the chapters in this book found consistently was the profoundly circular reasoning that permeates much of the literature on social ranking in archaeological cultures. As Plog and Upham (1983: 200) point out, “when, for example, the size of the largest settlement is used to identify state organization, it is impossible to explore the relationship between state organization and population aggregation since the latter was

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used to define the former.” Although efforts have been made to combat particular aspects of this logical problem, there remains a set of implicit assumptions about the division of labor which, unexamined, continues to plague the discipline. So, for example, in his analysis of burials from the Dallas phase (a southeastern chiefdom), Hatch (1987) first divides his sample according to biological sex and then analyzes the grave goods for indications of gender distinctions. His assumptions become blatant in the interpretation of ambiguous objects: Shell spoons – found with female burials – are “domestic utensils,” while lumps of mineral pigment – found with male burials – were “possibly used in connection with body painting preparatory to community ceremony which only this subset of males was permitted to attend” (p. 11). No doubt, had the mineral pigments been found with females, they would have been designated as “personal adornment,” and shell spoons found with men would have been interpreted as evidence of a male secret society. The problem with this sort of reasoning is not simply that it misrepresents the role of women in the rise of ranking and social class in early societies but that it conflates gender and rank, thereby potentially discounting ranks of some considerable importance and creating others where none existed. So, in the above example, Hatch implies that the difference between male and female burial assemblages indicates the subordination of women within general society (the spoon wielders were buried in the villages and in the platform mounds, the body painters only in the mounds). Embedded in this line of reasoning is the idea that the rank distinction between women (inhabiting “private space”) and men (making political decisions at the village level) is a distinction based only on the ascribed status of sex. Curiously, in his discussion of elite burial data from the same sample set, when he finds females and males associated with the same grave goods, Hatch argues that these also indicate ascribed status, because ceremonial objects belonging to women must not be the result of social functioning or achievement. So without ever really discussing gender differences, but by making implicit assumptions about them, Hatch has described a society with some complexity, but not too much; a chiefdom, but not a state. Heightened awareness of implicit assumptions about gender may well have a profound effect on how we understand ancient political systems. We need to recognize – and try to unravel – at least three sets of assumptions: those presently in vogue, those current when ethnohistories and ethnographies were written, and those that existed during the period being studied. In the following discussion, rather than attempt to re-describe a huge literature in terms of its insensitivity to these assumptions, I will focus on a single aspect of ancient social roles – the relation of sex to gender. If, indeed, ethnocentric assumptions about gender and rank confuse our picture of the past, the place to begin analysis is at the very foundations of our interpretations of the past. Thus, I will consider the possibility of multiple

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genders as a key to the deconstruction of simplistic models of ancient political organization.

Physical environment The American Bottom is an alluvial plain below the confluence of the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Mississippi Rivers. Cahokia itself – the largest Middle Mississippian site in the region, indeed the largest prehistoric city in North America – is located in the northern part of the plain across the Mississippi River from modern-day St Louis. Other Middle Mississippian sites, including farmsteads, single-mound villages, and multiple-mound villages, are scattered throughout the American Bottom. This is an extremely fertile region, one well suited to agriculture. The floodplain is, in addition, characterized by a mixture of ecosystems, with ridges, terraces, and alluvial fans located near marshes and open-water habitats. All these ecosystems provided some subsistence for the Middle Mississippian people, and these floodplain resources could be supplemented by others such as hickory nuts which were available in the nearby uplands (Milner 1990).

Mississippian Period at Cahokia Middle Mississippian cultures are identified archaeologically by a constellation of traits. Stoltman (cited in Yerkes 1988) has listed 12 primary Middle Mississippian characteristics, including a complex social organization; a theocratic political organization; intensive maize agriculture; occupational specialization; permanent nucleated towns; public buildings; and rectangular wall-trench houses. The other diagnostic traits concern details of material culture. Earlier cultures which display some but not all of these defining characteristics are called Emergent Mississippian (Yerkes 1988). Cahokia at its zenith is the quintessential example of Middle Mississippian culture. According to Pauketat (1992), Cahokia emerged from a series of smallscale polities sometime between AD 750 and AD 1000. During this Emergent Mississippian Period, a complex chiefdom-level society supported by fulltime maize agriculturalists arose (Emerson and Brown 1992). Recent investigations have suggested that some of the mounds at Cahokia – including the massive Monks Mound (Collins and Chalfant 1993) – and on the Grand Plaza also may have begun then (Holley et al. 1993). The Middle Mississippian culture was fully expressed during the Lohmann and Stirling phases. However, urban decline began during the Moorehead phase with a marked decrease in public building, perhaps related to a decline in centralized social and political control. There was also a drastic reduction both in the population and in the number of sites in the American Bottom during this period, which may have been a result of environmental

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degradation (Emerson and Brown 1992). These trends continued during the Sand Prairie phase, and Cahokia collapsed at the end of that phase. Presented in Table 2.1 are the standard dates for the Middle Mississippian phases at Cahokia. Recently, it has been suggested that minor adjustments should be made to these dates. Milner (1998) argues that the Lohmann and the Stirling phases each lasted 100 years, that the Moorehead phase lasted 50 years, and that the Sand Prairie phase lasted 125 years. The terminal date for the Middle Mississippian period remains the same, however. Table 2.1 Middle Mississippian phases at Cahokia Phase

Dates, AD

Lohmann Stirling Moorehead Sand Prairie

1000–1050 1050–1150 150–1250 250–1400

Source: Bareis and Porter 1984

Ethnographic analogy Archaeologists of necessity use ethnographic analogies along with archaeological data to reconstruct past cultures. In the case of Cahokia, these analogies are drawn largely from ethnohistories written in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries by Euro-American explorers, conquerors, missionaries, and settlers in the Southeast. Also used, although to a lesser extent, are ethnohistories from the Northeast and the Midwest. These works have been employed extensively in the reconstruction of American Bottom culture, and their applicability is not considered controversial. In fact, recent literature implies negligence on the part of archaeologists who in past discussions have not relied on ethnography and ethnohistory enough (see Emerson 1997a). The use of these ethnohistories is, however, problematic for several reasons. First, even the earliest Euro-American accounts were written several hundred years after Cahokia collapsed – following centuries of decline – around AD 1400. The American Bottom was virtually uninhabited during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the post-dispersal history of the Cahokian population is completely unknown. There are, thus, no known connections between the prehistoric and the post-Contact occupants of the American Bottom or the surrounding regions (Emerson and Brown 1992), and there is no reason to assume a priori in what ways the cultures of the historic Midwestern populations resembled the cultures of the prehistoric groups. This same point, of course, applies also to analogies with the protohistoric and historic populations of the Southeast, separated from Cahokia not only by time but by geographical distance.

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There are, moreover, good reasons for suggesting that Cahokian society probably was organized differently from any proto-historic or historic Native American society. Arguments about the nature of the Cahokian political structure abound. Was this a loosely organized state, with four (Fowler 1978) or perhaps five (O’Brien 1989) levels of hierarchically organized sites, or was it a chiefdom like any other prehistoric Mississippian chiefdom (Milner 1998)? Whatever the answer to this question, Cahokia was certainly more complex politically than were the societies that existed after the post-Contact collapse of many of the Southeastern chiefdoms. In addition, the population of Cahokia – of the city itself – was larger by far than that at any other Native American city north of Mexico. Population estimates at Cahokia’s peak vary from a minimum of 10,000 inhabitants to a maximum of 40,000 inhabitants (Milner 1990). By way of contrast, Swanton (1911: 43) estimates that when the French first encountered the Natchez in the late seventeenth century, the chiefdom consisted in its entirety of about 3,500 people. Aside from questions of the applicability of specific ethnohistorical analogies to Cahokia, the very nature of any ethnohistory is problematic. The accounts were written almost exclusively by Euro-American men; in consequence, references to Native American women are uncommon and far more fragmentary than are references to Native American men. Moreover, the Euro-Americans were observing what were, in many ways, societies unlike any they had ever seen before. Thus, the accuracy of their interpretations is questionable, particularly when they were faced with a cultural construct that was, in their view, not only unusual but unnatural, as was the case with Native American gender systems that were not dichotomous (Kehoe 1983). The major criticism, however, of the use of ethnohistorical evidence in archaeology stems not from problems with the evidence itself but from the way that archaeologists have used the evidence to construct universalized and generalized models of Native American culture. Societies in the Eastern Woodlands often are treated as if they possessed a cultural unity which transcended time and space; ergo, the effects of historical events on the construction of individual cultures are ignored. Archaeologists and anthropologists pick and choose among bits of data reported in ethnohistories, combining information from many tribes into a single model which is assumed to be an accurate representation of all proto-historic and historic Native American societies within a culture area, an area often defined by recent historical and political events or by environmental boundaries with unknown prehistoric significance. This model is then used as a framework for analyzing data recovered from archaeological sites throughout a large region. The problems arising from such a methodology are particularly striking in analyses of male and female roles in Native American societies. A case in point is the (limited) discussions of the sexual division of labor in Cahokian society. Most, if not all, of these discussions are predicated on a

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generic picture of gendered activities in the proto-historic and historic Southeast. Alan Harn (1994), for example, writes about the Larson village, located in the Central Illinois River Valley, an area occupied by immigrants from the Cahokia region as well as by local Late Woodland peoples. This thirteenth-century Mississippian village was destroyed by fire; thus, the original floors of the structures were preserved. Harn attempts to define activity areas within house structures based on the sorts of refuse found in each area, and he suggests that these activity areas correspond straightforwardly with male and female areas. Acknowledging, at least, the tenuous nature of his underlying premise, Harn (p. 43, emphasis added) writes that “if it can be assumed that a sexual division of labor existed among the Mississippian groups inhabiting the Central Illinois River Valley similar to that seen among tribes of the historic Southeast,” then women would have been responsible for food preparation, hide processing, weaving, and potting, and men would have hunted, fished, and made tools and ornaments. Thus, he describes the northern half of the house, with its food-preparation tools, as a female activity area and the south-southeast quadrant, with its tool caches, pipes, ochre, bone, and baked clay squeezes, as a male activity area. Pauketat and Woods (1986), finding a similar division between male and female areas at the Lawrence Primas site north of Cahokia, put forward a more sweeping suggestion, that the female-north, male-southeast division may represent a general Middle Mississippian pattern. Neither Harn’s (1994) nor Pauketat and Woods’ (1986) analyses are markedly more sophisticated than Price’s 1969 report on activity areas at a burned Middle Mississippian house (~ AD 1320) in southeast Missouri. This report includes one of the earliest, if not the earliest, discussions of the sexual division of labor in the Middle Mississippian Period and is still cited by American Bottom researchers (e.g. Pauketat and Woods 1986). Like the later researchers, Price bases his analysis on what he calls the historic Southeastern tribal division of labor; his list of gendered activities (almost identical to Harn’s) is, presumably, taken from Swanton’s writings. Price’s (1969: 24) appraisal of the division is made clear by his choice of words. Potting, cooking, food preparation, hide preparation, and weaving are described as “the chores of the females,” and hunting, fishing, trading, and tool making are declared to be “the role of the males.” There are two obvious problems with all three analyses. First, the suggestion that there was no variation in gender-specific activities over an area that stretches from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and from the Gulf of Mexico to Central Illinois over a period of five or six hundred years is ludicrous. Second, implicit in the analyses is the assumption that most activities were performed by only one gender. Price (1969) did suggest that both men and women might have been involved with horticulture. Ethnographic evidence from a variety of tribes, however, indicates that a wide range of activities could be performed by either (any) gender (Blackwood

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1984), and even among the Illinois, who did tend to separate activities according to gender, some activities – such as carrying meat back from a kill or playing lacrosse – were performed by both men and women (Hauser 1990). Rather than investigating the connection between gender and occupation, Harn (1994), Pauketat and Woods (1986), and Price assume that they know how the two are related and that they can simply insert archaeological data into a universal formula. The results are uninformative and have not generated much interest, in the form of further research, among other archaeologists. There is, however, the occasional reference in the archaeological literature to this putative Cahokian division of labor. Koehler (1997), for example, recently wrote a chapter on the role of women in Mississippian society. He includes a short paragraph describing the separate male and female activity areas that have been identified in the American Bottom and the Central Illinois River Valley. Because he cites no sources, he implies that the phenomenon that he is describing is uncontroversial, well documented, and widely accepted. To reiterate, American Bottom researchers rarely discuss models of Cahokian gender systems explicitly. Nevertheless, it is quite interesting to compare the ethnohistorical data that are included in these models with those that are disregarded. Researchers have tended to accept at face value the data that mirror appropriate gender behavior in Western society (e.g., women cook, and men make and use tools), and they have used these data to model behavioral norms which are said to describe a large group of geographically and temporally disparate Native American societies. On the other hand, data related to subjects which are taboo in Western society have been ignored, and the implications of data that suggest that gender systems in Native American societies might have been radically different from Western systems have been overlooked – more will be said about these issues in the following two sections. These criticisms are not trivial; the theoretical assumptions and the practical results of the assumptions affect not just reconstructions of gender systems but also reconstructions of Cahokian society as a whole. In his attempt to reconstruct Cahokian cosmology through the identification of changes in cult practices at Cahokia between AD 900 and AD 1200, Emerson (1997a) provides a particularly instructive example of how implicit assumptions about gender shape interpretations of material culture. He argues for the existence of a fertility cult, which was co-opted by elites during the rise of the era of greatest Mississippian social complexity. Identification of this cult is dependent on a limited number of stone carvings of women and an ethnographic analogy drawn from a rather broad array of Native American practices as identified by ethnohistorians and ethnographers. The sketchiness of the description of the fertility cult suggests that the existence of such cults is well known to the reader, as indeed it is, having the status of received wisdom in the social sciences. Although

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Emerson makes no explicit mention of male–female domination, he identifies the rise of the cult as related to – and supportive of – the rise of a dominant elite class. He also does not overtly connect the domination of women to the rise of a class-based society, but he does identify his perspective as Marxist. In the course of his discussion, female effigies are described as fertility symbols, as “earth mothers” or “corn mothers.” Male effigies (only one is discussed) are identified as shamans. In other words, female depictions are ceremonial and symbolic; male power is real and practical. Female effigies depict mythological characters; male effigies depict real men. Priests of the cult, whose role is identified with chiefly activities, are identified as male, without any justification at all. Ergo, women may symbolize power, but men wield it. Clearly, this is a case where alternative interpretations of the material record are both possible and important. If a priori assumptions about gender are discarded and the distribution of figurines is discussed in light of other aspects of the archaeological record, the picture becomes much richer and less clear. In the case of Cahokia, there is no empirical reason to accept the domination of women by men. In other words, the possibility that gender was not a determining factor in the exercise of political power cannot be ruled out on the basis of extant data. The rest of this discussion will center on alternative interpretations of ritual buildings and the possibility of multiple genders.

Sweatlodges and menstrual huts in the ethnohistorical and archaeological record Many unusual structures at archaeological sites are reported to be associated in some way with male rituals. For example, large buildings, such as Feature 31 at the Moorehead phase Julien site, typically are referred to as men’s houses. Milner (1984) suggests that this feature – a large structure with two internal partitions and many hearths – might have been a public building but probably was a men’s house because 72 points, including one large trinotched point covered with red pigment, were found in the structure. Equally intrigued by ethnohistorical reports of round sweatlodges – ritual buildings associated exclusively with men – in the proto-historic and historic periods in the Southeast, archaeologists have been eager to discover these buildings in archaeological contexts. Because most buildings at Mississippian sites are rectangular wall-trench buildings, the circular post buildings found at some sites are assumed to have a ritual function. In the American Bottom, they often are described as sweatlodges. Some contain hearths, and this is viewed as corroborating evidence that the structures were, indeed, sweatlodges; the absence of a hearth, however, typically is not interpreted as conflicting evidence because hearths often are shallow features and so might have been plowed out. Putative sweatlodges have been discovered in the American Bottom at the Julien site, at the Mitchell site, at the Range site, at

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the Powell Tract site at Cahokia (Milner 1984), at the Lawrence Primas site (Pauketat and Woods 1986), and at Labras Lake (Yerkes 1987). Far from being incidental to settlement patterns, these sweatlodges have been incorporated into models of the Cahokian political system. It has been suggested that there were nodal communities in the American Bottom (Emerson 1997b; Milner 1990), and that the leaders of these fourth-line farming hamlets would have had some control over surrounding settlements (Yerkes 1987). These nodal communities are identified by the presence of a sweatlodge. Galloway (1997) contrasts this fascination with male ritual buildings – even those such as sweatlodges which are associated with ritual purification – with the almost complete absence of interest in female ritual buildings, which she maintains is rooted in Western menstrual taboos. There is ethnohistorical evidence for the existence of menstrual huts in the proto-historic and historic Southeast. Not surprisingly, the evidence is sketchy, consisting of scattered references to buildings reserved for menstrual seclusion and reports of specific ritual prohibitions in a few tribes. Still, given the number of menstrual huts that must have existed in the proto-historic and historic periods alone, Galloway finds it odd that she could find only three (problematic) references to menstrual huts in the archaeological literature of the region. Galloway does not argue that the existence of menstrual huts in the postContact Southeast implies that menstrual huts must have existed throughout the prehistoric Southeast, but she does maintain that the subject is worth pursuing. Noting that the available cross-cultural surveys are problematic – both the ethnographies and the coding systems are androcentrically biased – Galloway suggests that menstrual seclusion might be associated with matrilineality and matrilocality and that further research along these lines could be profitable. If the hypothesis is valid, Galloway suggests, the existence of menstrual buildings at archaeological sites could be used as a marker for kinship systems. Although her attempt to use data related specifically to women to make inferences about society as a whole is appealing, the relation she proposes between architecture and social organization probably is oversimplified. The problem then becomes the identification of menstrual buildings archaeologically. Galloway suggests that menstrual huts, like most other prehistoric ritual buildings in the Southeast, might be identified by their location and their contents rather than by their structure. Extrapolating – perhaps over extrapolating – from the exceedingly brief ethnohistorical references to menstrual seclusion and menstrual taboos, Galloway maintains that prehistoric menstrual buildings probably would have been located away from villages and perhaps would have been downstream from the other structures. Although ethnohistorical reports contain no information about the interior of menstrual huts, Galloway suggests that these buildings might

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have contained both ritual items and – because women were living there, if only briefly – utilitarian items. One of the items, Galloway suggests, which might have been associated with women’s rituals is Ramey Incised pottery, a type that has been a problem since it was identified. Assumed at first to be an elite ware both because it is well made and because it is relatively uncommon, Ramey Incised is, nevertheless, ubiquitous. It has been found at many types of sites – ceremonial sites, domestic sites, large sites, small sites – and in multiple contexts – in pits, in houses, in middens, and in graves (Emerson 1989). Given this ubiquity, it is difficult to accept Ramey Incised as an elite pottery. Galloway argues that it might, instead, have been a ware which was associated with ritual pollution experienced by many people at all levels of society – i.e. that it was associated with women, with menstruation, with parturition. Again, the important consideration for this chapter is not the validity of Galloway’s argument but her attempt to interpret archaeological evidence as if women had a hand in creating it. Finally, Galloway discusses the major ritual sites in the Cahokia regional system – the BBB Motor site and the Sponemann site. The ritual items recovered at these sites include artifacts associated with fertility, agriculture, and women. The sites typically are said to be male ritual sites, but Galloway argues that they might just as reasonably be interpreted as female ritual sites that combined menstrual-seclusion structures and fertility ceremonialism. Galloway’s model presents an intriguing alternative to the standard interpretations of male-centered settlement organized, in part, around sweatlodges used only by men. Nevertheless, her model is derived from interpretations of classic ethnography that are being questioned seriously here. Unfortunately, the only alternative models available from current literature also conform to male-centered construction of ancient society. The possibility that women might have had their own sweatlodges, that men and women might have shared ritual structures, or that menstrual huts might have been sites of sacred power and political action, rather than stigmatized locales of impurity and danger, has yet to be considered, much less evaluated empirically. Part of the reason most archaeologists have ignored the possibility of female ritual structures may lie in the assumptions about gender and the division of labor that are implicit in traditional models of complex societies. Following a long line of social theorists, archaeologists expect that in complex societies the division of labor will be intensified and women will be politically subordinate and economically dependent. Most archaeologists working on American Bottom data are interested in emphasizing the complexity of Cahokia’s political economy. Evidence of female political action or economic power would undermine claims for complexity, because the traditional models are considered indisputable. I think it is time to begin seriously to challenge the models.

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Two-spirits in native North American cultures Modern Western constructions of gender are strongly dichotomized, gender assignments typically are conceived of as immutable, and, as Schnarch (1992) has pointed out, Western sex and gender assignments tend to coincide. Yet, this is not the case in all contemporary societies. To give only one example, seven gender categories have been reported among the Chukchi in Siberia, and gender assignments are not necessarily permanent in this group. Individuals may adopt different genders at different times in their lives, and some genders, such as those that a Chukchi may adopt during a trance state or during particular rituals, are intrinsically situational and temporary (Jacobs and Cromwell 1992, cited in Hollimon 1997). There is, thus, no reason to assume a priori that all past cultures dichotomized gender. In fact, there is a fair amount of ethnohistorical and ethnographic evidence that gender systems were not dichotomous in some proto-historic and historic Native American cultures. Instead, in some societies, three or four genders existed. These genders usually are referred to in historical documents as berdaches and in the anthropological literature as berdaches, cross-genders, or two-spirits. Parenthetically, the term berdache originally was applied exclusively to biological males who lived as women; this term may be used by anthropologists to refer also to biological females who live as men. Although it cannot be assumed from the ethnohistorical or ethnographic evidence that any particular prehistoric society had a non-dichotomous gender system, it also should not be assumed that gender systems were binary or that the third and fourth genders were unimportant. The difficulty of describing two-spirits is perhaps indicative of just how deeply embedded in modern Western society a dichotomous gender system is. However, the two-spirit can be defined as either a biological male or a biological female who adopts some or all aspects of the role more commonly associated with a gender which does not match the person’s biological category. He or she may dress like, talk like, or act like the “opposite” sex; in addition, the two-spirit typically does the same work as the “opposite” sex (and often is reported to be particularly proficient at this work), and he or she participates in the rituals associated with the “opposite” sex (Blackwood 1984; Schnarch 1992). In addition, two-spirits often are described as possessing spiritual power. They may fulfill a mediating role between men and women or between the physical and the spiritual world (Schnarch 1992). In some societies, selected rituals – such as the naming of children (Thayer 1980) or funerary activities (Hollimon 1997) – were performed only by two-spirits. There was, apparently, a great deal of cross-cultural variety in the way that two-spirit status was expressed. In many societies, both male and female twospirits cross-dressed (Callender and Kochems 1983a; Schnarch 1992); in others, one or both did not (Callender and Kochems 1983a). The choice of

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clothing might depend on the work in which a person was engaged (Callender and Kochems 1983a; Schnarch 1992) or on individual choice (Callender and Kochems 1983a). In some societies, two-spirits wore clothes unlike those of either men or women or wore combinations of men’s and women’s clothes. Elsie Clews Parsons (1916, cited in Hollimon 1997) reports that, among the Zuni, male two-spirits were buried in a combination of men’s and women’s clothing although in life they wore only women’s clothing. Among the Illinois, male two-spirits wore their hair as women did (Hauser 1990). As Callender and Kochems (1983a) point out, many of these data were collected during a period of cultural disruption and assimilation and may not reflect accurately the styles of the pre-Contact Period. However, the available evidence suggests that clothing and hairstyle cannot always be equated with gender status. The lack of a consistent relation between gender status and either clothing or hairstyle has serious implications for the interpretation of Mississippian iconography; traditionally, it has been assumed that the biological sex of the human represented can be inferred from the clothing, the hairstyle, or the activities of the figure. The Schild pipe, for instance, has been said to represent a female because the figure is skirted and is not wearing earspools, and an effigy from Spiro has been described as a woman because that individual is not wearing earspools and is grinding corn (Emerson 1989). Even recent attempts to re-analyze Mississippian iconography from a nonandrocentric perspective (e.g. Koehler 1997; Thomas 2000) have failed to come to grips with this problem. Both Koehler and Thomas rely extensively on clothing and hairstyles as markers of sex. According to Koehler, women can be identified by their hair (usually straight) and their skirts, while men are identified by their hairstyles (buns or ponytails) and their nudity (although penises are rarely depicted). Although Thomas relies primarily on depictions of breasts and female genitalia to identify representations of women, she also uses skirts and hairstyles as markers. This easy acceptance of dress and hairstyle as a means of determining sex is particularly surprising given that both Thomas and Koehler are familiar with the literature on twospirits. Thomas mentions two-spirits in her 1996 article about gender in North Carolina Mississippian cultures, and Koehler discusses two-spirits in this same 1997 article. In fact, he suggests that a Piney Creek, Illinois, image of a warrior holding two spears might represent a female two-spirit because the figure seems to have both a male hairstyle and female genitalia. Despite this, he does not question the validity of identifying figures with male hairstyles and without explicit representations of sexual characteristics as biological males. Clearly, however, if two-spirits were present in Mississippian cultures, neither biological sex nor gender can be equated straightforwardly with appearance. It is unclear just how common the two-spirit status was even in the PostContact Period, but, in their oft-cited 1983(a) article, Callender and

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Kochems state that there are direct reports of two-spirits in 113 protohistoric and historic North American societies. Tribes with two-spirits were found in almost every region of North America: in the Southwest, in California, on the Northwest coast, in the Great Basin, in the Plains, in the Prairies, and in the Southeast. Callender and Kochems declare that evidence for the two-spirit tradition was surprisingly absent in much of the East, including parts of the Southeast (but cf. Thomas 1996: 41). As several researchers have pointed out (e.g., Callender and Kochems 1983a; Schnarch 1992), the absence of direct evidence does not necessarily mean that (male) two-spirits did not exist in other societies. From the sixteenth century on, Euro-American observers reacted with repugnance to the two-spirit status; when these observers did mention two-spirits, they wrote only very brief – and biased – statements about them. Much of the Euro-American hostility was focused on the sexual behavior of the twospirits, who frequently were assumed to be homosexuals, but the EuroAmericans were appalled also by the occupational behavior of the two-spirits. Seventeenth-century French observers wrote of the Illinois two-spirits that these were men who “glory in demeaning themselves to do everything that women do” (Marquette, cited in Hauser, 1990: 45). Given that the negative response to the two-spirits by Euro-Americans seems to have been ubiquitous, there is a very real possibility that some Euro-Americans simply refused to mention a system they found abhorrent. It is also possible that, faced with a gender system unlike their own, the Euro-Americans did not realize what they were observing. Furthermore, the impact of Euro-American judgment on Native Americans cannot be discounted. In many cultures in which it is known to have existed, the two-spirit status – or at least references to it – disappeared rapidly after Contact. For instance, two-spirits were reportedly common in the Illinois tribe of the seventeenth century, but there are no eighteenth century references to two-spirits in that tribe (Hauser 1990). According to Blackwood (1984), the female two-spirit role had virtually disappeared among all Native American groups – including the Western tribes – by the end of the nineteenth century. Schnarch (1992) has also pointed out that even explicit denials of the existence of two-spirits by tribe members cannot be accepted at face value because many informants might have been reluctant to admit that such a despised custom existed. Blackwood (1984) notes that much of the ethnographic evidence about two-spirits was gathered in the twentieth century by anthropologists who could not observe the system but could only question informants about the existence of and the function of two-spirits in the past. Many of these informants were demonstrably hostile to the two-spirit system. And, in 1940, in one of the very few early articles about two-spirits, Kroeber (cited in Blackwood 1984) had noted that gathering ethnographic data about the two-spirit system was almost impossible because of the Euro-American repugnance to it.

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A final confounding factor in determining the distribution of two-spirits is the sheer difficulty of discovering passing references to them in the ethnohistories and ethnographies. Several commentators on the Callender and Kochems article (e.g. Bloch 1983; Brown 1983) point out specific omissions in their list of tribes in which two-spirits have been reported. Signorini (1983) claims that there is even a plausible reference to two-spirits in the Iroquois tribe; Callender and Kochems (1983a) had argued repeatedly that given the abundance of information available about the Iroquois the absence of evidence of two-spirits in this tribe must be accepted as a reflection of reality. (In their reply, Callender and Kochems [1983b] stand by their original position, although they acknowledge that they have not read the specific statement to which Signorini referred.) To recapitulate, there are many reasons both for believing that two-spirits might have existed in tribes for which there are no reports of the custom and for believing that existing reports are likely to be fragmentary and biased. On the other hand, because Europeans often approached Native American customs with repugnance, false reports based on prejudice, malice, and even fear all exist in the literature. It should be noted that the caveats just discussed are not always taken as applicable to the study of female two-spirits. Specifically, Callender and Kochems (1983a) could find reports of female two-spirits in only 30 tribes, mostly Western tribes. They maintain that this distribution does reflect ethnographic reality and, from it, conclude that the occurrence of female twospirits was more restricted than the occurrence of male two-spirits. Callender and Kochems then suggest that Whitehead was perhaps right when she suggested in a 1981 chapter that it was more difficult for females than males to become two-spirits because “the biological component of gender” (Callender and Kochems 1983a: 455) was more significant for women – by which they mean that women menstruate and men are threatened by this. Incidentally, Whitehead (1981, cited in Blackwood, 1984) – echoing sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century Euro-American declarations that male two-spirits were effeminate or incapable of succeeding at male activities – maintains that female two-spirits were physically deficient, that they exhibited amenorrhea and underdeveloped secondary sexual characteristics. Callender and Kochems (1983a: 456) conclude that female two-spirits were never true two-spirits but were instead women who behaved like men in some ways but who still retained their female gender status. Blackwood (1984) has pointed out that Whitehead and Callender and Kochems could not conceive of a complete change in social gender roles because they did not distinguish gender and biological sex. Two-spirits are known from ethnohistorical or ethnographic reports to have been present in the lower Mississippi Valley (Callender and Kochems 1983a), in other parts of the Southeast (Callender and Kochems 1983a; Thomas 1996), among the Prairie Indians (Callender and Kochems

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1983a), and among the Illinois and the Miami in the Midwest (Callender and Kochems 1983a; Hauser 1990). These are all areas or tribes which traditionally have provided ethnographic analogies for archaeologists working at Cahokia, yet the evidence about two-spirits has been ignored by these archaeologists. The proto-historic and historic Illinois lived in Illinois, southern Wisconsin, eastern Iowa, eastern Missouri, and northeastern Arkansas. French explorers were the first Europeans to encounter the Illinois; the Jollet and Marquette expedition in 1673 was the first into Illinois territory. The Frenchmen reported that there were male two-spirits in the Illinois tribe; there were no reports of female two-spirits. The male two-spirits were said to dress as women, to do women’s work – they did agricultural work, ported goods from one home base to another, ported meat back from kill sites, and worked at women’s crafts – and they were said to have sexual relationships with either men or women. The Illinois two-spirits may have observed some of the same prohibitions as women did – some sources, for example, report that two-spirits did not participate in raids or hunts, but there are contradictory reports (Hauser 1990). Pierre Deliette, an early French observer, reported that the Illinois raised boys as females if they were seen to play with female tools – spades, spindles, axes – rather than male tools – bows and arrows. The boys were dressed as girls, wore their hair like girls, and were tattooed like girls (Hauser 1990). Blackwood (1984) reports the same sort of process for female two-spirits among the Western tribes. Girls who played with boys’ toys – with bows and arrows – were raised as boys and taught the skills a man should know. In some other tribes, a person’s two-spirit status was revealed in a vision-dream rather than through a preference or an aptitude for the work of the “opposite” sex (Callender and Kochems 1983a; Schnarch 1992). Among the references to two-spirits in the Natchez culture is one particularly intriguing phrase. Dumont de Montigny referred to a Natchez two-spirit as “this pretended chief of the women” (Callender and Kochems 1983b: 465). Although they stress the ambiguity of this phrase, Callender and Kochems acknowledge that this may mean that gender status and political office were directly related among the Natchez. Given this possibility, it would seem to be obvious that gender must be dealt with in discussions of the political structure of Native American societies. These brief ethnohistorical reports from two historic groups cannot, of course, be taken as directly applicable to Cahokia. Although the Illinois lived in the same general region as the Cahokians, there are no known connections between the two groups; in addition, the Illinois had a much less complex society than did the people of Cahokia. The Natchez, a lower Mississippi Valley society, also had a less complex society than did the Cahokians, and they lived hundreds of miles south of the American Bottom in a radically different environment. Again, it should be remembered that Cahokia

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collapsed around the beginning of the fifteenth century, so it is separated from all proto-historic societies by centuries. Examining evidence relating to two-spirits in two very different groups of tribes – Western tribes and Plains tribes – during the early historic period, Blackwood (1984) makes a very powerful argument that particular historical sequences may influence a society’s gender system and that historical events may radically transform both the number of genders that a society recognizes and the behavior considered appropriate for each; specifically, she argues that economic changes may transform gender systems. The Western tribes are described by Blackwood (1984) as possessing subsistence level economies and egalitarian social structures; there are reports of female two-spirits in these groups. Blackwood notes that there are some indications that female two-spirits may have existed in the Plains tribes in early periods, but the Plains Indians’ way of life was altered drastically by contact with Euro-Americans, and all the direct evidence that we have of their social structure comes from the Post-Contact Period. Blackwood maintains that the lucrative hide trade with Euro-Americans – which altered the mode of production and increased wealth among the Plains Indians – increased male authority and domination over women. Men as hunters had greater access to wealth, and several women were needed to process the hides that could be procured by a single man. Consequently, the marriage system changed, and women were under great pressure to marry and to adopt female roles. There are no reports of female two-spirits among the historic Plains tribes. The contrast between the gender system of the Plains Indians and the gender system of the Western tribes suggests two points which are critical to analyzing gender systems at Cahokia. First, as Blackwood (1984) argues, historical circumstances do influence both the cultural construction and the archaeological reconstruction of gender systems. Second, Blackwood suggests that female two-spirits are more likely to be found in egalitarian societies than in ranked societies. (Callender and Kochems (1983a) also maintain that the distribution of female two-spirits indicates that this status is more common in less complex, non-agricultural societies.) It is difficult to understand why this should be so, since transgender behavior is present in all known complex societies as well as in their histories. Greece, Rome, and Egypt spring immediately to mind. However, if this hypothesis is valid, and if gender can be made visible in the archaeological record, and if it is possible to see more than two genders in the evidence from prehistory, then changes in the frequency of third and fourth genders over time might be used to track the rise of complex society at Cahokia or elsewhere. To return to the use of ethnohistorical information, the data presented in Blackwood’s (1984) article confirm that evidence about the Illinois, the Natchez, or any other historic tribe cannot simply be projected into the past. The ethnohistorical reports presented here are intended only to show the

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types of information and the level of detail that are available in ethnohistories and to suggest that questions about the number of genders and the roles of all genders in prehistoric societies should be considered.

Archaeological interpretations of two-spirits In a footnote to an intriguing article in which she explores the relation between shell beads and gender status in North Carolina Mississippian societies dating to the period from the eleventh century to the sixteenth, Thomas (1996) acknowledges that she analyzed the data as if there were only two genders in these societies, this despite the ethnographic evidence for the existence of more than two genders in Contact Period southeastern Native American cultures. In a statement which bears a striking resemblance to traditional statements that gender itself is not visible in archaeological contexts, Thomas justifies her methodology on the grounds that genders other than male and female – as Western culture defines these – are not visible in mortuary contexts because so little ethnographic evidence about them is available. Implicitly assuming that male and female genders are visible because they can be correlated with male and female biology, Thomas goes on to say that her assumption that data that are associated with biological males and with biological females can be treated as if they were data associated with gendered males and with gendered females will not markedly influence her conclusions because there were, in all probability, very few twospirits living in any particular group. Thomas, however, was working with a sample taken from 15 sites consisting of 27 burials with shell beads and 120 burials without shell beads. She concludes that there is no significant difference in either the Piedmont cemeteries or the mountain cemeteries in the frequency with which men and women were buried with shell beads, in the bead types buried with men and with women, or in the number of beads buried with men and with women. Thus, Thomas reasons that living men and women used shell beads in the same way in these Mississippian societies. Considering her sample size (which is reasonably typical for mortuary analyses in the Eastern Woodlands), the presence of only a few two-spirits in the sample would affect the results of her analysis. Is it ever possible to see more than two genders in the archaeological record? Sandra E. Hollimon (1997) points out that all genders would have contributed to its formation and maintains that all genders must be considered in an analysis of gender systems in prehistory. Perhaps because she assumes from the beginning that the identification of third and fourth genders is critical, Hollimon successfully develops a methodology for detecting two-spirits archaeologically. Having examined linguistic, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic evidence, Hollimon concludes that traditionally undertakers were male two-spirits among the Chumash, the Yokuts, the Mono, and the Tubatulabal. Because a specific occupation was

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associated with the third gender, Hollimon argues that male two-spirits would be visible archaeologically. She analyzes mortuary remains, looking for males who were buried with both the tools that historically were associated with undertakers (digging sticks and baskets) and who exhibited patterns of bone degeneration which could have resulted from using digging sticks – either for digging tubers or for digging graves; she concludes that the only two males in the sample who meet these criteria may have been two-spirits. Hollimon’s (1997) specific methodology is not applicable to American Bottom research, because there were sources of information available to her – the linguistic data and the ethnographies and ethnohistories of groups that are known to be descendants of the archaeological populations she was studying – which are not available for Cahokia. Nevertheless, Hollimon’s research does suggest that the assumed invisibility of third and fourth genders might be an artifact of archaeologists’ lack of interest rather than a reflection of the intractability of the archaeological record. Unfortunately, as with the identification of men and women with labor categories that have been determined a priori, it is difficult to disprove any data generated by a binary model. One last point about the two-spirit system deserves mention. Hypothesizing that two-spirit status is related to attempts to regulate the labor supply, Schlegel (1983) suggests that male two-spirits may be most accepted when female labor is highly valued or when there is a real or potential shortage of female labor. Conversely, she suggests that female twospirits may be tolerated when males make the greater contribution to subsistence or when male labor is actually or potentially in short supply. (It is not clear where societies with both male and female two-spirits fit into this scheme.) However, Schlegel’s hypothesis is particularly intriguing with respect to Cahokia. Subsistence economies in the American Bottom changed drastically from the Late Woodland to the Mississippian Period. Maize agriculture – an extremely labor intensive form of agriculture – became the major source of subsistence, and it was arguably accomplished by women. If Schlegel’s hypothesis is valid, changes in gender categories over time at Cahokia might reflect changing economic systems. This parallels Blackwood’s (1984) argument, in so far as it predicts that male two-spirits would become less common as a society became more complex, but, again, it contradicts what is known about transgender behavior in other early complex societies.

Conclusion The overarching problem with all extant studies continues to be the deeply embedded androcentric European perspective. It is clear that an attempt to define the political and economic system of an ancient society will focus on sweatlodges (associated with males) rather than menstrual huts (associated

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with women) because the underlying assumption is that only male activities have significance for the political economy. Similarly, the tendency to identify any round building as only one thing – whether sweatlodges or something else – partakes of the simple to complex model of human cultural evolution that privileges male behavior (i.e., identifies all behavior determined to be politically or economically significant as male) and assumes without testing that the rise of social complexity includes the progressive domination of women. Even many current studies of gender fail to envision the possibility that there are really more than two, as evidenced by the terminology which identifies only two real categories, and considers other possibilities to be variations, derivations, deviations, or even parodies of these: there can be only men, women, and people who act like men or women but have nonstandard genitalia. Another possibility, discussed by Gillespie and Joyce (1997), is that although certain roles and tasks might be gendered, the sex of the individual performing the task might actually have been irrelevant, except to European settlers or Euro-American ethnographers. Perhaps Kroeber (cited in Blackwood 1984) had a hard time finding out about two-spirits customs not only because people had learned to be ashamed of such practices but also because there were still people who could not understand the simplistic dichotomous thinking of Europeans. Perhaps the genitalia of the attractive woman grinding corn or the handsome man stalking deer were not what determined their economic contribution (perhaps this is why sexual characteristics are so rarely depicted in Mississippian iconography); and perhaps being a man or a woman exclusively committed to a strictly gendered set of tasks for an entire lifetime was not standard among some groups. Logically, thinking about the reaction of a European to a biological male grinding corn, making clothing for his mate, and caring for his children, an explanation for this aberrant behavior would have been required, and terms like berdache and two-spirits would have been invented if not available. Given what we know about the level of persecution visited on Native Americans from the instant Columbus began the conquest, the disappearance of behaviors Europeans misunderstood and condemned is certain. At least some of the two-spirit attributions may simply refer to men or women performing tasks Europeans (including ethnographers) thought were inappropriate to their sex; such practices could very rapidly be singled out as aberrant. Ethnographers of modern transvestites (Newton 1972) have shown just how profoundly difficult it is for Europeans and Euro-Americans to cope with what they find to be non-standard gender behavior, even in enlightened circumstances. In the context of this book, the important point is that contact with Europeans would have resulted in profound changes in gender roles and gender relations and in very poor documentation of the changes. The example of hide trading as leading to increased male dominance is a case in point, reminiscent of the situation in the Congo described by Eric

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Wolf (1982) and mentioned in Pyburn’s introduction to this volume. Blackwood’s (1984) argument that men would be the beneficiaries of trade relations with Europeans because they were hunters is based on the same assumptions about male roles that would have motivated the fur traders. Europeans coming into a Native American community would almost certainly have expected to trade with men, would have sought out men to trade with, and would have assumed that the hunters they dealt with were men unless forced to notice otherwise, when they would have registered shock and disgust at such aberrant behavior. The almost immediate effect of this would, indeed, be for men to gain economic and political dominance and for men to be devoted more exclusively to hunting, while women would have to devote more time to tasks no longer performed by men. The typical cost of economic admission to the world system seems to be gender stereotyping, so it is no longer possible to tell with confidence what gendered behaviors existed in prehistoric settings. But it is key to our understanding to acknowledge that interaction with Europeans would have elevated the status of men, not because they already had dominant status or because they already performed all the economic and political tasks, but because Europeans thought they did – or at least insisted that they should and intentionally or unintentionally made it so. In conclusion, the analysis of gender in prehistory is not an easy task, and it frequently has been assumed by archaeologists either that genders are invisible in the archaeological record or that genders are unimportant to analyses of societies as wholes. Most frequently, gender is treated as an issue that has been explained already and has predictable manifestations in all human cultures. However, much of the perceived invisibility of genders seems to be the result of a lack of interest in the subject rather than a true invisibility. Researchers at the American Bottom almost never discuss gender at Cahokia and have yet to mount a serious empirical analysis. In their quest to establish the complexity of American Bottom society (and even those who claim that Cahokia was a chiefdom still argue for a fairly high level of complexity), gender may be not only irrelevant but potentially dangerous since Engels, in his explications of Marxist theory, predicts that the subordination of women will accompany the development of a complex society. If, indeed, the American Bottom gave rise to an early state – or something close to an early state – then evidence for female action or for the presence of gender alternatives ought, according to his model, to be submerged in the male-dominated political economy. Findings to the contrary would be seen to challenge the level of achievement at Cahokia. This situation makes the contribution of this book extremely important, because authors of chapters relating to civilizations where the level of complexity is not in question show that the rise of civilization may not be synonymous with male dominance. This conclusion is clearly a new starting point for research at the American Bottom.

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Note 1

There is also some evidence that gender assignments might have been temporary or situational among some historic Native American groups (e.g. the Lakota (Powers 1983), the Blackfoot (Kehoe 1983), and the Hare (Bloch 1983)).

References cited Bareis, C. J. and J. W. Porter, eds. (1984) American Bottom Archaeology. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Blackwood, E. (1984) Sexuality and gender in certain Native American tribes: The case of cross-gender females. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 10(1): 27–42. Bloch, H. B. (1983) Comment on The North American two-spirit. Current Anthropology 24(4): 457. Brown, J. K. (1983) Comment on The North American two-spirit. Current Anthropology 24(4): 457–458. Callender, C. and L. M. Kochems (1983a) The North American two-spirit. Current Anthropology 24(4): 443–456. —— (1983b) Reply: The North American two-spirit. Current Anthropology 24(4): 464–467. Collins, J. M. and M. L. Chalfant (1993) A second-terrace perspective on Monks Mound. American Antiquity 58: 319–332. Drennan, R. D. and C. A. Uribe, eds. (1987) Chiefdoms in the Americas. New York: University Press of the Americas. Emerson, T. E. (1989) Water, serpents, and the underworld: An exploration into Cahokian symbolism. In Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, pp. 45–92. P. Galloway, ed. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. —— (1997a) Cahokian elite ideology and the Mississippian cosmos. In Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, pp. 190–228. T. R. Pauketat and T. E. Emerson, eds. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. —— (1997b) Reflections from the countryside on Cahokian hegemony. In Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, pp. 167–189. T. R. Pauketat and T. E. Emerson, eds. Lincoln, NE:University of Nebraska Press. Emerson. T. E. and J. A. Brown (1992) The late prehistory and protohistory of Illinois. In Calumet and Fleur-de-lys: Archaeology of Indian and French contact in the Midcontinent, pp. 77–128. J. A. Walthall and T. E. Emerson, eds. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Fowler, M. L. (1978) Cahokia and the American Bottom: Settlement archaeology. In Mississippian Settlement Patterns, pp. 455–478. B. D. Smith, ed. New York: Academic Press. Galloway, P. (1997) Where have all the menstrual huts gone? The invisibility of menstrual seclusion in the late prehistoric southeast. In Women in Prehistory: North America and Mesoamerica, pp. 45–62. C. Claassen and R. A. Joyce, eds. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Gillespie, S. and R. Joyce (1997) Gendered goods: The symbolism of Maya hierarchical exchange relations. In Women in Prehistory: North American and

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Mesoamerica, ed. Cheryl Claassen and Rosemary Joyce, pp 189–207. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvaia Press. Harn, A. D. (1994) The Larson Settlement System in the Central Illinois River Valley. Springfield, IL: Illinois State Museum. Hatch, J. W. (1987) Mortuary indicators of organizational variability in the Southeastern U.S. interior. In Chiefdoms in the Americas, pp. 9–18. R. D. Drennan and C. A. Uribe, eds. New York: University Press of the Americas. Hauser, R. E. (1990) The two-spirit and the Illinois Indian tribe during the last half of the seventeenth century. Ethnohistory 37(1): 45–65. Hollimon, S. E. (1997) The third gender in native California: Two-spirit undertakers among the Chumash and their neighbors. In Women in Prehistory: North America and Mesoamerica, pp. 173–188. C. Claassen and R. A. Joyce, eds. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Holley, G. R., Dalan, R. A. and Smith, P. A. (1993) Investigations in the Cahokia site Grand Plaza. American Antiquity 58: 306–319. Kehoe, A. B. (1983) Comment on The North American two-spirit. Current Anthropology 24(4): 461–462. Koehler, L. (1997) Earth mothers, warriors, horticulturists, artists, and chiefs: Women among the Mississippian and Mississippian-Oneota peoples, AD 1000 to 1750. In Women in Prehistory: North America and Mesoamerica, pp. 211–225. C. Claassen and R. A. Joyce, eds. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Milner, G. R. (1984) The Julien site (11-S-63). American Bottom Archaeology FAI-270 Site Reports # 7. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —— (1990) The late prehistoric Cahokia cultural system of the Mississippi River Valley: Foundations, florescence, and fragmentation. Journal of World Prehistory 4(1): 1–43. —— (1998) Cahokia Chiefdom: The Archaeology of a Mississippian Society. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Marquette, J. (1959) Of the first voyage made by Father Marquette toward New Mexico, and how the idea thereof was conceived [1674], by Claude Dablon. In The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol. 59, pp. 86–183. R. G. Thwaites, ed. New York: Pagean. Newton, E. (1972) Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. O’Brien, P. J. (1989) Cahokia: The political capital of the “Ramey” state? North American Archaeologist 10(4): 275–292. Pauketat, T. R. (1992). The reign and ruin of the lords of Cahokia: A dialect of dominance. In Lords of the Southeast: Social Inequality and the Native Elites of Southeastern North America, pp. 31–51. A. W. Barker and T. R. Pauketat, eds. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association. Pauketat, T. R. and Woods, W. I. (1986) Middle Mississippian structure analysis: The Lawrence Primas site (11-MS-895) in the American Bottom. Wisconsin Archaeology 67(2): 104–127. Peebles, C. and S. Kus (1977) Some archaeological correlates of ranked societies. American Antiquity 42: 421–448. Plog, F. and S. Upham (1983) The analysis of prehistoric political organization. In Development of Political Organization in Native North America, pp. 199–213. E. Tooker and M. Fried, eds. Washington DC: The American Ethnological Society.

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Powers, W. K. (1983) Comment on The North American two-spirit. Current Anthropology 24(4): 461–462. Price, J. E. (1969) A Middle Mississippian House. Museum Briefs #1. Columbia, MD: University of Missouri Press. Schlegel, A. (1983) Comment on The North American two-spirit. Current Anthropology 24(4): 462–463. Schnarch, B. (1992) Neither man nor woman: Two-spirit – a case for nondichotomous gender construction. Anthropologica 34: 105–121. Signorini, I. (1983) Comment on The North American two-spirit. Current Anthropology 24(4): 463–464. Swanton, J. R. (1911) Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Bulletin 43. Washington DC: Bureau of American Ethnology. Thayer, J. S. (1980) The two-spirit of the northern Plains: A socioreligious perspective. Journal of Anthropological Research 36(3): 287–293. Thomas, L. A. (1996) A study of shell beads and their social context in the Mississippian period: A case from the Carolina piedmont and mountains. Southeastern Archaeology 15(1): 29–46. —— (2000) Images of women in Native American iconography. In Interpretations of Native North American Life: Material Contributions to Ethnohistory, pp. 321–357. M. S. Nassaney and E. S. Johnson, eds. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Whitehead, H. (1981) The bow and the burden strap: A new look at institutionalized homosexuality in Native North America. In Sexual Meanings: The Culture Construction of Gender and Sexuality, pp. 80–115. S. Ortner and H. Whitehead, eds. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wolf, E. (1982) Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yerkes, R. (1987) Prehistoric Life on the Mississippi Floodplain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —— (1988) The Woodland and Mississippian traditions in the prehistory of Midwestern North America. Journal of World Prehistory 2(3): 307–358.

Chapter 3

The “marauding pagan warrior” woman Lena Mortensen

Across the seas the marauding pagans came, to pillage and rape, destroy and plunder the riches of nascent Christian Europe. In our imaginations we see them – they are fierce, they wear helmets and carry swords, and they are bearded – they are the very icons of heathen virility. This is the familiar and remarkably resilient popular Western image of a cultural-historical designation we have come to know as “Viking.” It is a strikingly masculine image, forged primarily from sources positioned outside the Viking homeland, and largely constructed in opposition; the savage, plundering pagan hordes juxtaposed against the organized, mercantilist, Christian societies who would someday become the industrious nations of Western Europe. Unsurprisingly it is only minimally related to its historical referent. The image of Vikings at home has long been of interest to nationalist projects of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway (e.g. Arwill-Nordbladh 1991; Orrling 2000). And for some time, this image has been in revision, transitioning toward a picture of civilization in progress, and a dynamic society, progenitor of contemporary nations. This effort is rooted in the recognition that popular impressions of the past serve to legitimize presentist notions about heritage and underwrite arguments about “civilization” and social structure. It has been in the best interest of the countries of Scandinavia to refashion the Vikings as legitimate and productive ancestors rather than barbarous marauders abroad. This refashioning however, in the effort to focus on the dynamics of trade and social development, still omits a crucial element. As the contemporary picture of Vikings is shifting from seafaring warriors to seafaring traders, the people in the picture are still overwhelmingly men. The archaeological data, however, suggest otherwise. Although the Viking woman is no longer “invisible” (as she once was), nearly all our encounters with her are still highly circumscribed by traditional notions of “feminine” domains much in the same way as the popular Viking image colors the acceptance of Viking society as a veritable civilization. Unlike the other chapters in this book, this discussion of early Viking culture cannot attempt to establish the status of women in a society arising before the heyday of the world system. Clearly the Vikings were not only

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affected by historical cultural connections, but were themselves involved in establishing the modern world system. Far from being outside the traditions of Western culture, the Vikings were part and parcel of its rise. Nevertheless, ideas about the role of women have been misunderstood by androcentric Viking scholars, and Scandinavia provides important examples of how a Western gender system played out in the rise of a precapitalist civilization that nevertheless must be considered an early cog in the world system of Europe and Asia. The continuing popularity of the romantic Viking image offers testimony for the power of assumptions in inscribing the past. Such assumptions do not merely wield power in the fields of popular impression; they also influence our scientific paradigms for investigating the past, limiting our views of the possible and guiding our interpretations of the probable (Bond and Gilliam 1994). These constraints have been made especially apparent with the advent of the archaeology of gender. Gender was long considered an unsuitable category for archaeological investigation. Instead, it served as a set of a priori assumptions. In recent years this practice has begun to change as more and more archaeologists apply a feminist critique and begin interrogating the ways in which gender constructs and gender relations shape social systems. Margaret Conkey and Joan Gero argue succinctly and insightfully that “an engendered past addresses many longstanding concerns of archaeology: the formation of states, trade and exchange, site settlement systems and activity areas, the process of agriculture, lithic production, food production, pottery, architecture, and ancient art – but throws them into new relief ” (1991: 15). As numerous recent volumes attest, the research is beginning to demonstrate that these relations, contrary to long-standing popular and scholarly opinion, are neither universal nor trivial (e.g. Nelson 1997, Wright 1996). Scandinavia is one of the regions where gender has longest been a focus in archaeology. The first ever conference to address issues of gender was held in Norway in 1979, instigated by the Norwegian Archaeological Meeting (NAM) (Wylie 1994, Bertelson et al., 1987). This workshop was inspired and supported by people “who saw the danger of the false and widespread model based on the assumption that important cultural changes always occur within the male sphere” (Bertelson et al., 1987: 9). Yet here, as elsewhere, resistance to gender as an analytical archaeological category, let alone to the feminist critiques of archaeological investigation, remained strong and, despite years of solicitation, the conference papers went unpublished until 1987 (Dommasnes 1992). This frustrating situation could not be accounted for simply by a lack of women in professional capacities, not to mention a history of strong women archaeologists. In fact, equity issues for women in archaeology were officially addressed as early as 1974 and today women constitute just over half of all professional archaeologists in Norway (Engelstad et al., 1994; Dommasnes et al., 1998). “Even so, female archaeologists have not been able, or have not wanted, to change this picture

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of the past which tends to ignore the life of half the population” (Bertelson, et al., p. 9). In light of this situation, a prominent Norwegian archaeologist, Jenny Rita-Naess, writing in 1987, observed, “If a country which can boast such a high proportion of female archaeologists, one of the highest in the world, has not been able to present a more balanced picture, the resistance must be deeply rooted and integrated in our basic education” (ibid., p. 10). Fifteen years after this initial gender conference, and seven years after the founding of a journal devoted entirely to gender issues in archaeology (“K.A.N.”), another leading archaeologist committed to feminist-inspired research, Liv Helga Dommasnes, still refers to gender in Scandinavian archaeology as a “marginal field” (1992: 2). The unequivocally male character of the popular Viking image is unsurprising. By emphasizing supposed male achievement, activity, and leadership as the defining essences of a given society (past or present), the Viking caricature takes its place comfortably within a vast literature that constitutes the majority of traditional social history. As Judith Jesch states, “If a ‘Viking’ is a marauding pagan warrior, then a ‘Viking woman’ is logically impossible” (Jesch 1991: 1). Yet a Viking female is more than possible, it is a biological necessity, and as the literature shifts focus from sea raids in Northern Europe towards the development of Scandinavian society we do find some room to encounter her. In fact, one might argue that the refashioning of the overall Viking image is very much an outgrowth of the feminist movement to reclaim women’s right to cultural history (Dommasnes 1992: 3). As such, she has received more attention than women in other archaeological traditions, although with variable critical insight. The archaeology of gender subsumes a wide range of perspectives. In fact, multiplicity is perhaps the defining essence of the feminist approach to gender. However, engendering archaeology has not always entailed a critical feminist perspective. For our purposes, the literature from Scandinavia on “gendered archaeology” can be roughly categorized into two distinct groups. The first, and this standpoint most aptly characterizes earlier approaches, concentrates primarily on finding women in the archaeological record as part of the larger trend of investigating women’s history. The second and more recent approach is based more squarely on a feminist critique and proposes that by re-envisioning our models of culture change and state formation through the lens of gender relations, we can learn something fundamentally new about social structure and power relations in past societies. A conscious and critical analysis of gender in archaeology is of paramount importance, not simply because it has recently become a trendy area of inquiry in the sociopolitical context of the 1980s and 1990s, but more importantly because “the understanding of how it has worked in specific cases is fundamental to any understanding of human actions, interrelationships and societies” (Dommasnes 1992: 1). Moreover, the subtext of our investigations of the past, and the role gender plays in shaping

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it, helps us to gain more insight into the “process of the present” which inevitably also impacts prospects for the future. Just as Wolf (1982) has shown that only through a critical examination of the ongoing dynamic interactions between peoples can we understand the naturalized constructs of state, nation, and culture, this chapter argues that interrogating gender relations and constructs is the key to understanding the structure and development of society. In terms of the Vikings, this examination is particularly critical. Although women have been the subject of inquiry, they have rarely been accorded the status of agents of change. A closer look at the archaeological record, particularly in the spheres of production and trade, will reveal that this picture bears revision.

Viking archaeology: an overview Unlike ancient civilizations whose fame has come to light through discovery and excavation of primary city centers, the Vikings initially became popular as a result of their travels. As the Vikings made their presence known throughout the North Atlantic, colonizing and trading (in addition to plundering), they also left their cultural imprint, the traces of which have long inspired interest among archaeologists and the public. In many traditional Scandinavian chronologies, the Viking period immediately precedes the modern historical era and begins precisely in 793 with the destruction of St Cuthbert’s Monastery at Lindisfarne. While this event was well recorded in a series of letters from eye-witnesses (P. Sawyer 1982: 79), it is unlikely to have been the first excursion outside the homeland made by Vikings, let alone a realistic marker for their indigenous cultural emergence. Reifying this date only perpetuates the vision of Vikings as outsiders in Europe’s history. There is in fact no real consensus on the beginning or end of the Viking Age in Scandinavia, or on the extent of the geographical boundaries or cultural signatures of the related groups the term Viking encompasses (Christiansen 2001). Some scholars eschew the designation “Viking” altogether, preferring instead to discuss specific regions and sites in the Early and Late Iron ages. As the term “Viking” in both its popular image and more loosely defined historical referent is integral to the argument presented here, this term will be retained. For the purposes of this chapter “Viking” will refer to the peoples of what is now southern Scandinavia from the early eighth century CE through the total conversion to Christianity in the various regions, a process which spanned the eleventh and twelfth centuries CE. The region known as Scandinavia is remarkably large, so large that to designate such a vast area with such striking ecological variations as the site for a single culture seems strange (some authors simply refuse to do so).4 The modern countries of Scandinavia include Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, but the cultural homeland of the Vikings is generally limited to Denmark and the southern halves of Sweden and Norway. Part of what unifies this region

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culturally is a distinct art style that manifests in jewelry, clothing, architecture, weaponry, crafts, and decoration of written sources. The peoples of this region also had a unified linguistic heritage, the script of the runes, which can be found on various monuments throughout the countryside of Scandinavia. Among other subjects, many of these inscriptions attest to at least the roots of a common religion (popularly referred to as “Norse mythology”) that includes a complete pantheon and cosmology. The occurrences of runes in other parts of the world are often used to indicate evidence of Viking presence. Because the homeland of this culture area spans at least three modern nations, there are both country-specific and regional traditions of Viking studies. Since the goal of this chapter is to review the treatment of gender in Viking archaeology rather than to explore the cultural distinctions within the region, these literatures are treated here as a single source. Scandinavian archaeology enjoys an unusually long history. Some of the first discoveries and so-called excavations were carried out as early as 1704 in central Denmark (Hvass 1991: 149). Sweden and Norway each began their own archaeological traditions in the early nineteenth century. The primary archaeological focus in each of these countries, until recently, has concentrated on the Viking Age. With a vast amount of random finds, museum collections, and state-sponsored excavations feeding the popular thirst for intimate knowledge of the infamous Vikings, it is this period that is best known archaeologically. Our primary knowledge of the Vikings (and general images of gender relations) has traditionally been drawn from analyses of a large body of literature known as the Icelandic (or sometimes “Viking”) Sagas. Most of these historic poems actually come from Iceland rather than the “Viking homeland” and are predicated on older “Scaldic” verse from Scandinavia proper. This literature tends to be full of adventure, political rivalry, mythology, and relationships to the supernatural world, as well as stylized portraits of daily life. Interestingly enough, this body of literature has been “primarily responsible for the widespread view that women in the Viking Age were forceful, independent and powerful, and for the efforts of modern scholars to demonstrate this in the other sources” (Jesch 1991: 4). These Sagas, however, were not actually written down until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and there is much debate over the extent to which these sources can be mined for literal information about the Viking Age (Jesch 1991, Jochens 1995, B. Sawyer, 2000). At minimum they must be assessed against other sources of data, a practice that many literary scholars still avoid. A similar situation exists for a set of early Scandinavian laws that date from the late twelfth century to the fourteenth, but are said to refer to the eleventh century. While they can potentially fill in our knowledge of social structure, they must be read through the filter of Christian conversion that took place before their codification.

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Extensive excavation of graves (into the thousands) has created the largest data set covering the Viking era. The vast variety of grave goods (aided by remarkably good preservation) has yielded not only riches, but many tools and implements of daily life for both men and women (Stalsberg 1991). In addition to graves, we have evidence from a number of divergent archaeological contexts including excavations of towns, harbors, defense works, hill-forts, and marine archaeology of Viking ships and the evolution of the seafaring tradition. All three Scandinavian countries have carried out official registrations of all prehistoric monuments and sites (Kristiansen 1984). This unique regional situation creates remarkable potential for settlement studies, many of which were undertaken during the late 1970s and mid 1980s. But despite the richness of the resources, most studies tend to tell us precious little about gender. Given the rich database of varied sources, there are numerous opportunities to analyze gender roles in the Viking Age, but to date few scholars have chosen to do so.

Life in the Viking Age Most archaeological sources on the Viking Age stress the rural origins of Scandinavian society and emphasize a nuclear or extended family model of social organization. Several subsistence strategies were at play in the Viking Age including farming, stock-breeding (cattle), fishing, hunting, and gathering, but the relative importance of each has not been estimated (Särlvik 1982: 114). The Viking Age is also associated with the advent of the moldboard plow which signaled a significant technological advancement in agriculture. By the Viking Age a fixed field system (as evidenced by finds in Sweden and Denmark) was well in place, cattle were housed in byres, and most farming communities had long continuous periods of occupation, in many cases upward of 600 years (Tesch 1993). Overall, the farmsteads (or single household units) are smaller in the Viking Age than during the preceding early Iron Age. Any given farmstead was likely to be home to several families, including lower class workers and the property owning “main house” family. The Viking Age also marked the beginnings of identifiable social stratification, with clear distinctions between larger and smaller farmstead sites. Archaeological studies that present this picture of rural settlement and subsistence rarely make reference to gender. Despite the heavy attention given to “family” as a central economic unit, gender relations within the family model are most often left unspecified or assumed by analogy to recent periods. It is only after the “neutral” archaeological evidence is offered that some authors begin to impose gender roles on the scene. The first explicit suppositions about strict male and female roles comes from an early study of “female roles and ranks” based on burial customs. A brief characterization of subsistence is given as follows:

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It is assumed that the economy all over Norway during the Iron Age was based on agriculture combined with hunting and fishing. Each farm-unit was largely self-supporting, men and women sharing the tasks in ways similar to those in later Norwegian farming society. This division of labor, making women responsible for indoor work, men for out-of-doors work, seems to be confirmed by the tool categories represented in male and female graves. (Dommasnes 1982: 75) While the conclusion concerning an agricultural economy is certainly probable, the distinctly gendered domains of indoor work (female) and outdoor work (male) represent a much more speculative proposition. Figures presented later by this same author cast doubt on this normative division as she notes that cooking utensils are only slightly more common in female than in male graves, and agricultural tools (sickles) are found in more graves of women than of men. A similar picture of family relations and a gendered division of labor appears again in a summary description of Viking life given by Else Roesdahl. After describing in detail, and in gender neutral terms, all the activities comprising the rural Viking world, she concludes: In daily life, women no doubt looked after house and children while men took care of most work in the fields and with the animals. Women did spinning, weaving and other work with textiles, and in their spare hours many people no doubt carved various things for themselves from wood, bone and other easily worked materials. (1982: 132) These “assumed” and “undoubted” ascriptions of women’s roles, reproduced by many other sources as well (e.g. Randsborg 1984 and Jesch 2001), appear to have little or no identifiable basis in the archaeological record. Instead they are thinly derived from the literary sources outlined above (e.g. Gräslund 2001: 86), and more often than not by invalid ethnographic analogy with nineteenth century rural Scandinavia (Arwill-Nordbladh 1991). Another contemporary source ventures a less rigid proposition implicating gender and family structure with regards to household production in the basic family farm unit, “Within the families there would have been a division of labor determined by age and sex, and perhaps, individual talent. But this division of labor would hardly amount to occupational specialization” (Särlvik 1982: 115). In this scenario there is room to imagine a host of roles for both males and females, not necessarily encumbered by the notions of gender derived from the ethnographic present. In the Viking towns we encounter a slightly different picture. Although no full town-plans are known (many settlements have been displaced by

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recent agriculture), we have extensive archaeological evidence from at least three major trading centers in Viking Age Scandinavia: Hedeby in Denmark, Birka in Sweden, and Kaupang in Norway. While towns and craft production are known in earlier periods, their impact is considered minimal. It is not until the Viking era that we encounter a dramatic rise in trading activities and craft production on a scale that could support a large segment of the population. Hedeby, the largest of these three centers, was also the most economically stratified and the most ethnically diverse. This strategically located major trading center dates to as early as 737 and was subsequently burned in 1050, then ravaged and largely abandoned. While evidence of settlement is found both within and outside the town borders, primary activities mostly took place within the city center. Artifacts from Hedeby reveal large quantities of production waste (timber, antler, and textiles) as well as molds for pouring metal and a furnace to melt glass for bead-making. Concentrated refuse areas provide evidence of individual workshops located throughout the town, indicating that there were no specialized craft districts (Clarke and Ambrosiani 1991). Excavations at Hedeby point to a social model of family dwellings associated with workshops. Jesch posits that such a model indicates something of a “family-run business” where women might presumably play a central role. This reasoning provides an example of the first kind of “archaeology of gender” previously discussed – the attempt to locate women in prehistory. However, there are no means at present by which to substantiate this claim archaeologically. Kaupang in Norway and Birka in Sweden offer similar pictures. From Kaupang, excavated initially in 1867, we have evidence of metal working, leather working, woodworking, textile production, and bone working. Grave materials reveal evidence of a number of imports such as silver and other precious metals, jewelry, pottery from the Rheinland, objects from Britain and Ireland, and finally balance weights providing the most clear cut evidence of trade (Blindheim 1982). Strangely enough, even with such early excavation of Viking towns, and the wealth of material pointing to extensive craft production and trading activities, it is only recently that these data have been used to refigure the picture of industrious, society-building Vikings – long engaged in activities integrating their economy with networks extending well into Central Asia and Southern Europe. Women’s participation in this economy will be discussed in more detail below. In addition to the towns and rural farmsteads, several other settlement units are known. Scattered throughout Denmark are a series of “ring-forts”, strikingly symmetrical structures presumed to serve as some sort of defensive outpost to either control or protect regional populations. A number of “magnate farms” are also known wherein several once privately owned estates have been taken over and combined into a larger “elite” farmstead. While trading was common between towns within and outside the region, by and

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large agriculture still provided the economic base for production throughout Scandinavia in the Viking Age. It is likely that surplus food was produced to support those living in the towns, thus connecting the rural and urban areas through trade, and that additional agricultural products were used as the primary export commodity. The Viking Age marks the first appearance of locally minted coins, prompting most scholars to recognize the period as the transition from a gifteconomy to at least a primitive market economy. Again, much of our knowledge of trading activities comes from graves, but also from caches of wealth referred to as “hoards.” While the exact function of these hoards is debated (cash reserves or ceremonial buried offerings), from them we can still derive a number of economic implications. First, hoards are by no means as common in the Viking Age as in the Early Iron Age, suggesting that wealth was more likely active in the economy rather than stored for personal means. Hoards also indicate status differentiation by means of accumulated wealth. The makeup of the hoards from the early Viking Age shows a mixture of local and foreign coins in addition to “hack silver” (jewelry and other silver pieces deliberately cut up to function by weight rather than as objects in and of themselves). By the tenth century hack silver is almost completely replaced by coins, again signaling the transition to a market economy. As the majority of hoards were found before World War I, and thus few records indicating context exist, it is difficult to assess the relationship between gender and possession of wealth. Viking Age Scandinavia was also, at least to a certain extent, a literate society. The runic alphabet, a 16-character rectilinear script, was developed some time before the Viking Age and remained in use until supplanted by Latin script in the second half of the eleventh century (in accordance with the advent of Christianity). The earliest texts, inscribed on stone and wood, reflect heroic poems and religious stories (Roesdahl and Wilson 1992). As noted above, it is the uniformity of this written language which best links Viking Age Scandinavia into some kind of cultural whole. Runes have been found throughout Scandinavia in a variety of contexts. One particular medium for runes, the “runestone,” supplies more explicit information concerning women’s roles in society and will be dealt with more completely below. Taken as a whole, the brief details on Viking society above combine to form a somewhat cohesive picture of communities partially stratified by wealth, largely self-sufficient by means of extensive individualized agricultural production, yet linked to a wide ranging trade system through an emerging market economy. Based on evidence from Iron Age archaeology, it is assumed that the order of society at the local level did not change with advent of the the Viking Age. The structure was still primarily rural complemented by the beginnings of real towns (although not heavily populated), new technology, and increasing population (Roesdahl and Wilson 1992). While we know of

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kings and queens from extensive mentions within the saga literature and later histories (as well as richly furnished burials and elaborate runestones), centralized political leadership apparently had little impact on local resource control and production. “The most satisfactory interpretation of this unsatisfactory evidence seems to be that, as late as the eleventh century in many parts of Scandinavia, power was distributed among many rulers, including some women, whose authority rarely extended very far; they were indeed petty kings or queens” (P. Sawyer 1982: 52).

No, they were not all men . . . So where are the women and what was their role in the emerging society? An early answer to these questions was produced by a Danish historian in 1984, attempting to take stock of what he could surmise about the role of women from the available (primarily archaeological) evidence. In his article, “Women in Prehistory, the Danish Example” Klaus Randsborg delivers a classical example of trying to put women “back into the mix.” In this example (and later ones), Randsborg locates women squarely within the tropes of traditional female roles, the beneficiaries of male agency. His arguments appear to draw on the popular social science paradigms of the time (as attested by the numerous anthropologists he cites for support), which derived many ideas about society from biological determinist models. Although this article is now out of date on a number of levels, the style of Randsborg’s argument, based on a mixture of assumptions and determinism, offers a productive opportunity to lay bare the model of gender roles and relations reproduced by many contemporary archaeologists, albeit with less transparency (and often more authority). In an example discussing the Bronze Age, Randsborg argues: It is significant, however, that luxury items like imported bronze vessels and gold objects are still the preserve of men, who also have the most “visible” burials in terms of artifacts. It is therefore surprising to find many hoards and votive finds in the late Bronze Age . . . predominantly containing valuable women’s objects. This is one of the greatest paradoxes in Danish prehistory – although one must not forget that men are also represented in such finds, by lurs (horns), cultic helmets, swords, etc., all of which must be male equipment, cultic or otherwise in nature. (p. 150) and later With male control of the working and distributing of bronze follows naturally a control of other aspects of production, including the work input of women. It could be that this line of argument should be the

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other way around, but this is less important when we are dealing with the elements of the system. (p. 148) Throughout the article we find similar examples of those things that “follow naturally” or “can be assumed,” increasingly explaining away data sets that present evidence for powerful or independent women. Conversely, the feminist critique begins from precisely the standpoint that gender relations do not “follow naturally,” but instead are constructed and maintained, thereby fundamentally anchoring power relations in social situations. A more recent example of locating women in prehistory comes from Judith Jesch who wrote the first book-length work devoted entirely to Women in the Viking Age (1991). As the first of its kind, Jesch admits that she “has had to concentrate on the basics,” and the result is more descriptive than analytical. In an effort to “bring into prominence the invisible women of the Viking Age” (p. 3) she delivers an updated version of “finding women” rather than re-conceptualizing the gender-as-social-structure model. Although she characterizes the work as a reflection of the highly interdisciplinary field of Viking Studies, Jesch draws extensively from her own area of expertise, literary history. Disappointingly, the numerous insights into rethinking the role of women are undermined by many of the familiar gendered assumptions that uncritically ascribe house and home to females, polity and economy to males. An example of this gender (in)visibility comes in Jesch’s (1991) discussion of craft districts in towns. As mentioned previously, excavations in Birka and Hedeby revealed a town plan without any centralized craft district; rather, production workshops were located in association with individual houses, suggesting to some a model of family-run businesses. At Birka, studies from cemeteries that ring the town’s outer limits reveal a number of women’s graves containing small bronze scales. Anne Stalsberg, following Holger Arbman’s 1943 publication of the Birka grave material, lists the percentages of a total of 132 with weighing equipment as follows: 32 percent in female graves, 3 percent in those of couples, 27 percent in male graves, and 37 percent in graves where the gender of the dead has not been identified (1991: 78–9). Following the premise which posits a relationship between grave equipment and the activities of the deceased individual in life, the presence of weighing implements in female graves strongly suggests some relationship between women and economic activity in the towns (although the exact connection is of course uncertain). Jesch concludes from this evidence, “it is likely that most merchants and craftsmen ran small family businesses in which their wives played an active part” (Jesch 1991: 39). The phrasing “and their wives” automatically sets up a system of female dependence at the very moment Jesch is trying to proffer an “active” role for women. Even if all the graves for which the gender is not known were somehow shown to be male,

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the presence of at minimum 37 percent of the weighing equipment in female graves surely calls for rethinking the nature of gender relations within the trading sphere. And with the likely connections between domestic and public activities located within the model of a family-run business, these data also suggest a rich source for a truly feminist appraisal of gender roles and social structure. Unfortunately, this was not the occasion for such a project. Studies of graves in general provide some of the most obvious opportunities for identifying gender relations and/or refiguring gender implications. As mentioned above, Viking studies has heavily privileged the archaeology of burials, thus producing a fairly large data set for analysis. Subsequently, we find some of the most interesting work in gender archaeology dealing with burials and associated grave goods. The methods for sexing graves in Scandinavia (as elsewhere) involve a combination of physically sexing the skeleton, where possible, and identifying the gendered nature of burial customs and particular assemblages of grave goods associated with individual skeletons. While determining sex on the basis of grave good assemblage alone is not without its problems, there are a number of distinctive items which seem to occur only in sex specific contexts in the Viking Age. Due to the somewhat remarkable preservation of textiles in Scandinavia’s generally wet climate, modes of dress during the Viking period are fairly well-known. Two particular styles of oval brooches are exclusively associated with women’s clothing (used to hold up the dress near the shoulders) and when found in burial contexts, specifically located near the shoulder where the brooch would have held up a dress rather than as an associated grave gift, are invoked as clear indication of a female grave, even when skeletal material is indeterminate. Similarly, some of the early medieval Scandinavian laws call for free men to keep a set of fighting equipment always with them (even in death) and thus, any combination of weapons found is taken to be an indication of a male grave (Dommasnes 1992: 73). While as yet there have been no instances mentioned of the distinctive brooches buried with an identified male skeleton, there are a few known instances of females buried with military paraphernalia (Christiansen 2001). This opens up an obvious route for discussion of gender roles which may not be isometrically associated with biological sex. Such a discussion, however, has yet to be systematically undertaken. Beginning in the 1980s, a number of scholars looked specifically at what studies of grave goods can tell us about social life and stratification (Solberg 1985: 64). Almost all such appraisals begin with Lewis Binford’s 1971 hypothesis that posits a relationship between social stratification and status differentiation in death as well as a method for distinguishing regularities/irregularities in grave goods between males and females, and separate social ranks (e.g. Hedeagger 1992 and Dommasnes 1982, 1991). In the most general sense, an overall survey of burials across Scandinavia from the Early Iron Age through the Viking Age reflects increasingly elaborate

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wealth in grave goods up until the early Viking era, followed by a near disappearance of conspicuously rich burials. This pattern is commonly interpreted to reflect a transition to a market economy (rather than propertied wealth) and the growing influence of Christianity advocating modest piety in death. Another pattern that emerges from the burial data is the general decline in status of women’s graves in the Viking period, which is interpreted by Dommasnes to reflect a concurrent decline in women’s status (1991: 5). Overall, determining the sex of graves has produced varying results concerning the frequency with which women are represented and their degrees of status. In her 1982 study, Dommasnes surveyed 213 out of 264 known graves from a single district in Norway. On the basis of associated grave goods, she concluded that one out of four of these were women; she also suggested that due to the low number of women the sample was not representative of the population. Her study demonstrated that women’s graves increase from 10 percent of the overall sample in the seventh century to more than 30 percent by the ninth century, which prompted her to conclude that women may have gained status as population density grew. She also noted that the richest women’s graves (as determined by nature of grave goods and size of burial mound) tended to cluster in the best agricultural areas with oldest (most continuous) population. Although there are some obvious limitations to this study, the preliminary data suggest a hypothesis that women’s power increased with the expansion of trade and production activities, and may indicate that they participated actively in the economy rather than passively benefiting from male successes. In a study of 1,100 graves at Birka, Anne-Sofie Gräslund (2001) adopts a more conservative approach. She first determined that fewer than half (415) could be sexed with any confidence. Of the remaining sample, well over half (59 percent) were determined as female. Yet, rather than assume a preponderance of women at Birka or burial customs that favor women’s interment, Gräslund suggests that women’s graves may merely be easier to identify, based on the visibility of the distinctive brooches mentioned above (Jesch 1991: 14–15). While this may indeed be the case, this same cautious standard is rarely applied when quantifying male graves identified only on the basis of associated fighting equipment. Bergljot Solberg conducted a similar survey using all of Norway during the late Iron Age and Viking periods, producing a total count of 4,629 grave finds. This sample was drawn primarily from museum records (artifact catalogs reaching back to the nineteenth century) in addition to excavation records where available, and then grouped according to men and women based on artifact assemblages alone. From these estimates, Solberg determined that only one in six graves were female. Unlike Dommasnes, Solberg’s gender classification scheme was designed specifically to incorporate “stray” finds (single finds or collections of weapons found in the

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countryside without any attendant grave) so as to be more “inclusive”. By this methodology every sword discovered in a farmer’s field and subsequently brought to a museum translated into one male grave. Despite the obvious problems with this approach, Solberg is the only author of the three who does not account for the likelihood that his sample is not representative. In this case, the author has clearly found a way to locate gender in the hierarchy that he envisioned. While it may be difficult to determine gender status patterns at the population level, some elite female graves are unequivocal. The most famous of these is the Oseberg burial in Norway, the tomb of a woman, aged 24, and her attendant. Considered one of the two richest burial mounds ever uncovered, this grave consists of a full size, elegant ship (over 21 meters long) in which were found some of the finest wood carvings known from the Viking Age, complex textiles, a cart and four sledges elaborately decorated, five wooden posts carved with animal heads, household equipment (cauldrons, bowls, buckets, etc.), three beds, a chair and chest, four looms, and personal equipment including combs, shoes, and a saddle (P. Sawyer 1982: 47–48). While the magnitude of riches in this grave is staggering, remarkably little research has focused on discovering the identity of the woman within let alone the power she was likely to have commanded. Most sources rarely mention the attendant. While some have gone so far as to tentatively identify the primary woman as Queen Åsa, most sources discuss this grave in terms of family wealth instead of individual wealth (Dommasnes 1992: 2). Even Judith Jesch who states, “it was immediately clear that only a Queen could have had a burial such as at Oseberg” later references family wealth, “The dead woman’s family, as well as being rich, were clearly patrons of the arts” (1991: 32–33). Why is it seemingly so difficult for authors in the present to imagine an independent woman of power and wealth in the Viking Age? Why does the association of the woman at Oseberg with some typically “male” equipment lead people to account for this “anomaly” in terms of family or a husband’s wealth? Gräslund (2001) asks these same questions in an article that offers yet more examples of high status female burials in Scandinavia. Gräslund, developing an argument for women’s power along a number of dimensions, concludes that “there is every reason to accept that [these women] were powerful themselves” (p. 95). But few authors seem willing to open the field of inquiry further and rethink the identification of “male” equipment in graves and other contexts. In more modest burials, Dommasnes notes that all equipment associated with female graves (agricultural tools, cooking utensils, and textile implements) are also found in many male graves. And among those tools traditionally associated with male activities (hunter, carpenter, blacksmith, boat builder), although primarily restricted to male graves, there are interesting exceptions associated with females (1982: 76–77). Jesch uses the same data to conclude that most common women’s activities are not

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reflected in the archaeological record so we cannot “see” what women did (1991: 22), meaning there is little evidence of women performing activities many scholars assumed they did. Such assumptions demonstrate the degree to which present consciousness links research and interpretation to particular world views. A research design that actually tests assumptions about gender roles, rather than applying those assumptions – for example, analyzing burial practices to inform our ideas about who did what rather than wondering why we do not see the associations we expect to see – may open up our ideas about the relationship between gender and production in the Viking Age instead of closing them off. There are several studies that indeed have employed a feminist perspective to rethinking social roles in Viking Scandinavia and not surprisingly their results suggest a more nuanced image of gendered participation in the economic sphere. Liv Helga Dommasnes and Anne Stalsberg provide two such arguments. In her 1991 article Dommasnes discusses more thoroughly the possibilities for women’s power in Viking Age Scandinavia. Returning to her earlier study of graves in Norway, Dommasnes observes that during the Viking period, while overall the ratio of known male to female graves is 3:1, a greater percentage of women’s graves are found in large mounds. From this, she suggests “women’s graves reflect a narrower selection of rank than the men’s” (1982: 79 and 1991: 70). In addition, considering that a family would have roughly the same number of men as women, since the ratio of mound burials to men and women is not equal, merely being part of a wealthy family would not guarantee an elaborate burial for a woman. Dommasnes suggests that an extra qualification was likely at play, and that qualification was most probably associated with some kind of economic variable or other means of independent power. Dommasnes also suggests that according to the great overlap in tool assemblages found in women’s and men’s graves but an overall wider range found in men’s, it is likely that women’s roles in life were more restricted and more stable over time than men’s, rather than wholly separated from them (1992: 5). Based on her combined data, Dommasnes then suggests a picture in which women may have gained economic status and positions of rank. This vision begins again with the women-as-matrons, economic and social heads of the household. In the Viking Age, with an increasing number of people (she posits men) out on trading expeditions and engaging in activities other than subsistence, vacancies at the farmstead would be created “thus leaving the women in positions of responsibility” (p. 83) to take over the household. This would account not only for the overlap in grave equipment reflecting “traditionally male activities,” but also for the high status burials of women associated with individual farmsteads. Anne Stalsberg (1979, 1991, 2001) provides more archaeological evidence that contradicts the traditional picture of women’s roles in the Viking Age. From an influential study of 99 Viking settlement graves in

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Russia, Stalsberg identified over half as female (Dommasnes 1992: 5). This data set implies several things. First, women were indeed part of the colonizing picture during the Viking Age, debunking the myth of the lone male seafaring warrior. As burials of men and women were found in a somewhat equal ratio, it is likely that their status in life was also comparable (if not identical). Secondly, she uses the evidence of women settlers to dispute Dommasnes’ idea of women gaining status ‘back on the farm’ only when men were away. Clearly women were also away. Moreover, 22 percent of the graves containing small bronze scales were female, and 30 percent were graves containing a male and a female together, suggesting that women were not only accompanying tradesmen on expeditions to far off lands; they themselves were engaging in trade (Stalsberg 1991: 78). In an article a decade later updating this research, Stalsberg finds an even higher percentage of weighing equipment in female graves, bolstering her claims. She notes that a number of scholars have dismissed these scales as farewell gifts from husbands, evidence that a woman died while her husband was away trading, or indicators that a male was present in a grave otherwise identified as female. In response, Stalsberg points out convincingly, “But all these explanations effectively try to explain away the weighing equipment in female graves rather than explain their presence, or at least explain their presence in a way one would normally do other objects” (1991: 77–8). Instead she argues for new research building on this evidence, among others, for understanding the role of “women as actors in Viking Age trade.” The other fruitful source for rethinking women’s roles and applying a feminist critique to Viking Scandinavia comes from runestones. These commemorative runic inscriptions on raised stones or natural rock faces were erected over burials and as monuments along roadsides and bridges. In general they are commemorative works describing the life, genealogy, and deeds of the deceased. Found throughout Scandinavia, with the large majority in Sweden, runestones are remarkably similar in language and content. All runestones indicate both commissioner and honoree; 90 percent also indicate the relationship between the commissioner and the deceased. The semantic style of Viking Age runestones is generally factual, clear description followed by a curse or sometimes a Christian prayer. Most historians have regarded runestones as monuments to important men who died abroad. In fact, the number of runestones which fit this description total less than 10 percent of the more than 2,000 known stones. Birgit Sawyer, a scholar of runestones, has used this medium to analyze women’s roles in the Viking Age. For her studies she used only those stones where both the sex of the sponsor and the sex of the deceased could be determined (on the basis of gendered names and pronouns and terms of kin), amounting to a total sample of 1,621. Of these, about a third contain some mention of women, but those actually commemorating women exclusively account for approximately 4 percent. One out every eight runestones is

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erected by a woman alone, usually commemorating either a son or a husband. While the majority of stones were raised by sons, brothers or fathers, some stones were jointly sponsored by both a woman and a man (B. Sawyer 1991a). What these figures imply, Sawyer suggests, is information concerning the property and inheritance structure of social Scandinavia. Sawyer argues that runestones themselves were primarily declarations of property inheritance and most property changed hands through inheritance (1988, 2000). The act of erecting a runestone would have required considerable wealth and each detail inscription would have been relevant as carving script onto stone with limited space required patience and skill. As such, it was likely that erecting a runestone was a highly significant, socially marked act. Although women are rarely commemorated, they are often commemorators and thus it must have been common for them to possess and dispose of wealth (B. Sawyer 1991a, 2000). Overall, the role of women in sponsorship of runestones, like the evidence of scales in female graves, points toward a reassessment of the level of women’s economic independence, and their contribution as economic actors.

Whither gender The reluctance to accord women agency in the dynamic processes which linked a highly integrated multi-cultural economic system in tenth century Europe echoes Wolf ’s model of culture contacts in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. In Europe and the People Without History, Wolf ably challenged the prevailing view of bounded cultures by demonstrating how the “societies studied by anthropologists are an outgrowth of the expansion of Europe and not the pristine precipitates of past evolutionary stages” (1982: 76). In Scandinavia, the growth of the society during the Viking Age also resulted from long-standing and changing relationships of trade and contact with near and distant lands. And the popular image of the Viking Age is now shifting to reflect this intellectual trend. Yet, just as the contact between peoples creates culture as process, so does the construction of and interaction between genders fashion the society in process. The data above point to a picture of the Viking economy peopled by women and men. And the vision of women’s agency is slowly changing, with venues such as high profile traveling exhibitions (Fitzhugh and Ward 2000), and generalized academic surveys (Christiansen 2001) now embracing some of the arguments scholars like Dommasnes and Stalsberg have been making for decades. The challenge is now to investigate the ways in which the economy may or may not have been gendered at all, rather than shaping the picture of society to fit our presentday normative gender expectations. The studies discussed above provide a solid basis for undertaking this task. Dommasnes assures us that the significance of these works lies not in the

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results, but in the potential of such an approach (1992: 5). However, the popular Viking image still flourishes intact, perhaps more popular than ever (Morrison 2000) and it may take a considerable time for newer insights from academia to filter through. For although women have long engaged in the dialogue of Scandinavian archaeology, “In comparison to other disciplines, such as history and sociology, women archaeologists [in Norway] have had little need to fight their way into the discipline until now. The effect is that many are less aware of the degree to which an androcentric perspective dominates the discipline” (Engelstad et al., 1994: 143). As we have seen, the majority of efforts to recapture women’s place in Scandinavian prehistory remain anchored in a world view which as yet does not significantly challenge the popular Viking image. But women alone do not the category of gender make. Stated simply, the project of this review has been to explore the archaeological frameworks that shape our understanding of the role of gender in structuring society and review the spaces in which Viking women are now seen to move. The second goal has to some degree been achieved, but “locating gender” remains a task undone. While Dommasnes, Stalsberg, and Sawyer have offered viable windows into the ways in which a focus on women, and fundamentally rethinking women’s roles, can alter our picture of social and economic structures, have they truly undertaken the task of gendering the past? Although we have located women and even considered how their “location” might reshape our image of Viking society, without engaging in equal effort to “locate” men, our analytical category of gender remains incomplete. It is the relations between women and men, understanding how the sexes become gendered, that must serve as the critical point of investigation. This is the true archaeology of gender, as Dommasnes reminds us, and “Until we start treating male roles as well as women’s as explicitly gendered, man will remain the human norm in most of our minds, woman a case for special study” (Dommasnes 1992: 12). For now, the presentist paradigm of woman-asgender leaves the refiguring of Viking life incomplete; and thus we wait, watching the Viking ship sail away, full of men, off to pillage.

Notes 1 Even more recently, scholarship and popular works (including the high profile North American Exhibit “Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga”) emphasize interconnections, especially within Europe. This trend, like its predecessors, is not free from its contemporary social context, and likely reflects both the establishment of the European Union and the rising prominence of the concept of World Heritage (Christiansen 2001). 2 “Kvinner I Arkeologi I Norge” (Women in Archaeology in Norway) as an organization was founded in 1985 with the goals “to raise the consciousness of women archaeologists about themselves as women and their working conditions, to improve these conditions, and to learn more about women in the past.” (Engelstad et al., 1994: 141–2).

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3 The popularity of the Jorvik Viking Centre at York is but one example of the intensity of archaeological and public interest in the Vikings to be found in Great Britain alone. (See Morrison 2000, and especially Addyman, 1990 for a discussion of the politics of presentation.) 4 See especially Clarke and Ambrosiani 1991, p. 46. 5 Although picture stones, runic inscriptions, and later sagas all share the same mythological themes, indicating longstanding and widespread association with this particular religion, there is precious little archaeological evidence for actual forms of worship. No real shrines have ever been detected, although a number are postulated. Archaeological contexts do offer many objects of art and jewelry with mythologic symbolism (“Thor’s hammers” in particular); however, their function beyond ornamentation is uncertain. 6 The royal Jelling Mounds were subsequently excavated five separate times throughout the next two centuries (Højbjerg 1996). Interestingly enough, even by 1704, the year of the initial excavation, the royal tomb had already been looted, attesting to a particularly early popular thirst for antiquities (Hvass 1991). 7 See P. Sawyer 1982: 19 and B. Sawyer 1988: 1. 8 This information is primarily gleaned from archaeological investigation of house grounds, corroborated by nearby “family cemeteries.” 9 The definition of towns is taken from that cited by Clarke and Ambrosiani (1991), “A permanent human settlement . . . in which a significant proportion of its population lives off trade, industry, administration and other non-agricultural occupations . . . It forms a social unit more or less distinct from the surrounding countryside” (p. 3). 10 This date comes from a dendrochronological analysis of sections of timbers from the ramparts surrounding the town (Clarke and Ambrosiani 1991: 57). 11 Specific molds of women’s brooches provide early evidence of “mass production” (Roesdahl and Wilson 1992: 198–9). 12 For a thorough discussion of the nature of Viking hoards, see chapters by Dahlin Hauken, Gaimster, and E. Vestergaard in Social Approaches to Viking Studies, Ross Samson, ed. 13 Viking Age hoards from Denmark total well under 100. 14 The article is a revised version of a public lecture given in 1975 in commemoration of the centenary of women’s admission to the University of Copenhagen (p. 143). 15 See especially papers in Arnold and Wicker 2001 for examples. 16 Interestingly, if we apply Binford’s hypothesis (that the more complex a society, the more roles and ranks are reflected in graves) to the Viking period, then we must conclude that the advent of Christianity in this case generated a less rather than a more complex society. 17 The remaining graves were discounted as they were the results of unsystematic excavation – chiefly random finds by farmers. The number of complete and undisturbed grave goods totaled only 30 (8 female and 22 male). 18 The founding themes of contact and colonization in the recent high profile North American exhibition, “Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga” underscore this trend. 19 Strangely, this author adopts even some of the most radical hypotheses concerning women’s position in Viking Age Scandinavia (such as female warriors) yet totally discounts Stalsberg’s contention that scales in women’s graves are indicators of their participation in trading.

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20 In a brief survey of indices, “men” in some derivation turn up in only two cases: In Social Approaches to Viking Studies as “man, men” and “male, masculinity”; and in Women in the Viking Age as “ ‘men’ i.e. ‘people’.” Other interesting patterns occur in the indices highlighting norms and exceptions in analytical expectations, however a full review is beyond the scope of this chapter.

References cited Addyman, Peter (1990) “Reconstruction as Interpretation: the Example of the Jorvik Viking Centre.” In The Politics of the Past; P. Gathercole and D. Lowenthal, eds.; One World Archaeology:12; London and New York: Routledge; pp. 257–264. Arnold, Bettina and Nancy L. Wicker, eds. (2001) Gender and the Archaeology of Death; Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Arwill-Nordbladh, Elisabeth (1991) “The Swedish Image of Viking Age Women: Stereotype, Generalisation, and Beyond” in Social Approaches to Viking Studies; Ross Samson, ed.; Glasgow: Cruithne Press; pp. 53–64. Bertelson, Reidar, Arnvid Lillehammer, and Jenny Rita-Naess, eds. (1987) Were They All Men?: An Examination of Sex Roles in Prehistoric Society Acts from a workshop held at Utstein Kloster, Rogaland, November 2–4, 1979; Stavanger: Arkeologisk Museum I Stavanger. Blindheim, Charlotte (1982) “Commerce and Trade in Viking Age Norway: Exchange of Products or Organized Transactions?” Norwegian Archaeological Review 15:8–18. Bond, George and Angela Gilliam, eds. (1994) Representation as Power; One World Archaeology, 24; London and New York: Routledge. Christiansen, Eric (2001) The Norsemen in the Viking Age; Oxford: Blackwell. Clarke, Helen and Bjorn Ambrosiani (1991) Towns in the Viking Age; New York: St Martin’s Press. Conkey, Margaret W. and Joan Gero (1991) “Tensions, Pluralities, and Engendering Archaeology: An Introduction to Women and Prehistory” in Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory; Margaret W. Conkey and Joan Gero, eds.; Oxford: Blackwell; pp. 3–30. —— (1997) “Programme to Practice: Gender and Feminism in Archaeology” in Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 411–437. Dahlin Hauken, Åsa (1991) “Gift-Exchange in Early Iron Age Norse Society” in Social Approaches to Viking Studies; Ross Samson, ed.; Glasgow: Cruithne Press; pp. 105–112. Dommasnes, Liv Helga (1982) “Late Iron Age in Western Norway. Female Roles and Ranks as Deduced from an Analysis of Burial Customs” Norwegian Archaeological Review 15(1–2): 70–84. —— (1991) “Women, Kinship, and the Basis of Power in the Norwegian Viking Age” in Social Approaches to Viking Studies; Ross Samson, ed.; Glasgow: Cruithne Press; pp. 65–74. Dommasnes, Liv Helga (1992) “Two decades of Women in Prehistory and Archaeology in Norway. A Review”; Norwegian Archaeological Review; 25(1): 1–13.

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Dommasnes, Liv Helga, Else Johansen Kleppe, Gro Mandt and Jenny-Rita Naess (1998) “Women Archaeologists in Retrospect: The Norwegian Case” in Excavating Women: A History of Women in European Archaeology; Margarita DiazAndreu and Marie Louise Stig Sørensen, eds.; London and New York: Routledge. Engelstad, Ericka, Gro Mandt, and Jenny-Rita Naess (1994) “Equity Issues in Norwegian Archaeology” in Equity Issues for Women in Archaeology; Margaret Nelson, Sarah Nelson, and Alison Wylie, eds.; Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association Number 5; Arlington, VA; pp. 138–146. Gaimster, Marit (1991) “Money and Media in Viking Age Scandinavia” in Social Approaches to Viking Studies; Ross Samson, ed.; Glasgow: Cruithne Press; pp. 113–122. Gräslund, Anne-Sofie (2001) “The Position of Iron Age Scandinavian Omen: Evidence from Graves and Rune Stones” in Gender and the Archaeology of Death; Bettina Arnold and Nancy L. Wicker, eds.; Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press; pp. 81–102 Hedeager, Lotte (1992) Iron-Age Societies: From Tribe to State in Northern Europe, 500 BC to AD 700; Oxford, UK; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Højbjerg, Harald Andersen (1995) “The Graves of the Jelling Dynasty”; Acta Archaeologica 66: 281–300. Hvass, Steen (1991) “Jelling from Iron Age to Viking Age”, in People and Places in Northern Europe, 500–1600: Essays in Honour of Peter Hayes Sawyer; Ian Wood and Niels Lund, eds.; Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press; pp. 149–160. Jesch, Judith (1991) Women in the Viking Age; Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press. —— (2001) Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse; Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press. Jochens, Jenny (1995) Women in Old Norse Society; Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press. Kristiansen, Kristian, ed. (1984) Settlement and Economy in Later Scandinavian Prehistory; BAR International Series 211. Oxford: BAR. Morrison, Ian A. (2000) “Travel the Viking Trail: Eco-Tourism and Viking Heritage” in Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga; William W. Fitzhugh and Elisabeth I. Ward, eds.; Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press; pp. 394–400. Nelson, Sarah Milledge (1997) Gender in Archaeology: Analyzing Power and Prestige; Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Orrling, Carin (2000) “The Old Norse Dream” in Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga; William W. Fitzhugh and Elisabeth I. Ward, eds.; Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press; pp. 354–364. Randsborg, Klaus (1980) The Viking Age in Denmark: The Formation of a State; New York: St Martin’s Press. —— (1984) “Women in Prehistory: the Danish Example”; Acta Archaeologica 55; pp. 143–154. Roesdahl, Else (1982) Viking Age Denmark; trans. Susan Margeson and Kirsten Williams; London: British Museum Publications.

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Roesdahl, Else and David Wilson, eds. (1992) From Viking to Crusader: The Scandinavians and Europe 800–1200; New York: Rizzoli. Samson, Ross (1991a) “Economic Anthropology and Vikings” in Social Approaches to Viking Studies; Ross Samson, ed.; Glasgow: Cruithne Press; pp. 87–96. —— (1991b) “Fighting with Silver: Rethinking Trading, Raiding, and Hoarding” in Social Approaches to Viking Studies; Ross Samson, ed.; Glasgow: Cruithne Press; pp. 123–135. Särlvik, Ingegerd (1982) Paths Towards a Stratified Society: A Study of Economic, Cultural and Social Formations in South-west Sweden During the Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period; Stockholm: Institute of Archaeology at the University of Stockholm. Sawyer, Birgit (1988) Property and Inheritance in Viking Scandinavia: The Runic Evidence; Sweden: Viktoria Bokforlag. —— (1991a) “Women as Bridge-builders: The Role of Women in Viking-age Scandinavia” in People and Places in Northern Europe, 500–1600: Essays in Honour of Peter Hayes Sawyer; Ian Wood and Niels Lund, eds.; Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press; pp. 213–224. —— (1991b) “Viking-age Rune-stones as a Crisis Symptom”: Norwegian Archaeological Review 24(2): 97–112. —— (2000) The Viking-age Rune-stones: Custom and Commemoration in Early Medieval Scandinavia; Oxford: Oxford University Press Sawyer, Peter (1982) Kings and Vikings: Scandinavia and Europe AD 700–1100; London: Methuen & Co. Solberg, Bergljot (1984) “Settlement and Exploitation of Natural Resources in Northern Sunmore AD 200–1050” in Settlement and Economy in Later Scandinavian Prehistory; Kristian Kristiansen, ed.; BAR International Series 211; Oxford: BAR; pp. 155–180. —— (1985) “Social Status in the Merovingian and Viking Periods in Norway from Archaeological and Historical Sources” Norwegian Archaeological Review 18(1–2): 61–76. Stalsberg, Anne (1979) “The Interpretation of Women’s Objects of Scandinavian Origin from the Viking Period Found in Russia” in Were They All Men?: An Examination of Sex Roles in Prehistoric Society Acts from a workshop held at Utstein Kloster, Rogaland, November 2–4, 1979; Stavanger: Arkeologisk Museum I Stavanger; pp. 89–100. —— (1991) “Women as Actors in North European Viking Age Trade” in Social Approaches to Viking Studies; Ross Samson, ed.; Glasgow: Cruithne Press; pp. 76–83. —— (2001) “Visible Women Made Invisible: Interpreting Varangian Women in Old Russia” in Gender and the Archaeology of Death; Bettina Arnold and Nancy L. Wicker, eds.; Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press; pp. 65–79. Tesch, Sten (1993) “Houses, Farmsteads, and Long-term Change: A Regional Study of Prehistoric Settlements in the Köpinge Area, in Scania, Southern Sweden”; unpub. doctoral thesis, Uppsala University, Sweden. Vestergaard, Elisabeth (1991a) “Gift-Giving, Hoarding, and Outdoings” in Social Approaches to Viking Studies; Ross Samson, ed.; Glasgow: Cruithne Press; pp. 97–104.

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Wolf, Eric (1982) Europe and the People without History; Berkeley: University of California Press. Wright, Rita P. (1996) Gender and Archaeology; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Wylie, Alison (1994) “Pragmatism and Politics: Understanding the Emergence of Gender Research in Archaeology”; David Skomp Distinguished Lecture Series, Indiana University; Lecture delivered on February 25, 1994.

Chapter 4

Tracing women in early Sumer 1 Layla Al-Zubaidi

Essentializing ancient Mesopotamia: identifications and the past Ancient Mesopotamia is not only the object of scientific endeavor, but also an arena for the identity contests of scholars. Caught in the ambivalence of a “mixed feeling of both kinship and alienness” (Larsen 1992), Western archaeologists have traditionally conceived ancient Mesopotamia as the origin of European culture on the one hand, but on the other hand a historic constituent of today’s “Muslim world,” often seen as the antithesis of the world the archaeologist inhabits. Somehow, Mesopotamia gave rise to “us” as well as “the other.” Studies of gender relations are similarly ambivalent. For example, in discussing Sumerian priestesses and queens, authors never stress continuity with the present, but discussions of female subordination are invariably used as evidence of cultural continuity with the present. The prevailing gender paradigm emphasizes the public–private opposition, which archaeologists see as derived from the distant past: And one must wonder whether this general invisibility of women in Mesopotamia does not reflect deeper cultural mores regarding distinctions of public and private along gender lines – a practise entirely consonant with parts of the Middle East today. That is to say, if the subjects of public art are public themes, and the protagonists of public acts are seen to be men, then the absence of women in public art asserts their lack of publicness, to the extent that “woman” is to be equated with “private” – our priestesses being a notable exception. (Winter 1987: 201, my emphasis) Women are underrepresented in elite contexts of the Mesopotamian archaeological record; it is obvious that few women appear in ancient art and literature of the area. Apparently rulers and high political officials were male with few exceptions. Women are also underrepresented in archaeological research, since little effort has been put into uncovering the material remains

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of everyday life in early Near Eastern archaeology, where evidence of women is abundant. The neglect of this sphere reflects the notion of the inferiority of the private domestic sphere in comparison to public “temples” and “palaces.” Thus, the invisibility of women does reflect the gender bias of ancient Mesopotamia, where little emphasis was put on the public depiction and celebration of women, but also the cultural and social context of archaeologists and the discipline. This corresponds to Eric Wolf ’s (1982) concept of how non-European peoples are systematically marginalized by being rendered “timeless”; androcentric archaeology denies the historical significance of women’s activities by treating gender roles as being selfevident and insignificant, and therefore not relevant for the production of archaeological knowledge. However, to move away from an androcentric bias in archaeology, it is not sufficient to uncover women wherever they might have been active in “real life.” The ultimate goal of feminist archaeology is not merely to “add women and stir” (Conkey and Gero 1991), but to investigate how ideology works in different modes of representation. “Women are portrayed in inconsistent and contradictory ways in different representational media. At the very least, this raises questions about the ideologies of representation and their correspondence to what women ‘really’ did” (Pollock 1991: 366). Feminists sometimes also display an ideological bias when they assume that some sort of feminist consciousness is a universal experience. For example, in her book on women in ancient Mesopotamia, Seibert (1974), a Marxist feminist, assumes that women in all times actively sought agency and personal development through self-education and participation in the work force: Yet women realized that inactivity and lack of personal initiative in any event led to regress, a fall into still worse dependence. On the other hand, knowledge and energy could become an inciting influence. Women of all social layers – the female ruler and the slave, the priestess, the scribe, the skilled worker – they all have made use of the old oriental proverbial wisdom of the necessity of striving and of working to improve oneself. They may have ignored, however, that by their work they also contributed to the advance of society. But they certainly did so and thereby helped to mould the civilization of the Ancient East. (1974: 52) In this chapter I attempt a critical overview of studies of early Sumerian women. By doing this I focus on the Late Uruk period as the period of original transformations to complex society and status differentiation when Engels predicted women would lose social and political power. Unfortunately, this is also a period of very sketchy documentation of gender issues.

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Imagining a civilization The name “Sumer” is used by archaeologists for the geographical area of South Mesopotamia as well as for the civilization that developed there at the end of the fourth millennium BC. Around 6000 BC southern Mesopotamia was settled for the first time. Through favorable climatic conditions and a very fertile soil, agricultural surplus could be achieved, generating complex systems of economic and social organization. Many authors refer to this key period as the “Garden of Eden,” a trope which can be traced back to the foundation of the discipline when the archaeologists’ main interest was to find the origins of the biblical land.2 Larsen, who examined old travel reports on Mesopotamia, observed a frequent juxtaposition of the image of the Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babylon: “I have yet to find a travel account from this period which does not mention a visit to the site of the Garden of Eden, and nearly all contain descriptions of the desolate ruins of Babylon,” feelings of awe overwhelming the visitors to the ruins of Babylon itself, the city which according to the Western tradition was the epitome of despotism, depravity, and decadence (1992: 116–18). Larsen outlined two major paradigms for eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury antiquarian studies of Mesopotamia, which are still prevalent in the discipline today: evidence of early Judeo-Christian religion and the “cradle of civilization.” At the turn of the century, the concepts of development, progress and the evolution of state formation became the motivating frame for studying ancient Mesopotamia, in the search to bridge the gap which separated the “primitive, prehistoric man” from the “modern, civilized man,”3 a quest from which women were conspicuously absent: The recognition of the Near Orient as lying behind the history of Europe, just as the history of Europe lies behind that of America, and the further possibility of pushing back behind the Ancient Near East of historic times into the ages of man’s prehistoric development thus giving us the ever remoter stages – these latest reconstructions of the new historian disclose us to the career of man for the first time as one whole, to be regarded as a consecutive development from the stone fist-hatchet to the shell-fragments of 1914, buried side by side on the battlefields of the Somme. (James Henry Breasted, founder of the Oriental Institute in Chicago, quoted in Larsen 1992: 129) Scholars at this time constantly stressed the contrast between the glorious past and the “degraded” present, an image which implied that only Westerners were legitimate investigators of the ruins: “it was really the West, not the local population, which stood as the inheritors of the glories of the past” (Larsen 1992: 130). Kuklick observes the trope of timelessness in the

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writings of these archaeologists, who perceived a deep disparity between themselves and their Arab counterparts. Contemporary Arab civilization, they thought, had declined from an earlier golden era with which they identified themselves so strongly that they wrote from “Babylonia,” as if they were living in ancient times and not in late-nineteenth-century Mesopotamia (1996: 46). Their descriptions of civilization’s “degeneration” implied that sometimes they saw not only temporal stagnation at work, but even an “evolution in reverse” (Kuklick 1996: 46, Silberman 1991). According to Cooper (1992), from Napoleon’s scientific “expedition” to Egypt to the British East India Company’s Residency in Baghdad, the context of ancient Near East studies was imperialist from its very beginnings, and the field has been pursued through the neo-colonialist framework until now. Although archaeology was both an ideological beneficiary of and a contributor to colonialism, archaeological inquiry did not directly provide colonial control or domination. Archaeological activities and expeditions were rather used as a cover for espionage and as an arena for competition among the rival British and French colonizers. Contrary to other colonized regions, where a conscious connection between contemporary and ancient cultures made knowledge of both useful for governing, in the Middle East there was little sense of continuity with the pre-Islamic past.4 This was due to both a linguistic and a religious gap, and to the Muslims’ own definition of the past as “pagan” (the Arabic term jahiliya for the pre-Islamic past means “age of ignorance”)5 and therefore, if not dangerous, at least uninteresting. As mentioned above, archaeologists imagined recovering the roots of their own religion and civilization, rather than that of contemporary inhabitants of the Middle East (Cooper 1992).

Sources on women: the Late Uruk period The era of Sumerian “Early High Civilization” covers approximately a thousand years and is divided into the Early, Middle, and Late Uruk period signified by changes in the material culture. The Late Uruk period, on which I want to concentrate in this chapter, was an era of significant innovations and long-lasting transformations. Usually dated to 3200–3000 BC , new datesets have recently pushed it back to c. 3400–3200 BC (Crawford 1991: 18).6 The period is marked by a relatively rapid increase in the amount of settlements and the emergence of a four-tiered settlement hierarchy based on a number of interrelated factors (see Nissen 1988). If the rise of status distinctions is concomitant with the subordination of women, this is a period when women should be losing ground. Characteristics of the period are the standardized so-called “bevelled-rim bowl,” which was used for the distribution of rations to the workers in the various economic sectors (Nissen 1988: 84–5; for other interpretations see Millard 1988), ideographic writings on clay tablets, and cylinder seals, which replaced the previously

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dominating stamp-seals and could be used for larger surfaces. A further significant marker of the period is the establishment of a large scale longdistance trade-network, the so-called Uruk-network.7

The state of research At first glance the literature on women in ancient Mesopotamia is staggering, but closer inspection shows that knowledge of women is still very fragmentary and especially dependent on periods where written sources are available. Consequently, research on women has concentrated on later periods (Early Dynastic, Agade, and Ur III periods), which are well documented and studied compared to Late Uruk. I have to emphasize that I refer here only to studies on, or at least relating to, the Late Uruk period. However, for a complete understanding it is not possible to exclude the work on other periods, because Late Uruk representations cannot be divorced from Early Dynastic written sources, since so much interpretation depends on extrapolation from the later written sources. Most information on women and gender is derived from texts, the Mesopotamian “prestige material domain,” secondly from iconography, predominantly that of seals, and finally from only a few burials. Other archaeological categories such as domestic assemblages are hardly referenced. Therefore philology has spearheaded the study of women (for example Asher-Greve 1985, Hallo 1976, Kramer 1987, Lambert 1987, Uchitel 1984, and van de Mieroop 1989), and scholars tend to specialize on a particular type of data, such as art, where research mainly focuses on seals in connection with inscriptions and analogous writings (Asher-Greve 1985 and 1985, Winter 1987). Pollock combines these three sources of information: literature, burials and seal iconography (1991). Most relevant here are the several papers that deal with the role of female labor in the context of the rise of the early states (Rapp 1977, Zagarell 1986). Many of these papers on women were collected in the book La Femme dans le Proche-Orient Antique edited by Durand (1987). The volume developed out of the thirty-third Recontre Assyriologique, which was held on women in Mesopotamia, acknowledging that little work has been done on the topic. Little has changed.

Identifying gender In the periods preceding the foundation of the state of Agade in 2350 BC, archaeologists have found limited written sources concerning women. Most of the protagonists of compositions are male political rulers or “heroes.” Those women who are mentioned in the texts tend to be depicted in nurturing roles, mainly in the service of strengthening the position of men (Winter 1887: 189). Some texts from the late Uruk (and Jemdat Nasr)

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period contain the word geme, of which the context is still unclear. The usual translation is still “slave” or “woman of the dependent classes,” but its meaning has been problematized. Although the majority of relevant texts belong to the Ur III period (late third millennium), the term “geme” historically goes back to the end of the fourth millennium. The word is written by the combination of the two signs “woman” (SAL) and “mountain” or “foreign land” (KUR), attested for the first time in the socalled “proto-cuneiform” pictographic script from Uruk and Jemdat Nasr. On this basis philologists traditionally understood it as “woman from foreign country,” and translated it with “captive slave-woman” or the like. The male counterpart, “man” (NITA) and “foreign land” appears later, not before the end of Jemdat Nasr. Therefore it was generally concluded that women were taken as slaves, while men were killed. However, it has been proved that in the Uruk period men were recorded together with women, but represented by the sign KUR alone (Vaiman, quoted in Uchitel 1984: 261–2). Moreover, Uchitel (1984) questioned the reading of KUR in this context as “foreign land,” because its earliest attested meaning in pictographic script was rather “person of certain status.” Most scholars agree that both women and men probably were “helods,” members of the community with families who were encumbered with labor service requirements (Zagarell 1986: 417). One problem in identifying women in the texts is that the Sumerian language does not always distinguish grammatically between masculine and feminine (van de Mieroop 1989). Pollock has pointed out that philologists in many cases have attributed gender on the basis of their understanding of personal names (1991: 368–9). Hence, a number of persons identified as males by a “common sense” understanding may actually have been women.8

Women in the economy Information on the economic organization of Sumer is provided principally by economic texts, supplemented by archaeological remains. Subsistence production was partly centrally administered by palace and temple institutions, and partly by rich landowners who employed large groups of men and women, paid in daily rations of basic foodstuffs and other goods that were listed in the so-called ration lists. Subsistence production however also continued to take place at the household level.9 The predominant group of workers was that of dependants (gurush), whose status is still uncertain. It is not clear whether this term simply describes all those who constituted the labor force at a particular time, or whether it legally defines the distinctive status of dependent serfs, as is often assumed. Other categories of people working in subsistence production were landless townspeople and farmers, tenant farmers, and seasonal labor recruited only in harvest times. The workers were not a homogenous class of people, but their living conditions

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could vary significantly from those with families and land-use rights to those deprived of family life living only on subsistence rations.10 From later texts it is known that at the lower end of the scale were the igi-nu-du (literally “blind ones”), men who were bought and sold, and among other tasks used to water the orchards. Men and women usually worked separately, although this did not automatically imply a division of labor: to a large extent they were assigned to the same work, only spatially separated (Crawford 1991: 42–7). The various levels of labor specialized according to task and large numbers of workers, called sub-lugal (later eren) were organized into groups of approximately 20 individuals. However, not only dependants were obliged to work, since all subjects were required to perform certain public labor services, such as canal cleaning. The main subsistence was of course derived from agriculture and animal husbandry, the largest and very rigidly structured economic units. Most traces of economic activity known to us come from temples, where excavations are usually concentrated.11 To label Sumerian economy as “temple-economy” however has become increasingly controversial. Despite the fact that areas lying outside of the urban structures, and especially outside of temples, have been neglected by archaeologists, there is evidence that private economy controlled by individual property-holders and domestic work was equally important. Besides, production, distribution, and consumption in the countryside may have been organized differently than in the cities. Nearly all evidence is derived from the site of Uruk, and only from the central area of its Eanna-sanctuary; few other levels of this period have been reached. The large economic unit of Eanna controlled agriculture, animal husbandry, crafts, trade, and the import of raw materials that Mesopotamia lacked. Activities mentioned in the ration lists where women worked in large numbers were winnowing, carrying and removing grain, cutting thorns, removing clods from furrows, oil-pressing, work in orchards, corn grinding, and swine herding. Women’s payment usually consisted of rations of barley and oil in smaller amounts than those paid to men. In all other aspects it seems that female laborers were not treated differently from men.

Domestic and public labor Information about women working in subsistence economy or other sectors is, apart from economic texts, mainly provided by seal depictions. The major book dealing with this topic is Asher-Greve (1985). She identified five main activities for women: work with textiles, gardening, pottery, dairy farming, and animal husbandry. The domestic economic activities of women identified by archaeologists working on the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods were mainly dairy farming, weaving, and spinning. Outside of the home females labored in spinning mills, weaving mills, and potteries, as well as in animal husbandry. Asher-

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Greve defined “domestic sphere” as where women were working alone in a seemingly domestic setting. Concerning dairy farming and animal husbandry, a “domestic” seal from Choga Mish, for example, shows a woman with two milk pots next to a spinning woman. Asher-Greve believes that the seal shows a rather private setting, depicting only a small number of women at work, and because of the presence of a dog that might have been a house-animal.12 Accordingly, the “public sphere” is represented where the groups of women are larger, and where depictions include a work supervisor. Since seals and texts seem to reflect predominantly the public social and economic roles of women, domestic life can be inferred only indirectly. Activities shown on seals of the Uruk and Jemdat Nasr period were later mentioned in Early Dynastic texts, but not parts of images anymore. Therefore there might have been a change over time; for example that women are displayed in activities which are later described as male activities, such as gardening and pottery production (Asher-Greve 1985). Images and texts are sometimes contradictory, as shown by the depiction of female garden labor on two seals from Susa, while Early Dynastic economic texts from Mesopotamia state that gardening was in the sphere of the male igi-nu-du. Asher-Greve concludes that in Susa gardening was a female activity, but assigned to males in Mesopotamia. This example also shows that different modes of representation might have different goals and target audiences, and that even economic texts, which due to their practical purpose are surrounded by a notion of objectivity and accuracy, have to be analyzed in their specific contexts. According to Pollock, the fact that women’s activities portrayed on the seals tend to correspond with those mentioned in Early Dynastic economic texts probably represents a transition from depictions of productive tasks toward a stronger emphasis on cult scenes. In this process, women increasingly disappeared or were represented in rather passive roles, while men remained active (1991: 381–2). Also, although the major contribution of women to the Sumerian economy is not open to doubt, this still does not reflect the attitudes toward them, and it would be shortsighted to equate “activity” with “power.” Economic power was supposedly still monopolized by men (van de Mieroop 1989). Interestingly, when women are portrayed producing something (cloth or ceramics, for example), they are interpreted as producers; when men are shown producing, they are seen as controlling production. At any rate, if the change between earlier and later depictions does indeed correspond to a change in social practice, this would be an indication of a change in the economic condition (and the productive status) of women.

Women and state formation Obviously there existed various modes of production, consumption and distribution in Mesopotamia. They were composed of extended-family units,

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private estates of the elite public officials, and public institutions.13 Very little is known about the relatively autonomous family-unit sector. Each seemingly had its own leader who owned extensive areas of agricultural property worked by its subunits. There was a complex division of labor within these groups, which combined agriculture and home manufacture. In the literature they are referred to as representing a kinship or lineage mode of production. The division of labor and the distribution of goods were determined by kinship, age, and sex. Much of the labor was performed by family members, although supplementary use of subject labor, often that of women, was common. By the Early Dynastic period this economic sector was in decline. Whereas land sales recorded for Early Dynastic III are predominantly sales by groups, in the following Akkadian periods the groups involved are smaller, and in over half the cases the sellers are individuals. By the Ur III period, property is mostly sold by individuals. According to Zagarell (1986), the dissolution of the kin core was a crucial condition for the emergence of privately owned elite estates. Members of the elite were often both the representatives of larger kin units and public officials. The economic structure of these estates paralleled, on a smaller scale, that of the public institutions, though they were privately owned. Labor included some dependent kin, public labor resources, and the extensive employment of slave or semi-free workers. During this period members of official state bureaucracies utilized the power of their positions to build a base independent from the state. Zagarell assumes that centralized production with public and communal labor was critical for the emergence of state power and the creation of the conditions allowing commodity relations and independent merchant activity. This is of course the classic Marxist situation leading to the subordination of women, since both Marx and Engels assumed that women must necessarily derive their power from their status within the family and extended kin group. Dissolution of such groups would spell the loss of a female power base. The state took an active role in furthering state production but, at the same time, created the prerequisites for independent merchants to emerge. If we do not assume that women’s status can only be realized through kinship, state production is certainly a process in which collective female labor could have played a key role. The development of stored surpluses and centrally organized work required a complex bureaucratic system of memorization including scribes and seals that exceeded the control of kin units. Small households also lacked the means to compete with the state to secure raw materials. The more the systems of labor and control grew, the more this public mode of production dominated society; whether this was the proximate cause of the archaeological invisibility of women in later periods is uncertain. Another form of resources available to the public authorities was the extraction of wealth through tributes and labor services. Large numbers of

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people were caught up in debt, and families sold kin into slavery or donated them to the temple. In Early Dynastic III, debt slavery seems to have reached such dimensions that rulers were declaring periodic debt amnesties, releasing debt slaves. If the theory that the bevelled-rim bowl is connected with the temple/palace ration system is acceptable, then this mode of production became important during the Late Uruk period. There is no clear evidence of similar mass-produced vessels for earlier periods. Although there is also no long continuity of this specific form afterward, it is succeeded by functionally similar vessels. A further category of evidence is the motifs found on seals. By the Late Uruk period, motifs depict all the major components and activities of public production. Moreover, movements of population from neighboring communities into Mesopotamia took place. Some of these immigrants became integrated into the labor system as dependent workers, probably including a high percentage of women. Thus, a group largely constituted by females was certainly part of the production mode that formed the basis for the emerging power of the state as well as the rise of individual wealth and power. Zagarell argues that the exploitation of women’s work was significant for the accumulation of wealth and power outside the kin groups, giving rise to the power of state officials. He assumes that this implied a clear loss of women’s status and hence links the development and reproduction of gender inequalities to the emergence of class stratification. Here he stands in the tradition of other anthropologists, such as Sacks (1982), Leacock (1983), and Gailey (1987), who, building on Engels (1983), interpreted state formation as a process with disadvantageous effects on the status of women and the origin of recent gender inequalities, based on economic exploitation. Since little is known about the status and work of women in kin groups before the establishment of a public labor force, it is hard to evaluate such arguments. McGuire (1986) criticized Zagarell for not discussing the articulation of the three modes of production (kin-based, private-estate, and public-communal) sufficiently. He suggests that the kin mode was transformed as it was articulated with the two other modes, rather than simply something “inherited from the past,” dissolving with the growth of other sectors. When pursuing this line, McGuire stresses, it would be more fruitful to examine the changing structures of multiple modes, rather than debating about the dominance of one over the other. Besides, lower-class men were equally forced into labor. The public work (or at least that outside of the home) of men, however, is less likely to be called exploitation than that of women. Rapp argues that the autonomy of both women and men is affected by the rise of state power, however, “men and women lose it differently, and their lives are transformed differently” (1977: 314). It is still unclear how and why this was the case in ancient Mesopotamia. The problems posed by Zagarell’s approach reflect the difficulty of applying information drawn from Early Dynastic texts, where

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women’s labor is explicitly mentioned, to the conditions of the preceding Late Uruk period.

Female rulers and rulers’ wives The Late Uruk period is marked by the development of more monumental architecture in the urban centers. The nomenclature in texts of “temple” and “palace,” suggesting a separation of power and a dichotomy of religious and secular rule, is a point of controversy among scholars, since many of the buildings may have been multi-purpose, combining housing, administration, and economic activities. The use of the word “palace” implies a political system which may not have existed until the later third millennium (Crawford 1991: 77). The ruler seems rather to have been a combination of high priest and political head in a position which did not clearly differentiate political and religious functions. There is evidence, however, of frictions between the interests of priests and the ruler-priest. Two titles appear in early texts, which were obviously used for the same office: “en-priest” (later ensi) and “lugal.” Both are later used to designate the highest representatives of the state or city-state, but, according to the context, they can also refer separately to one functionary among others. In one case, both titles appear on the same tablet with apparently the same referent, although they later seem to refer to mutually exclusive roles. The early history of Mesopotamia is marked by the conflict between central and non-central power and their continuous interplay. In the literature the conflict between “religious” and “secular” powers is often implied, but the value of these terms is debated. Evidence to support the thesis of such a conflict between “king” and “priest” derives from texts of the later Early Dynastic period, mentioning several terms for the highest representative of a political structure. The en or ensi is represented with a strong relationship to the gods of a certain center, while for the lugal (literally “the great man”) this spiritual aspect does not seem to have existed. Formerly it was assumed that in the early period the whole city, including its inhabitants and all land that belonged to it, was the property of the city’s supreme god, administered by his or her high priest or priests. Thus it was plausible to see the representative of the god in the en or ensi, who in fact generally proves to have been the high priest of the city-god, and simultaneously the highest political figure. On the other hand, the lugal would have been primarily the person in charge of the army, a role restricted to military operations, but established as an independent and permanent function. This conception is reflected in the usual translations of en or ensi as “priest-ruler” and lugal as “king.” Imposing the term “palace” on buildings, which after the appearance of monumental architecture could not clearly be identified as temples, created support for this dichotomy (Nissen 1988). A further hint at a secondary occurrence of a power distinct from the temple was seen in the fact that in Sumerian the term for palace was differentiated as

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e-gal (great house) from the general e (house/temple). In the archaeological record, particularly in architecture, a chronological succession of religious and secular building is difficult to assess. As Nissen put it: “We can underscore our helplessness in the face of such terms with the random references to the large buildings in the central area of Uruk in the Late Uruk period as ‘temples’ and ‘palaces’ ” (1988: 140). The idea that a distinct secular power emerged correlates with the notion that the highest position women were able to achieve, that of a priestess, still ranked below political power which could only be assumed by men. Rather than considering the relations between different aspects of power (although classifications such as “political,” “religious,” and the like have to be treated with caution when applied to the past), archaeologists constantly separate these fields and rank them in terms of superiority and inferiority, as is done with the “public” and the “private.” The archaeologists’ one-sided focus on “temples” and “palaces” has contributed to the invisibility of women in the archaeological record. In the context of “political” leadership, women in texts are predominantly recognized in nurturing roles, serving to strengthen the position of male rulers and “heroes.” However, a traditional story in the Sumerian king list tells how a female tavern-keeper became “king”: obviously there existed no word for the female equivalent. Her name was Ku-Baba, and at around 2573 BC she became the ruler of Kish heading a new dynasty. However, she and the direct rule of a female seem to be unique, since more often women exercised political power without holding office. The Baba archive from Early-Dynastic Lagash records how the wives of the rulers administered whole temple estates. In fact, the word for king is actually ungendered, so the possibility exists that other rulers were female but have not been identified as such. Another possibility is that the role was gendered male, but the person who filled the role might be any gender. A public sphere, where women were obviously strongly represented, was religion. In cults women as priestesses could have high official status, but it seems that men normally appointed them, so the degree of real and direct control is still problematic (Lambert 1987). Winter (1987) points out that the mother–son relationship is stressed, as are situations in which women act to maintain the norms of society through ritual or through socially integrative action. However, she takes the traditional view of women as conservators of culture and tradition, and does not consider that key functions in ritual not only maintain, but may also change social norms.

Women in the cult Religion and cult were the spheres where women were most powerful, assuming the roles of prayers and priestesses. In this field, the Early Dynastic period proves to be most revealing, and in it three different ranks of

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priestesses are known: nin-dingir-priestesses who owned seals and stood at the top of the hierarchy of female priestesses in Lagash, received the biggest rations and had their own serfs; lukur-priestesses who seem to have ranked below the nin-dingir-priestesses, with different rations; and nu-gig-priestesses who are not present in the Lagash ration lists which include priestesses and the wives of high officials. They rather were listed with the female kin of rulers, implying their high status. Some were married to officials, writers, and other men in high positions (Asher-Greve 1985: 157–8, Pollock 1991: 369). From contracts it is known that priestesses were able to buy property, for example houses, so some access to political and economic power was possible through the domain of religious offices. Although some categories of priestess were allowed to marry, generally they were understood as married to the god they served. Daughters and sisters of rulers established as high priestesses were usually forbidden to bear children. Priestesses were often appointed by men,14 and men could also hold priestly offices, including that of high priest in cities where the patron deity was a goddess. In contrast to the low number of women in official positions, the opposite is true for female deities. A number of city deities were goddesses, who also played active and even dominant roles in literary compositions. Each deity had a range of characteristics, some being associated with domains considered inappropriate for human females. For example, Inanna (later Ishtar), goddess of love and procreation, also controlled warfare (Lambert 1987). In this function she engaged, embodied by a royal priestess, in an annual fertility ritual, the so-called “sacred marriage” with the Sumerian lugal, who in the cult represented a god (Kramer 1981: 303–24). One of the most famous pieces of Late Uruk art is a “female” mask found in Uruk which, because of its uniqueness, was interpreted as the head of a priestess, although there is no real evidence for gender or position. Nevertheless, matching the contemporary ideal of “essential femininity,” it has inspired the fantasy of numerous archaeologists: It is far more than the plastic representation of a face, it is at once the presentment of the eternal feminine and emblematic of the mystery of the human situation (. . .). Here we have a woman unsure perhaps of herself, yet dimly conscious of an enigmatic power. An ordinary mortal, a high priestess, a king’s wife, or even a goddess? The face might answer to any of these roles, for it is in fact a synthesis of all. (Parrot, quoted in Hallo 1976: 24–5). Remarkable in this particular description is that the woman in the archaeological imagination might belong to any possible segments of society, from commoners to gods. In between, however, obviously no role seems appropriate, except for that of the “king’s wife” or the “high priestess.”

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According to Lambert (1987: 125), the respective roles of women and men were considered part of the divine ordering of the universe. He contends that while men tended to do the “more physically active work,” for example farming, war, and various professional tasks, women would stay home and conduct the household and its many activities, including the rearing of children. Such a structural conception of society however neglects the fact that this divinely determined world-view did not prevent women from doing heavy physical work as laborers, slaves, and even probably as poor relations of powerful kin groups. This is stereotyping: transferring the nuclear family model into the past, where, as outlined above, women and particularly those of the lower classes carried a major part of the physical work load in the temple production and household economies. Female work cannot be understood without attention to class distinctions, assuming a single female role or even ideal for all women. An exception is Lambert’s mention of the activities of women in business. Especially in family businesses, they acted for absent male relatives or inherited power before children were mature enough to take over. A second exception was in the religious domain, where priestesses could hold high offices. The study of the Sumerian pantheon reveals that ancient Mesopotamian gods were mostly goddesses, who embodied superhuman cosmic powers and abstractions blended with human personalities. The powers of nature such as storm, sun, earth, water, and powers within natural processes, for example animal reproduction, were especially important for a society where the livelihood was based on agriculture and animal husbandry. The attribution of many of these powers to female deities with human personalities thus reflected concepts of human society, suggesting a certain respect for female potency. Lambert examines the pantheon in order to find out whether the choice of sex is appropriate to the power or function of particular goddesses, too, and how far positions of goddesses in the pantheon correlate with those of women in society. For comparison he selected the major gods and goddesses. According to his results, a large number of the goddesses show aspects that do not fit a female stereotype. The popular goddess Nissaba for example was the mistress of grain and of scribal activity, neither of which was characteristic or especially appropriate for women, as far as modern scholarship can tell. In Sumer, female scribes were rare, and grain, as the basis of the economy was rather sexually neutral, considering the fact that there existed a secondary male deity for the same commodity (Ezinu or Asnan). The Sumerian Inanna, the “Mistress of heaven,” in later Babylonia called Ishtar, was the goddess of both love and war. While the first function, continued in the Greek Aphrodite and the Roman Venus, was seemingly female, war was apparently not. Lambert interprets the first aspect as sexual love associated with prostitutes whom he believes were female in Sumer. Nanshe is another goddess connected with water and fish, but fishermen are

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assumed to be men. Ninisinna was the goddess of healing and hence could reflect the role of women in the household who looked after the ill and invalids, but professional healers, practicing magic or using more physical means of healing, are said to have been men. Two goddesses, Sirish and Ninkasi, were responsible for brewing and distilling alcoholic liquors. This could correspond to the possibility that women did much of the work in the breweries and additionally brewed at home. Finally, Kindazi (“faithful barber”) was a female divine barber, a profession that was normally male in Sumerian society. For comparison, two male deities, Ninurta and Nergal,15 were warriors. Ninurta also included the aspect of “Lord Earth,” thus being the god of plants, particularly agricultural crops. Nergal additionally controlled the netherworld. Two other male gods, Dumuzi and Shakkan, were responsible for shepherding and herding. Three phenomena of the sky, sun, moon, and storm, were embodied by male gods: Utu, Nanna / Su’en and Ishkur, while in second-millennium Syria the powerful sun god was female. Thus, according to Lambert, all the male gods fitted actual sexually conditioned roles and matched the gender of the professions they represented in Sumerian society, while female deities ruled over male domains. Lambert (1987: 127) also argues that some female deities’ basic functions reflect the actual roles of women in human society, for example as mothers and prostitutes, though men’s roles are echoed more closely. While this might be true for some of these tasks, Lambert tends to underestimate the contribution of women to agriculture (and probably also of men to prostitution). In other cases the role bears no relation to sexually bound roles in society. According to Lambert’s results there is no hint of sexual discrimination in the pantheon, considering that for example Inanna as the goddess of war usurped a very prestigious male role.

Conclusion In conclusion it should be stressed that the roles of women in ancient Mesopotamia were more diverse than is often assumed. Asher-Greve suggests that the social structure was a pyramid-like hierarchy, with a small upper class of women from ruling families and some high priestesses at the top. An equally small middle class consisted of women with spouses who were priests, temple or palace administrators, or serving in certain professions. The lowest and largest group was of female personnel employed by temple and palace (1985: 185). This “society cake” model acknowledges that there were women in high positions, but it relegates upper class women to statuses derived from their male partners exclusively, though we really know little about them, and the majority of women to the lower classes, whose activities often took place independently of their relations to men, but about whom we know almost nothing.

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The significance of women in the cults is undoubted, and scholars have increasingly pointed out their presence in other areas. In particular legal and financial transactions women had equal rights, some elite women even had their own means, independent from male kin (which undermines the simplicity of the layer cake model). However, an adequate analysis of women’s social roles suffers from the still common practice of essentializing women by equating them with “slaves,” “private space,” and cultural conservatism. Sacks (1986) warned against assuming that gender carried a unitary status, and the attempt to interpret the status of all women by the loss of freedom of some. Similarly, Winter emphasized the need to explore those situations more deeply where women did emerge and obviously played significant roles: in the ownership of property, the exercise of economic as well as cultic offices, and legal matters. She emphasized that there might have been more cases where women acted independently, as functionaries rather than family members (1987: 201). These results do not mean to neglect the fact that women’s agency in the political realm appears to have been restricted. However, rather than presupposing that male leadership and female subordination are “naturally” prescribed gender roles, it is necessary to take a closer look at processes which might have generated the overall seclusion of women from politics. Since the Late Uruk period is of major significance for the emergence of states and bureaucratic systems, the connection between these transformations and changes in women’s status, roles, and activities has to be further explored. In regard to the topic of this book, the issue of clear concern is whether the rise of civilization and the domination of women in the state political economy of Mesopotamia should be studied as simply an example of an independent development or as relative to historical factors affecting the rise of the modern world system. While it is certainly the case that many of the civilizations considered to demonstrate independent developments are in reality exhibiting historical continuity and the effects of colonialism on the rise of local hierarchies, Mesopotamia has a special place in the history of the West. In addition to the fact that archaeologists have essentialized the data they collect in order to situate their own origins among the ruins of Babylon, it is also true that Mesopotamian political economy not only presages but also initiates the world economic system that first engaged other early economic powers and then incorporated many of them into its hegemony. The manner in which the “flag follows trade” throughout the Old World and later into the New is the overarching process through which gender inequality and subordination are stimulated and reinforced. While there is evidence that male dominance existed already in some of the early states that were largely independent of the rise of Sumer, it is also likely that one of the many profound and pervasive historical legacies of this culture was its attitude toward women. Much as we decry the political motives and repercussions of Western archaeology’s co-optation of Middle Eastern history, it is

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nevertheless probably inaccurate to consider Sumer just another example of male domination; there is some justification for looking at Mesopotamia the “father” civilization of the European world system, and the enseminator of male dominance in the many cultures which it engaged economically, dominated politically, and stimulated historically. In contrast to the prevalent view lauding the greatness of the past as progenitor of modern high culture, this construction acknowledges the link, but views it with a more critical eye.

Notes 1

I would like to thank Anne Pyburn and Susan Pollock for their comments on the chapter. 2 See for the religious paradigm Silberman (1991). 3 This tendency culminated in the movement of so-called pan-Babylonism in the early twentieth century, which was initiated by the discovery of a Sumerian text that resembled literally the biblical story of the flood. For a certain period of time, all civilizational achievements in general were derived from ancient Mesopotamia. 4 See “Ancient Mesopotamia: portrait of a dead civilization” by A. Leo Oppenheim (1964), who argued that ancient Mesopotamian civilizations have almost entirely vanished. 5 An exception is Iran, where interest in the pre-Islamic times had a long history and was revived in the nineteenth century by the intense European interest in Persian antiquities (Cooper 1992: 134). 6 The following Jemdat Nasr-period from 3200 to 2900 BC, named after the Mesopotamian site, where the pottery has been first located, can be distinguished mainly in the pottery-sequence and in the architecture of the so-called Eanna, the “holy district” of Uruk, and other sites, while the transitions in other material remains are rather fluid. Therefore I will treat it together with the preceding Late Uruk period. 7 The large number of bevelled-rim bowls and seals as well as sealings found in the involved settlements indicate that similar bureaucratic control systems were deployed there (Zagarell 1986). 8 In the Early Dynastic periods, however, historical, building and royal inscriptions with long lists of individuals, by name or context assumed to be female, were found. They appeared as landowners, traders, in labor, administration, cult, and in legal matters. Almost all were members of elite families, primarily referred to as wives and daughters of rulers and high officials (van de Mieroop 1989). 9 Since Sumer was a commodity market rather than a money economy, payment was made in goods, particularly consumable foods instead of wages in transferable or storable goods (Lamberg-Karlovsky 1976). 10 Being a recipient of rations, however, is not necessarily an indicator of low status. In some cases for example, archaeologists were able to derive the high rank of priestesses from the fact that large portions were distributed to them by the temple administration (van de Mieroop 1989). 11 Account tablets, recording temple stores, receipts, and expenditures document the temple’s role in administering and managing surplus, the collection of taxes, the production of crafts, the organization of trade, and caring for dependents, such as elderly, orphans, widows and the like. 12 Early Dynastic texts tell that female slaves were responsible for animal-care. It is not clear whether these women were specialized or not, because the pay-lists

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reveal that they were separated in groups for different kinds of labor, but that does not necessarily mean that they did not change from time to time. They also had to do additional work, for example according to different seasons. Because many of the women had similar names it is difficult to find out how often they changed positions (van de Mieroop 1989). 13 For different household-types see Gelb (1979). 14 This concept of male rule though women is exemplified by the most prominent priestess, of whom we know: Enheduanna, who was installed by her father Sargon of Agade as a high-priestes (en-priestess) of the moon-god Nanna/Su’en at Ur, and perhaps also of the sky god An at Uruk. This was interpreted as a political act of Sargon who seeked to stabilize his centralized control in the southern cities and attempted to legitimate his position and pacify the local opposing powers by placing his daughter in a traditional female domain. By this “dynastical coup,” Sargon by imposing a centralized political organization not only undercut local, but also the power of the female priestesses who had access to power only through their positions in the city-states (Pollock 1991: 369–70; Winter 1987: 189–90). 15 Both were sons of Enlil and occasionally identified with each other.

References cited Asher-Greve, Julia M. (1985) Frauen in Altsumerischer Zeit. Malibu, CA: Undena Publications. Conkey, Margaret W. and Joan M. Gero (1991) Tensions, pluralities, and engendering archaeology: an introduction to women and prehistory. In Engendering Archaeology. Women and Prehistory. Conkey, Margaret W. and Joan M. Gero, eds, pp. 3–30. Cambridge, MA and Oxford: Blackwell. Cooper, Jerrold S. (1992) From Mosul to Manila: early approaches to funding Ancient Near Eastern studies research in the United States. Culture and Society 11 (11), 133–61. Crawford, Harriet (1991) Sumer and the Sumerians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Durand, Jean-Marie (1987) ed. La Femme dans le Proche-Orient Antique. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. Engels, Friedrich (1983) [1884] Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staats. Berlin: Dietz-Verlag. Gailey, C.W. (1987) From Kinship to Kingship: Gender Hierarchy and State Formation in the Tongan Islands. Austin: University of Texas Press. Gelb, Ignace J. (1979) Household and family in Early Mesopotamia. In State and temple economy in the Ancient Near East. Edward Lipinski, ed., pp. 1–97. Leuven: Orientaliste. Hallo, William W. (1976) Women of Sumer. In The Legacy of Sumer. Denise Schmandt-Besserat, ed., pp. 23–137. Malibu, CA: Undena Publications. Kramer, Samuel Noah (1981) History Begins at Sumer. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. —— (1987) Women in the Ancient Near East: gleanings from Sumerian literature. In La Femme dans le Proche-Orient Antique. Jean-Marie Durand, ed., pp. 107–12. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations.

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Kuklick, Bruce (1996) Puritans in Babylon. The Ancient Near East and American Intellectual Life, 1880–1930. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lamberg-Karlovsky, Carl C. (1976) The economic world of Sumer. In The Legacy of Sumer. Denise Schmandt-Besserat, ed., pp. 59–68. Malibu, CA: Undena Publications. Lambert, Wilfred G. (1987)Goddesses in the pantheon: a reflection of women in society? In La Femme dans le Proche-Orient Antique. Jean-Marie Durand, ed., pp. 125–30. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. Larsen, Mogens Trolle (1992) Seeing Mesopotamia. Culture and Society 11 (11): 107–32. Leacock, Eleanor (1983) Interpreting the origins of gender inequality: conceptual and historical problems. Dialectical Anthropology 7: 163–83. McGuire, Randall H. (1986) Comment on: Zagarell, Allen (1986): Trade, women, class, and society in Ancient Western Asia. Current Anthropology 27 (5): 423–4. Millard, Alan (1988) The bevelled-rim-bowls: their purpose and significance. Iraq 50: 49–58. Nissen, Hans Jörg (1988) The early history of the Ancient Near East 9000–2000 BC. Chicago: University Press. Oppenheim, A. Leo (1964) Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pollock, Susan (1991) Women in a men’s world: images of Sumerian women. In Engendering Archaeology. Women and Prehistory. Conkey, Margaret W. and Joan M. Gero, eds, pp. 366–87. Cambridge, MA and Oxford: Blackwell. Rapp, R. (1977) Gender and class: An archaeology of knowledge concerning the origin of the state. Dialectical Anthropology 2: 309–16. Sacks, Karen Brodkin (1982) Sisters and Wives: The Past and Future of Sexual Equality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. —— (1986) Comment on: Zagarell, Allen (1986): Trade, women, class, and society in Ancient Western Asia. Current Anthropology 27 (5): 424. Seibert, Ilse (1974) Women in the Ancient Near East. New York: Abner Schram. Silberman, Neil Asher (1991) Desolation and restoration: the impact of a biblical concept on Near Eastern archaeology. Biblical Archaeologist 54 (2): 76–87. Uchitel, Alexander (1984) Women at work: Pylos and Knossos, Lagash and Ur. Historia, Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte 3 (3): 257–82. van de Mieroop, Marc (1989) Women in the economy of Sumer. In Women’s Earliest Records from Ancient Egypt and Western Asia. Barbara S. Lesko, ed., pp. 53–66. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Winter, Irene J. (198) Women in public: The disc of Enheduanna, the beginning of the office of EN-priestess and the weight of visual evidence. In La Femme dans le Proche-Orient Antique. Jean-Marie Durand, ed., pp. 189–201. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. Wolf, Eric (1982) Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Zagarell, Allen (1986) Trade, women, class, and society in Ancient Western Asia. Current Anthropology 27 (5): 415–30.

Chapter 5

Leaders, healers, laborers, and lovers Reinterpreting women’s roles in Moche society Cristina Alcalde What roles did women have among the Moche? Did they stay home and care for their offspring as their partners spent the day in hunting, warfare, and village construction? Were they the shadows behind great men or did they also achieve positions of economic prestige and political importance? What effect did the transition to a state society have on Mochica women’s status? Although not as famous as the Incas, Peru’s Mochica culture (CE 100–750) has become internationally known from the study of their elaborate material culture, more recently highlighted in media coverage of the discovery of the royal tombs of Sipán during the 1980s and 1990s. Although often considered realistic, Moche pottery leaves much about daily life to our imagination and it is important to remember that the way in which we imagine the distant past is too often based on opinions that have been repeated without thorough evaluation. By examining the archaeological record of the Mochica, I hope to offer a more balanced view and challenge the idea of an exotic male-dominated Moche past. In focusing on the transition to a state society, I point to the diverse but still fundamental roles women played as their society became more complex. A re-examination of available materials on Mochica gender roles and women’s status is valuable on at least four counts. First, it allows for a more realistic and dynamic picture of Moche culture itself as it challenges static, one-dimensional characterizations of the Moche as male-dominated, ritualistic, and grim. Second, it contributes to a more convincing and thoughtful picture of Peruvian history, in which the move toward a state society did not necessarily signify the subjugation of women, and in which the Inca do not appear as the main pre-Conquest group. This picture of Peruvian history also challenges stereotypes of indigenous cultures as somehow backward, exotic, or simple, and of indigenous women as inferior to men (and white women), and therefore exploitable. Third, it challenges the idea of a stagnant periphery, which Wolf discussed and began to disprove in Europe and the People Without History, at the same time as it sheds light on those who are still too often denied history: women, Third World women,

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Peruvian women, indigenous women. Fourth, it reminds us that the past need not have been as restrictive as the present in regard to the inequality between men and women, thereby offering hope for a future in which, among other things, increased political hierarchy does not mean increased female powerlessness.

The implications of the past for the present: using the past as justification The way in which we imagine the indigenous Peruvian past has serious consequences for the present and future. The reconstruction of the past can be used as an instrument either to challenge or to reinforce the conditions of the present and construct the future. In Buscando un Inca: Identidad y Utopia en los Andes (1986), Flores Galindo discusses and analyzes the various and changing constructions of what at one time or another has been viewed as “Andean” and the continued search for identity (accompanied by the manipulation of the past) within Peru since the sixteenth century. He notes that what has been considered Andean expresses the imagined and idealized past and that it serves a specific political agenda of the present. Indeed, rebellions such as the Juan Santos Atahualpa uprising in the 1740s and the Tupac Amaru rebellion in 1780 included the struggle to restore an Andean utopia that contrasted with the inequality of the mid and late 1700s. The Andean utopia they sought to restore may not have existed in the past, but the idea of its existence was essential in challenging the conditions of the present. According to Flores Galindo, the idea of the Andean utopia can be traced to Garcilaso de la Vega´s Comentarios Reales (first published in 1607). Garcilaso de la Vega was the son of an Inca princess and a Spanish conqueror. His Comentarios offered an idealized picture of the Inca Empire, portraying it as peaceful and harmonious (in contrast to his views of Spain) and expressed his desire for the restoration of the Inca Empire and its legitimate rulers. Through the several editions of Comentarios Reales, the Andean utopia came to be known, desired, and reworked in both the Americas and Europe. In these reworkings, the real and hoped for lives and events of the past became more and more difficult to distinguish from each other. Luis Valcárcel (1891–1981), a well-known Peruvian archaeologist, anthropologist, and indigenista, reworked and idealized the Inca Empire to justify his political agenda for the present and future. Between 1945 and 1947, Valcárcel was Minister of Education and made his particular version of indigenismo state policy in the area of education. He created many rural schools and mandated that indigenous children remain in their ayllus and maintain their native tongue. He also ordered special textbooks to be produced for these rural schools. The books were true to his own utopian vision of the past and of Andean life. They depicted an ancient Andean world

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that was “enchantingly harmonious and free from social conflict” (Devine 1999:68). Other individuals had romanticized the Inca past, but in doing so they were more negative about non-Inca cultures. Written in 1860, Historia del Antiguo Perú is a good example of the exaltation of the Inca past complemented by the denigration of other groups. The book attempts to group and dismiss all societies before the Incas as barbaric and attribute their successes to an abundance of resources rather than their own efforts. In the chapter he dedicated to the second through thirteenth centuries, the author explained that Indians, “more than homogeneous fractions of the human society, appeared to be antagonistic races incapable of coming close to each other, except through wars of extermination.” He believed the abundance of resources facilitated a life of pleasure that at points led to an abominable corruption (Lorente 1860: 74–75). Lorente devoted the next chapter solely to the Inca Empire and the arrival of the Spaniards. Conglomerating the Incas’ predecessors into one group and seeing them as “barbaric,” lazy, and living a life of abundance, has a long history. A simple past of abundance is imagined not only by scholars and textbooks. A 1997 article in El Comercio, the largest newspaper in Peru, comments that for the Ashaninka, the largest ethnic group of the Peruvian Amazon, “life is the same as it was in pre-Columbian times.” These statements are particularly noteworthy given the violence and displacement the majority of the Ashaninka had experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. In the popular imagination, the Ashaninka continue to be romanticized and idealized. And what about indigenous women in the past? How have they been imagined and described? We can once again call upon the words of Garcilaso de la Vega, this time to get a glimpse of how color-based hierarchies affected views of indigenous women with the arrival of the Spaniards. Referring to a woman, Garcilaso de la Vega, a mestizo, points out that, “era hermossísima muger, y fuerálo mucho más si el color trigueño no le quitara parte de su hermossura” [she was a very beautiful woman and she would be even more beautiful if her dark color did not take away from her beauty] (cited in Manarrelli 1993: 40). Numerous scholars have projected the natural inferior status of women, especially indigenous women, into the past, and this projection is not usually simply about their perceived beauty. To some archaeologists, ancient women are often invisible and usually appear only through an androcentric lens. In 1961, Baudin stated that “in the Indian home of pre-Columbian times, woman was considered inferior to man. She formed part of the patrimony and was transferred by inheritance.” She was enslaved by her husband, and overwhelmed by her work – collecting fuel, gathering herbs and fruits, and preparing food (Baudin 1961: 210). In the 1990s, the trend of generalizing and perhaps projecting one’s ideal of the present to the past continued.

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Writing on Moche art, Rodriguez López wrote that it is “important to observe how the majority of representations are about man, leaving woman in a lower plane, and, when woman is represented, it is in inferior activities to the man’s” (Rodriguez López 1994: 165). It is difficult not to be suspicious of such statements. The Mochica did not leave us a list of how they hierarchized different activities. If we look to the past and Mochica culture, we see that women did not stay home while men made the political economy but instead had central roles in the history of their society. As the Mochica flourished, women continued having primary, essential, and complementary roles. Views of how women should behave in the present affect our interpretations of the past, and views of how women should have behaved in the past affect our expectations of the women in the present. Because it may not always be clear how depictions of the past can affect the conditions of the present, a brief sketch of the status and roles women have in Peruvian society today is useful. It reminds us that portraying women as submissive, passive, powerless, and inferior in the past, with little or no evidence, can have serious consequences for women today. It contributes to the essentialized view of women as naturally submissive, passive, powerless, and inferior by calling upon the cultures of a timeless past to justify the present. Women in Peru today do not have the same opportunities as men. Ideas about them belonging in the home are all too common and the rights of poor indigenous women are ignored. Women are often fired when they become pregnant or due to their age (La República, August 11, 2001). Women who do secure public roles often have a difficult time being respected. In 1995, only 11.7 percent of representatives in the national Congress of Peru were women. By 2000, the figure had increased to 21.7 percent (CLADEM 2001). However, it was not until 2001 that Peruvians elected the first indigenous Congresswoman. Paulina Arpasi, a native Aymara speaker from Puno, is often treated as a curiosity. The press repeatedly contrast her “traditional” clothing and her “modern” ways: she uses a cell phone. In an interview with a Peruvian newspaper, a journalist notes that the press often exoticize her and ask her indiscreet questions not asked of other Congress representatives. The journalist asks Arpasi what she has to say about this and Arpasi replies, “I repeat, I deserve the same respect as any other citizen” (La República, June 24, 2001). Indeed, indigenous groups and individuals, especially when poor, continue to be viewed as less deserving of respect, and outside the realm of human rights. This is partly because common images of indigenous people are exoticized and de-contextualized, making them so different from the norm that we may forget they are also citizens with rights, needs, and lives. The images of women in the past are particularly troublesome because they are scarce, yet, when they do appear, they tend to be used to legitimize a timeless past in which nature predetermined distinct and unequal gender

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roles. This past is one to which present gender ideologies are all too often projected rather than one whose dynamics we explore. As Silverblatt points out, Quechua peoples are among those whose past Western scholarship has denied. Focusing on women’s roles, she examines a history different from, yet no less important than, the European rendition of the past (Silverblatt 1987). Although her work is one of the most widely recognized on gender in preConquest Peru, it focuses on a period long after the rise of the state and does not include information on the Moche. Although most allusions to gender relations in the historical record have tended to reinforce a strict male/female dichotomy, the roles women played in contributing to a successful society were not always clearly marked off from men’s roles. As has been discovered, in many cultures, genders alternate and blend in ways much more complex than a simple dichotomy. Among indigenous North American cultures, some people played social roles that colonists and anthropologists considered inappropriate for their sex. For example, men could participate in work expected of women, dress as women, and take on mannerisms and speech patterns associated with women. Dressing as women for men did not always result in corn-grinding; a woman who dressed like a man and went on a hunt one day might dress as a woman and cook the next day (see Chapter 2, this volume). Some cultures were more liberal than others about gender roles, and others simply had more than two genders. This was not easily understandable to Western visitors, who often misunderstood or condemned what they saw as violations of their own Western norms. Male and female gender-crossers have also been historically documented among the Kuna of Panama (Tice 1995: 73). No one has suggested that archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence points to more than two genders among the Mochica, but the evidence used to support a clear male/female dichotomy makes a strict dichotomy exactly corresponding to Western stereotypes doubtful.

Re-visiting the Moche The achievements of the Inca Empire, its archaeological visibility, and the amount of material written on it tend to hinder the recognition and study of pre-Inca cultures; the Incas’ own rendition of history depicted the lords of Cuzco as the “venerated kinsmen of all” (Silverblatt 1987: xxv). Garcilaso de la Vega described the Incas as the inventors of civilization in the Andes. As discussed earlier, there has been a tendency among scholars to glorify the Incas, ignoring earlier civilizations along with alternatives to today’s dominant views on women and the status of women in Inca times. According to Silverblatt (1987), it was not until the rise of the Inca state in the fifteenth century that male power began to expand, and then to solidify under Spanish rule. If this is so, given present-day beliefs, the dismissal of pre-Inca civilizations is not surprising.

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Mochica culture was not a homogenous group and Moche people overlapped with other groups. The Mochica developed a sophisticated technology that did not exist in preceramic times. To support an increasing population, they channeled rivers into complex networks of irrigation to make the desert land productive and to extend the land under cultivation; they are considered to be the greatest hydraulic engineers in pre-Columbian America. Indeed, they had to be to survive in one of the most arid environments in the world. Population continued to increase as irrigation facilitated greater cultivation. Huaca del Sol, the Pyramid of the Sun, is located at the base of Cerro Blanco, the early Moche capital in the Moche Valley, and was built with over 100 million adobe bricks. It is considered to be the largest structure of solid adobe ever erected in the Andes and among the largest anywhere. Archaeological excavations of Mochica sites did not begin until the end of the nineteenth century and the origins of the culture are still being debated today. In 1898 and 1899, German archaeologist Max Uhle excavated the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon in the Moche Valley. He referred to Mochica objects as belonging to a proto-Chimú culture. In the 1920s, Peruvian archaeologist Julio C. Tello suggested that the new culture be named Moche or Mochica. The name referred to Muchik, one of the ancient languages spoken on the north coast of Peru. In the following decades, a succession of mostly male archaeologists continued to study Moche archaeological sites. They found that most Moche lived in small houses made of stone-wall bases with cane superstructure and mud-plastered – or packed dirt – floors. Roofing consisted of plastered cane. In Galindo, a Moche V city, houses contained three spatial constituents: a sala (large rectangular benched enclosure), a cocina (for preparing food, rarely containing more than one hearth), and depósitos (one or two small rectangular storage areas) (Bawden 1982: 169). After death, a person’s body was buried in a small oval pit. In 1985, John Verano studied 65 skeletons from an undisturbed cemetery in Pacatnamú (Moche V, the period of Moche state development). Verano determined sex through the morphology of the pelvis. He concluded that women lived up to 50 years, whereas men died at an average age of 35 to 45. Individuals of both sexes exhibited signs of well-developed muscles, and five women and two men showed evidence of hernias. The hernias could reflect trauma associated with heavy lifting (Verano 1994: 320), hinting at the fact that women also participated in heavy labor. What we know about their daily lives is still insufficient to create a picture of the Moche, and most data come from elite burials and more elaborate architecture. Mochica culture developed on the north coast of Peru between approximately CE 100 and CE 800. Its antecedents are the Cupinisque and Salinar cultures. Moche culture spanned from Piura in the north to Ancash in the south, occupying the Chicama, Moche, and Virú valleys.

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Moche subsistence included fishing, agriculture, and hunting. Marine resources were the primary subsistence base and included fish (mackerel, sole, meagre, bass, skate, etc.), mollusks, and other shellfish (Donax sp. and Mytilidae in Santa Valley) (Shimada 1994a: 91). Donnan found the remains of various domesticated animals in the southern Santa Valley; Shimada had similar finds in Pampa Grande, in the northern Lambayeque Valley. The Moche domesticated llamas and used them as beasts of burden and as the most important source of meat. They also domesticated guinea pigs, muscovy ducks, dogs, and pigeons. Using a vast irrigation system, the Moche cultivated corn, beans, potatoes, manioc, guava, avocado, squash, chili peppers, and peanuts (Shimada 1994a: 182). Urban residents also cultivated noncomestibles like cotton, gourds, and cane. Despite general consensus on chronology and diet, archaeologists disagree on Mochica origins and characterizations (Shimada 1994a:6). The commonly held theory of an expansionist state traces the beginnings of Moche to its classical nucleus in the Chicama-Moche region during Phase III. It claims that around CE 500 the Moche established hegemony over the entire north coast through military conquest. Proponents of this theory believe that the Moche sphere of interaction and trade extended from the southern coast of Nazca to the northern equatorial coast. Shimada has recently proposed a different interpretation of Moche sociopolitical organization. He points to several flaws in previous reductionist interpretations of Moche organization and offers what he believes is a more holistic approach that recognizes basic differences between the northern and southern Moche of the north coast (Shimada 1994b: 360). First, he points out that the evidence used for the theories mentioned above came mostly from the southern Moche, ignoring occurrences in the northern territory and only including it in generalizations based on the south. To support the idea of a single expansionist state, whether secular or theocratic, scholars often cite iconographic representations of battles. Shimada points out that the examples of war they refer to originated from the southern Chicama-Moche region. Funerary excavations and monumental architecture were the only sources of such data. Earlier archaeologists did not excavate specialized residential settlements in the region and ignored other themes of importance. Furthermore, there are no representations of defeated societies in Moche art (Shimada 1994b: 368). Shimada’s model of Moche organization notes differences between the Moche of the northern and southern north coast and views them as semiautonomous entities, delaying the creation of a Moche state until phase V. During Moche I–III, Shimada suggests that individual politically semiautonomous valleys coexisted. Northern Moche was in the ZañaLambayeque-La Leche Valley region and southern Moche in the ChicamaMoche Valley region; the entities continually competed for absolute domination of the north coast. Shimada notes the absence of homogeneity

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between northern and southern sectors. The northern region displayed several elements the southern sector did not. For example, the ZañaLambayeque-La Leche region showed preferential use of orange-purple paint on pottery. It also exhibited possible pre-Moche III use of makers’ marks on adobe bricks used in large monumental structures and the early establishment and sophistication of gold and copper metallurgy. In addition, there was an apparent peaceful coexistence of the Gallinazo and Moche groups in the La Veche Valley. Shimada found both Gallinazo and Moche pottery in Moche ceremonial structures. Sometime around CE 500, the southern Moche assimilated the northern Moche. At that time, artistically and technically homogeneous pottery, indistinguishable from southern Moche pottery, appears in several sites without previous southern Moche occupation in the Lambayeque Valley and the local orange-purple pottery disappears. However, the pan-northcoast hegemony was shortlived. In CE 562, a 32-year drought began and the Moche abandoned the southern center as resources became insufficient to support the population. This led to the loss of prestige and power of the southern elite. The southern Moche moved north and the northern elite reclaimed their leadership, bringing the entire Moche territory under the centralized control of the northern sector. A northward move is suggested by the scant evidence of Moche occupation in the southern valleys during phase V. Major irrigation canals and agricultural fields became obstructed by sand dunes during Moche IV (Shimada 1994b: 377–384). In the north, the Moche built cities at the neck of valleys to control water sources and maximize agricultural capacity, which had significantly decreased during the prolonged crises at the end of Moche IV (Bawden 1994: 411). One of the key features of the Moche V urban economy at Pampa Grande, the new Moche capital located at the neck of the Lambayeque Valley, was the principle of redistribution. In Pampa Grande, populated by 10–15,000 inhabitants, the state relied on centrally administered storage and distribution of goods for its redistributive economy. Three types of storage have been identified. First, large-scale storage of comestibles and noncomestibles, which were centrally administered and for use in state-sponsored craft production, rituals, and feasts. These products also supported elite households. Secondly, communal storage of food and drink, administered by a local authority. Thirdly, household storage, especially in elite households. As Shimada notes, more information needs to be collected before a definitive sociopolitical model for the Moche can be accepted (Shimada 1994b: 381). However, regardless of the terminology used to characterize the Moche, be it chiefdom, state, or empire, Shimada’s model is good in that it offers a distinction between northern and southern Moche. And, as he notes, the Moche state would have consolidated during phase V if we examine the evidence for both areas.

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Interestingly, the transition to a state organization during Moche IV and V coincides with the appearance of female supernatural beings in iconography and the burials of high status females. As these have not been found in earlier Moche phases, it might be an indication that women were viewed as essential to the Moche state, and that they could amass great wealth, if not before the emergence of the state, then afterwards. Thus, evidence from the Mochica does not necessarily coincide with the theory that women lost status and became reduced to servitude with the development of the state (see Engels 1978: 736).

Interpreting the past through participant observation and ethnohistorical approaches Scholars sometimes turn to studies of modern-day villages in the hope of finding survivals and adaptations from ancient cultures. Their findings, based on participant observation, are then used to interpret objects and ideologies from the past. In the case of the Moche, as elsewhere, even if the people of a certain village are viewed as the lineal descendants of the ancient culture, they cannot be expected to behave in the same way as their ancestors did or to have the same beliefs. Modern-day inhabitants of Moche sites are not the results of the fusion of the present with a timeless past, but of centuries of contact and domination by Peruvian, European, and other cultures. In Moche, a Peruvian Coastal Community (1947), John Gillin recognized the difficulties of using a present-day village to interpret “authentic” Mochica culture. He pointed out that the Mocheros of the 1940s did not recognize a connection with the ancient coastal civilization (Gillin 1947: 12). The monograph depicts the integration of Christian practices into the life of Mocheros and other forms of change through time. Thus, when participant observation and ethnohistoric sources are used to deepen our understanding of the Moche, caution is essential. Elizabeth Benson used ethnographic material from the village of Huanchaco to understand the representations of boats on Moche pottery (Benson 1972: 71). By combining the study of archaeological remains, artistic representations, and ethnographic material, she described caballitos, or ancient Moche boats. Caballitos are still used on fishing trips in Huanchaco, on the north coast of Peru. They are 10–11 feet long and made of four tapering cylindrical bundles of tied totora reeds. The boat has a pointed bow and a square stern with a small one-occupant cockpit where a person may sit or kneel (Benson 1972: 71). Although the present-day caballitos may exhibit similarities to the ancient small Moche boats, the Mochica also depicted larger boats, which carried multiple persons and jugs. There are no large totora reed boats today. Benson thought fishermen might have used the larger boats for long trips during which they would have needed sufficient liquids and foods and a place to store them (Benson 1972: 71–2). However,

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ethnographical material from Huanchaco cannot be used to support her claim. More recently, in La Cultura Mochica (1994a), Cristóbal Campana states that women could not enter the water. They only received the catch from men, and then gutted fish and hung plants to dry. However, he does not explain what, if any, evidence exists to support his claim for the women of the past. In the absence of archaeological evidence, it is difficult to simply accept the sea as a strictly male territory, out of women’s reach. In the late 1990s, archaeologists Steve Bourget and John Verano, in separate excavations, found individuals and statuettes of captives (seated nude males with ropes tied around their necks) in the mud of the Pyramid of the Moon plaza near Moche. These findings are considered to be the first evidence of large-scale sacrifice found at a Moche site (Popson 2002). The individuals found by Bourget were all men and were between 15 and 35 years of age. Some were dismembered. The finding of thousands of pupal cases of flies suggests that the bodies were left out to putrefy. The individuals found by Verano were also men. Verano found cut marks on the neck vertebrae, suggesting that their throats had been slit. These findings help us understand that the depictions of sacrifice scenes in pottery may show actual rather than mythological scenes. In “Shamanism in Moche Iconography” (1974), Donnan and Sharon study the ritual objects of a curandero, or shamanic folk healer, to make tentative correlations with objects depicted on ancient Moche pottery. Sharon gathered data on shamanism in the early 1970s during four field trips to the Trujillo area. He was in a unique position to observe contemporary Moche ritual practices as an apprentice to Eduardo Calderón, a prominent local shamanic folk healer. Together, archaeologist Donnan and ethnographer Sharon identified several continuities from the Moche past. In ancient Moche art, artisans depicted, among many other things, rattles, owl staffs, single woman staffs, and seals. The curandero had these or representations of all these objects in his mesa, or set of power objects (Donnan and Sharon 1974: 52).

Gender and women’s roles in the Moche state Strong and Evans excavated the first owl staff in the 1940s, in an elaborate burial. Eduardo Calderón considered it a symbol of vision and wisdom and used it to cure witchcraft by invoking the spirits of ancestors in preColumbian shrines. He also viewed it as symbolizing corpses, cemeteries, and spirits of the dead. The single woman staff is particularly important to the study of women’s status in Moche culture. In the 1970s, it was used to invoke sacred lagoons in the northern Andes to cure love spells. The curandero identified it as the staff of a pre-Columbian female herbalist and curandera. Recent joint use of the owl and single woman staff is reminiscent of a series

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of curing themes in Moche pottery in which the curer is represented as part women and part owl and always wears a shawl (Donnan and Sharon 1974: 55). Evidence for the existence of a female curandera also comes from the depictions of ritual burial known to iconographers as the Burial Theme, which has been interpreted through ethnohistorical sources. Funerary bottles with the Burial Theme have only been found to occur during Moche V. The scene depicts two individuals interring a high status personage, a llama with a rope around its neck – presumably about to be sacrificed – and offerings of strombus shells, jars, bottles, and gourd vessels filled with food and drink. In the background, buzzards peck away at the body of a naked female curer. She can be identified as a supernatural female through her fanged, supernatural mouth (Benson, 1988: 66). The scene has been interpreted as an unsuccessful curer being punished for the death of a high status person (Shimada 1994a: 231). This suggests not only that women could suffer harsh, ritually important punishments but also that some had the power to heal even the most powerful men and women in Moche society. Archaeologists have used a seventeenth-century document to interpret the Burial Theme. Fray Antonio de la Calancha, an Augustinian monk, wrote that South American curers were high status individuals who used mostly herbs. He also explained that “If a curer lost a patient due to ignorance, he was put to death by beating and stoning and his body was tied by rope to the patient’s corpse.” The patient was buried, but the curer’s body was left above ground to be eaten by birds (Donnan 1979: 11). De la Calancha derived most of his information from the Jequetepeque Valley, the region where most bottles depicting the Burial Theme were discovered. The association of the single woman staff with the same in ancient Moche art, the recognition of a pre-Columbian female curandera, and the depiction of a female healer in the Burial Theme of Moche V point to the possibility of the existence of female curanderas. As de la Calancha noted, these would have been high status individuals. This reminds us that women were not marginal, but essential and more likely had access to and held prestigious positions of social, political, and economic importance. Of course, women, and men, were also involved in everyday activities. Making pottery would have been one of these activities. In the 1930s, Larco Hoyle assumed that because Mochica pottery was so delicate, a female workforce must have made it. Their delicate hands would have been necessary for the job. However, no representations of people making pottery have been excavated (Benson 1972: 116). In spite of Larco Hoyle’s assumption, it is not clear whether a male or female or a combined workforce made the pottery. Mochica pottery is considered to be the most artistically sensitive and technically developed of any found in Peru. “Realist” depictions in pottery and metalwork must be studied with caution, however, since we cannot tell

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the “meaning” of such representations. The last four centuries of looting can make the story of the past more difficult to piece together. Mochica iconography is also found in metallurgy, weavings, wall murals, carved and inlaid bone and stone, and pyroengraved gourds. It depicts a variety of birds, frogs, lizards, jaguars, pumas, fruits and vegetables – corn, squash, pepper, potatoes – and also cactus trees and other plants. There are also portraits of individuals. Some scenes show diseased or deformed persons. Others depict battles, rituals, processions with musicians, fishing, the hunting of deer and seals, boats, houses, marshes, and deserts. Mochica art depicts women in various situations. In the earliest pottery, artisans most often depicted women making love and nursing children. By Moche IV and V, with the beginnings of state organization, women began appearing mostly in scenes associated with sacrifice and death. A traditional interpretation of this change might tie it to a transition from kinship-based roles to roles of ritual significance, subordinate to political power. However, since Moche art depicts no obvious secular authority, there is no reason to assume female ritual association does not correlate with rulership. In the early phases, women were commonly depicted on “sex pots.” In these, women are engaged in various activities that clearly show sexual organs, but more rarely show actual intercourse. Mochica erotic pottery shows depictions of petting, masturbation, fellatio, as well as isolated female and male genitalia exhibiting exaggerated sexual organs. One possibility is that if widespread, fellatio, masturbation, and anal intercourse, were contraceptive strategies (Bruhns and Stothert 1999: 159). Most of the erotic pottery depicts nondivine individuals. It also includes examples of animals copulating with each other and with humans. This is noteworthy because erotic art is not common among pre-Columbian cultures (Benson 1972). Although scholars do not discuss homosexuality, it is unclear whether evidence is being ignored or is actually non-existent. The latter seems unlikely, as most scholars agree that Mochica erotic pottery depicts a very wide range of sexual behaviors. Furthermore, there are vessels with three individuals side by side. Some are of two women and one man, and others are of two men and one woman. The central figure is larger than the other two and is touching, while the other two are petting (Benson 1972: 146). The openness associated with sexuality has not continued into present times, and we cannot assume our own cultural values about sex and sexuality apply to the Mochica. Female sexuality did not appear to be hidden and/or violently “owned” by men, as it so often is today. In relation to women in erotic scenes, Benson (1972: 146) has pointed out that Paul H. Gebhard and Rafael Larco Hoyle concluded in their writings that women expressed joylessness and passivity. However, looking at the ceramic depictions of sexual practices pictured in Mochica pottery, it becomes unclear how one is able to reach such a conclusion – in particular, how the expression in women’s faces became one of passivity rather than, to mention

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one of numerous possibilities, pleasure. It appears more likely that Larco (1930s) and Gebhard (1970s) interpreted women’s expressions through their own male, westernized, and christianized cultural values. It is also possible to question the enthusiasm of the men depicted in the vessels. The erotic pottery does not support the idea that Moche males dominated females. Instead, it may offer an alternative to our own views on sexuality and the ubiquity of hierarchies. What other activities were women involved in? Iconographic studies provide a lens for the study of women’s economic activities. For example, apart from the prestige associated with curanderismo, female healers – depicted in Moche pottery – also received remuneration, according to Fray de la Calancha’s account. Women also produced wealth by weaving. The Moche used backstrap looms and multicolored yarn to produce elaborate textiles. Very few textiles have survived due to the amount of saltpeter in the sands of the north coast (Benson 1972: 103). However, in the Virú Valley, archaeologists from Columbia University found female burials containing weaving equipment. Cotton constituted the most common material in these fabrics; only one specimen contained wool. Plain and twill weaves, gauze construction, and tapestry were all found. Cotton yarns were single ply and the maximum loom width was 60 centimeters (Benson, 1972: 105–106). These burials, along with iconographic representations, point to the existence of female weavers. But do they exclude the possibility of male weavers? Possible answers lie in a drawing in a Moche IV bowl in the British Museum. The scene is described and interpreted by Lanning (1967), Campana (1994b), and Bruhns and Stothert (1999). The Moche IV phase corresponds to the transition to a state-level society. The different scenes on the bowl depict young and old individuals working in a textile workshop. Lanning, Campana, and Bruhns and Stothert have interpreted the scene in very different ways and the debate over what is actually depicted and what it tells us about the past, and how we interpret it, is very insightful. Lanning tells us that it “shows a textile factory, with several weavers working under the supervision of a foreman” (Lanning 1967: 125). This interpretation is clearly influenced by our world today, making the ancient past sound the same as many factories today. It is also quite different, and more simple, than the interpretations of Campana and Bruhns. As Campana (1994b) notes, the drawing is significant in various ways. One of these is that it is the only iconographic scene of weavers found thus far. It also shows no relation to religious or mythical content. More importantly, it provides evidence for the importance of women’s (and men’s?) activities during the emergence of a state-level society and of their everyday activities. In his article, Campana offers his interpretation and analysis of the drawing. There are 14 characters in the drawing; Campana presumes eight to be women and six to be men (Campana 1994b: 464). The drawing is divided

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into five scenes. In the first scene, four elegantly dressed men are speaking or negotiating. Campana describes the second scene as portraying three women, all weaving from terrestrial or marine motifs that hang from the ceiling. The following is similar to the first scene and depicts two seated men sharing food. The fourth scene is of three women weavers. In the final scene, there are weavers once again. These women are dressed more elaborately than the other women, and they are also very near the principal characters in the first scene, which, according to Campana, might signify their importance. Campana theorizes that the drawing depicts a specialized weaving workshop. The drawing depicts spindles, some of which are dyed. However, no one is shown spinning or dyeing these. Therefore, it is possible that spinning and dyeing took place elsewhere. There are several stages involved in the production of textiles. These stages include herding and shearing camelids, growing and harvesting cotton, preparing raw fiber, spinning and plying, dyeing, weaving, sewing, and embroidering. Almost all members of society would have been involved in the production of textiles in some way. Textiles have been found in the archaeological record with themes similar to those in the weavers’ drawing (Campana 1994b: 465). The textiles were made of cotton and also wool from vicuña and alpaca, both camelids from the highlands. This could indicate that the people who spun and dyed them were also from the highlands and that they commercialized and traded their products. Campana also points to the architectural structure of the workshop. The weavers worked under a straw roof, supported by wooden columns. Workshops under elite control were usually more elaborate, and used more materials. Hence, the workshop did not seem to be under elite control (Campana 1994b: 468). As workers in an independent workshop, weavers’ production would not have been under state control, and they may have enjoyed greater freedom in their activities. Given this possibility, it is important to point out Campana’s method of sexing characters. Campana uses Julio C. Tello’s 1931 theory to describe male and female clothing. Men wear V-neck shirts. Women wear U-neck shirts (Campana 1994b: 458). He makes male/female distinctions on the basis of clothing. If one dismisses Tello’s theory, since it is based on assumed rather than proven strict differences between men and women, is it possible to view the “elegantly dressed men” in the drawing as women or as both men and women, who, as Campana notes, would not have been under strict state control? Bruhns and Stothert (1999) interpret the same scene in a different manner. Bruhns and Stothert note that because most scholars believe that weavers were women, not men, in the Andean culture area, weavers are almost always identified as women in spite of evidence to the contrary. In the weaving workshop scene, they see the weavers as having “male clothing and male haircuts” (Bruhns and Stothert 1999: 23). They argue that “Moche women wear their hair in two twisted tresses and generally have straight-cut bangs.

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Males wear their hair cut straight across the forehead as well, but the rest of their hair is worn pulled behind the ears and hanging to the shoulders” (20). In the scene, there are no twisted tresses. Are the weavers men or women or both? Lanning applies his ideas of factory organization (many workers, one foreman) to the scene. Campana bases his sexing of characters on clothing. Bruhns bases her sexing of characters on hairstyles. Do all males wear V-neck shirts or is it just nondivine beings who do so? Do all women wear their hair in two tresses or only some of them, maybe from a specific area, maybe just divine or nondivine beings? Do weavers have particular clothing and hairstyles regardless of gender? Do some of these scenes depict more than two genders? Although the sex of the individuals in the scene may not be clear, what is clear from this debate is that attributing specific gender roles to the Moche, and to the past in general, is not a simple task. What is also clear is that scholars have often been too quick to attribute specific roles to the men and women of the past, in spite of the lack of hard evidence to back up their theories and of the possibility of a notso-strict male/female dichotomy. Apart from being depicted (or not) as weavers, women among the Moche in phase IV also appear as supernatural beings. In 1980, Anne Marie Hocquenghem and Patricia Lyon identified a group of anthropomorphic supernatural females in Moche iconography. The earliest depictions of these supernaturals occur during Moche IV, and the majority during Moche V. Hocquenghem and Lyon used a figure from the Pañamarca mural, in the Nepeña Valley, to define supernatural females. They identified the figure as female because of her hairstyle: two long, spirally bound locks. They point out that the hairstyle is a female feature in cases in which primary sexual characteristics are visible (Hocquenghem and Lyon 1980: 27). The female figure appeared to be supernatural because of her fanged mouth. There are 14 features associated with the supernatural female. These include a large one-piece garment, belt, mantle, headcloth, tassels on lower end of headcloth, simple horizontal headband and two or more plumelike elements rising from headband. They also include a disc necklace, disc earspools, wristbands, long spirally bound locks, serpent head terminators to locks, facepaint from ear to cheekbone, bare feet and no painted pattern on ankles or feet (Hocquenghem and Lyon 1980: 28). The supernatural female, or others closely related to her, appears in four basic contexts. She appears in the Animated Objects, Moon/Boat, Presentation/Sacrifice Ceremony, and Burial Theme (as discussed earlier). The Presentation Theme is of particular importance, as excavations in San José de Moro have revealed that the priestess represented was indeed a real person. In a painting at the Pañamarca mural, a Moche IV in transition to V monument, a priestess is at the head of a ceremonial procession in which prisoners of war are sacrificed and their blood ritually consumed. The ceremony is known as the Sacrifice Ceremony. Materials obtained from

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burials support the idea that women achieved publicly recognized positions of authority in Mochica culture. In 1958, a group of archaeologists found a Sacrifice Ceremony painting at the Pañamarca mural. The Sacrifice Ceremony appears to be an event at which prisoners of war were sacrificed and their blood ritually consumed. Personages in the Ceremony were first identified at the Moche Archive at UCLA in 1974. Between 1987 and 1991, the tombs of these personages were found and excavated. The tombs demonstrated that the ritual was a real event in which prestigious Moche individuals, male and female, participated. The principal individuals were identified as the Warrior-Priest, Bird-Priest, and Priestess. Walter Alva and his team discovered the tombs of the two male figures in a ceremonial center near the village of Sipán. The tombs date back to CE 300. Alva was able to identify the principal individuals in each tomb through the objects with which each was interred, all similar to the ones the personages are associated with in iconographic representations. The Warrior-Priest had his characteristic crescent-shaped headdress, crescent-shaped nose ornament, large circular ear ornaments, warrior’s backflap, and rattle. Also found in the tomb were the skeletons of three adolescent girls, all secondary burials (Verano 1994: 325). The Bird-Priest could be identified as such by the occupant’s headdress, which was adorned with an owl, as well nose ornaments and a backflap. Unlike the women in the Warrior-Priest tomb, the woman in this tomb appeared to have been sacrificed. Her skeleton was totally articulated. She was face down, suggesting that her body was thrown into the tomb right before the tomb was sealed. In San José de Moro, 50 kilometers from Sipán, the tombs of two high status females were found; the first was found in 1991 and the second in 1992. The finding of these tombs sheds light on the characterization of Mochica society as “religious” as well as on the status of women. Because the tombs contained many of the elements that characterized the “priestess” personages in the Sacrifice Ceremony, archaeologists refer to them as priestesses. Could they also be referred to as political leaders? In the past, Mochicas were assumed to have been under the leadership of king-divinities. With these discoveries, however, the image of Mochica culture we are able to reconstruct becomes much less gender biased: Mochica leadership might not only have been made up of king-divinities but also of “queen-divinities,” or simply male and female leaders. Both female tombs date to around CE 550. The first tomb was 5 meters long and 3.5 meters wide and had adobe walls. Inside the tombs, items associated with artistic representations of the priestess allowed archaeologists to identify them as the priestess personage in the Sacrifice Ceremony. In one corner of the first tomb was a large blackware ceramic basin containing cups and a tall goblet. The tall goblet was decorated with a scene of anthropomorphic clubs and shields

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drinking blood from silver goblets, resembling the one the priestess personage in the Pañamarca mural held. The female was also found with two large tassels of silver copper alloy, identical to those that characterize the priestess’ headdress in the Sacrifice Ceremony. The tomb of the second priestess revealed similar objects. Both elite women were buried in rectangular cane coffins covered with layers of textiles. Copper and silver objects adorned the sides of the coffins. A big mask lay at the head of the coffin, two sandals on the opposite side, and large objects in the shape of arms and legs adorned the remaining sides. The women were buried with several exotic items, indicating long-distance trade. Items in the tomb of the second priestess included a Cajamarca-style plate, from an area more than 70 miles to the east. Two Nievería-style bottles, produced more than 350 miles away on the central coast, and spondylus shells from hundreds of miles to the north were also found in the tomb (Donnan and Castillo 1994: 417–420). The Sacrifice Ceremony was widespread not only in time, but also in space. Depictions of the ceremony have been found throughout Moche territory. The Pañamarca mural is in the southern part of Moche territory, more than 200 miles from Sipán. Loma Negra, where other ceremony depictions were found, is more than 300 miles from Pañamarca. Alva and Donnan believe that it could have been part of a state religion since it was so widespread (Alva and Donnan 1993). If this were the case, the idea that women were viewed as inferior in ancient societies does not hold. Both Mochica men and women would have recognized these female elites as prestigious and powerful figures in their own right, rather than as passive and/or only mother figures to powerful men.

Conclusion The lives of the elite and nonelite Mochica have been reconstructed by various individuals ranging from archaeologists who sometimes attribute present-day conditions to the past to novelists (see, for example, Lyn Hamilton’s 1999 The Moche Warrior) who have exoticized the Mochica past to attract readers. Clearly, the Mochica past can be reconstructed in different ways, as the varying interpretations of the weaving workshop demonstrate. And different interpretations of the past can serve varying political and personal agendas. This chapter shows that the past need not have been as restrictive, and easy to reconstruct, as some would imagine it to have been. Ethnographic materials may be useful in reconstructing the past, but they should be used with caution. Western ideas should not be imposed on the Moche. Modern cultural values placed on gender and the perception of the “backwardness” of indigenous peoples, although often projected to a timeless past, cannot be

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validated through a study of ancient societies. The Mochica were a society in which gender may not have determined one’s political role. Through a close examination of the archaeological record of Moche culture, it becomes apparent that women held essential positions as healers, weavers, elites, and priestesses during what Shimada recognizes as the transition to state-level society. Although the list most likely includes several more positions, the cultural biases of some archaeologists have limited the activities attributed to women of the distant past. Women with hernias due to heavy lifting and carrying, paid female healers, naked women petting one another, female (and male?) weavers in independent workshops, elite burials, and women as central figures in statewide ceremonies show the range of female activities we know of thus far for Mochica women. Clearly, they do not represent cloistered, passive, joyless beings. More to the point, gender roles of the present are clearly not survivals from a prehistoric past and that past, as Wolf pointed out, was not a stagnant one. Although there is much that remains unknown, the insight we gain through a re-examination of Moche culture invites us to re-think our images of the past and contributes to a more dynamic image of societies of the past, one which calls into question our definitions and use of “backward” and “civilized,” and “simple” and “complex,” as well as our tendency to hierarchize woman and man.

References cited Alva, Walter and Christopher Donnan (1993) The Royal Tombs of Sipán. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Baudin, Louis (1961) Daily Life in Peru under the Last Incas. London: Allen & Unwin. Bawden, Garth (1982) Community Organization Reflected by the Household: A Study of Pre-Columbian Social Dynamics. Journal of Field Archaeology 9(2): 165–181. —— (1994) La Paradoja Estructural: La Cultura Moche como Ideología Política. In Moche: Propuestas y Perspectivas. Ed. Santiago Uceda and Elias Mujica, 389–412. Trujillo: Asociación Peruana para el Fomento de las Ciencias Sociales. Benson, Elizabeth (1972) The Mochica: A Culture of Peru. London: Thames and Hudson. —— (1978) The Bag with the Ruffled Top: Problems of Identification in Moche Art. Journal of Latin American Lore 4(1): 29–48. —— (1988) Women in Mochica Art. In The Role of Gender in Precolumbian Art and Architecture. Ed. Virginia Miller, 63–68. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Bruhns, Karen Olsen and Karen E. Stothert (1999) Women in Ancient America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

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Campana, Cristobal (1983) La Vivienda Mochica. Trujillo: VARESE. —— (1994a) La Cultura Mochica. Lima: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia. —— (1994b) “El Entorno Cultural de un Dibujo Mochica. In Moche: Propuestas y Perspectivas. Ed. Santiago Uceda and Elias Mujica, 449–468. Trujillo: Asociacion Peruana para el Fomento de las Ciencias Sociales. CLADEM (2001) Las Mujeres y Nuestra Realidad brochure. Lima: CLADEM. El Comercio (1997) Un tour Ashaninka. El Comercio, March 30, 1997. Devine, Tracy Lynne (1999) Indigenous Identity and Identification in Peru: Indigenismo, Education, and Contradictions in State Discourses. Journal of Latin American Culture Studies 8 (1): 63–75. Donnan, Christopher B. (1973) Moche Occupation of the Santa Valley, Peru. Berkeley: University of California Press. Donnan, Christopher B. and Sharon Douglas (1974) Shamanism in Moche Iconography. In Ethnoarchaeology. Ed. C. Donnan and C. Clewlow Jr., 51–77. Monograph IV, Institute of Archaeology. Los Angeles: University of California. Donnan, Christopher B. and Donna McClelland (1979) The Burial Theme in Moche Iconography. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University. Donnan, Christopher B. and Luis Jaime Castillo (1992) Finding the Tomb of a Moche Priestess. Archaeology 45 (November/December): 38–45. —— (1994) Excavaciones de Tumbas de Sacerdotisas. In Moche: Propuestas y Perspectivas. Ed. Santiago Uceda and Elias Mujica, 415–424. Trujillo: Asociación Peruana Para el Fomento de las Ciencias Sociales. Engels, Friedrich (1978) The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State. In The Marx-Engels Reader. Ed. Robert C. Tucker, 734–59. New York: Norton. Flores Galindo, Alberto (1986) Buscando un Inca: Identidad y utopia en los Andes. Lima: Editorial Horizonte Gillin, John (1947) Moche, A Peruvian Coastal Community. Washington: US Government Printing Office. Hocquenghem, Anne Marie and Patricia J. Lyon (1980) A Class of Anthropomorphic Supernatural Females in Moche Iconography. Ñawpa Pacha 18: 27–48. Lanning, Edward P. (1967) Peru Before the Incas. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Lorente, Sebastian (1860) Historia Antigua del Peru. Lima: Libreria de Masias. Mannarelli, María Emma (1993) Pecados públicos: La ilegitimidad en Lima, siglo XVII. Lima: Ediciones Flora Tristán. Popson, Colleen P. (2002) Grim Rites of the Moche. Archaeology 55 (2): 30–36. La República (2001) Mujeres son más vulnerables en el empleo. La República, August 11, 2001. —— (2001) Yo no soy un fenomeno. La República, June 24, 2001. Rodriguez López, Luis Francisco (1994) Costa Norte: Diez Mil Años de Prehistoria. Lima: Ministerio de la Presidencia. Shimada, Izumi (1994a) Pampa Grande and the Mochica Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press. —— (1994b) Los Modelos de Organización Sociopolitica de la Cultura Moche. In Moche: Propuestas y Perspectivas. Ed. Santiago Uceda and Elias Mujica, 359–387. Trujillo: Asociación Peruana para el Fomento de las Ciencias Sociales. Silverblatt, Irene (1987) Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Tice, Karen E. (1995) Kuna Crafts, Gender, and the Global Economy. Austin: University of Texas Press. Verano, John (1994) Características Físicas y Biología Osteologica de los Moche. In Moche: Propuestas y Perspectivas. Ed. Santiago Uceda and Elias Mujica, 307–326. Trujillo: Asociación Peruana para el Fomento de las Ciencias Sociales. Wolf, Eric (1982) Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chapter 6

The benefits of an archaeology of gender for predynastic Egypt Gabriel D. Wrobel

Introduction In the study of ancient cultures, researchers often ignore the role of women in their analyses, simply subsuming women’s experiences within a larger theoretical framework in which questions have conventionally been considered only for men. Wylie (1991) feels that the focus on large-scale systems of social and economic development, or “systemic analysis,” has unnecessarily excluded gender issues. According to Wylie, proponents of ecologically based evolutionary models of culture change such as Binford (1971) and other New Archaeologists tend to “rule out any consideration of what he refers to as internal ‘ethnographic’ variables.” Gender issues certainly fall under this broad category of ideas. Binford believes “that it is selfdefeating to take [‘soft’ variables] as the object of archaeological analysis because they are notoriously difficult to reconstruct with any reliability on the basis of archaeological data” (Wylie 1991: 36). However, it is quite obvious that many of the facts proposed by archaeologists focusing on “traditional models of encompassing social systems” are based on assumptions engrained within the essentialist rhetoric of these models instead of on objective scientific analysis of their data. Whether a variable is “soft” is itself a “soft” determination. Therefore, it is important to view the data once again, objectively, to see whether current models are indeed adequate, or whether they are truly tainted by current androgenized notions of social order. Wylie does not propose a new, fully developed gender theory, but instead calls for “a conceptual framework that raises the relevant questions, directing attention to gender and providing the impetus to study women’s activities and experiences.” The use of cross-cultural models of social change includes essentialist notions of gender roles within societies, which are often based on biological models. “Attention may be systematically directed away from gender and women, not because of any explicit beliefs about their status or (ir)relevance, sexist or otherwise, but as a secondary consequence of commitment to theories which focus on other classes of variables as the primary determinants of cultural behavior” (Wylie 1991: 34). In the absence of data, many

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researchers in many areas of the world have been forced to extrapolate information from their limited resources. This has in essence given us the ability to fill in the blanks with other data from other cultures as necessary. In order to accomplish this, we would first have to identify consistent, discrete, cross-cultural trends that will necessarily be found in all societies undergoing cultural change. This was the aim of the New Archaeology and the proponents of cultural evolutionism (see Sahlins and Service 1960). The search for a good template to accommodate small amounts of data in order to answer questions about ancient societies does not really produce new information. If we already know how it must have happened, why dig at all? Unfortunately, scholars have rarely asked the questions pertaining to these issues such as gender, but instead have focused on the search for evidence of preconceived models assuming that we might eventually know enough to “fine-tune” our knowledge later. This is tantamount to waiting for the data to speak for themselves; not a likely eventuality. In finding the answers to the “big questions” pertaining to evolutionary processes, we have lost sight of more central issues in which actual people are involved. Cultures are viewed as the integrated functioning organisms instead of an amalgam of fallible but creative human beings with drives and desires. Cultures are spoken of as evolving, adapting, growing, co-mingling, and dying, leaving artifacts as unconscious evidence of all these processes. Instead of viewing artifacts as complete evidence of culture, we must view them as the products of people who made up a culture; sometimes created as intentional messages about themselves, other times encoding unconscious beliefs, but always with limited scope and accuracy. Culture as the interaction between people who are involved in that culture is really the important issue. Central to that notion lies the importance of gender roles.

Egypt as a topic of conversation Egypt was one of the first areas of study for Western archaeologists. However, despite its longevity, much of the discussion about the culture has historically been subsumed in the interpretation of papyrii and other texts including historic accounts made by travelers such as Herodotus. “The primacy of texts and concern with their historical interpretation and veracity in Egyptology have effectively excluded more holistic theoretical considerations which have been developed in the sciences” (Armelagos and Mills 1993: 5). Information about the predynastic period is then even more limited given the sparsity of written texts prior to the Old Kingdom. Analysis of predynastic sites has generally focused on typology and seriation of pottery and other artifacts. While this emphasis has proven valuable for ceramicists and antiquities traders alike, it tends to limit insight into the lives of ancient Egyptians. Only recently have simple models of state formation based on changing pottery types and monuments given way to more complex

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theoretical ideas about the role of individuals in constructing their culture. Admittedly, in the case of predynastic Egypt, the delay of this transition can be blamed partially on the slow accumulation of relevant data, which are either hard to find or completely absent. In many cases, though, questions that should be asked of the missing data are answered instead by the biased assumptions of the models discussed above. Most of what is known about predynastic Egypt comes from ceramic analysis from floodplains and from cemeteries (Wenke 1989). Though the ceramic sequence is fairly well known, the reasons for the changes that occur within the typology from time to time, presumably from changes happening within the cultural tradition, are not well understood. Much of the area under study yields little or no material culture. For instance, the lower Nile, which includes the mouth and numerous tributaries, is nearly impossible to collect data from due to the fluctuating positions of various river beds as well as a generally high water table (Baumgartel 1960). For these reasons, almost all information about houses, settlement patterns, and other aspects of daily life in ancient Egypt has disappeared from this area. Most theories pertaining to the rise of complexity in Egyptian culture are based on the notion of an evolutionary sequence, which has occurred with all state level societies (see Sahlins and Service 1960). When indications of certain levels of complexity are found in the archaeological record, they can be fitted onto this framework, which further assumes facts about social and economic organization, including changes in power relations between males and females. It is for these reasons that I feel Egypt is an excellent place on which to base a discussion of the perceived roles of females within archaeological studies. The tradition of archaeology in Egypt is long and distinguished, during which time there have been many heated debates over the origin and development of the complex society of Dynastic Egypt. The data, while scanty in many areas, are still more abundant than in many other areas of the world. Most recent analyses of the role of women in archaeological contexts attempt to either discover cross-cultural similarities by applying familiar models of gender roles to the collection and analysis of new data sets. Occasionally, a few authors have begun to focus on gender to discover something new about women in general. I take the alternative route, and in this chapter I will examine the manner in which the rise of civilization in Egypt has been investigated, and consider whether and how analyses of gender roles might contribute to this project, instead of vice versa.

Women in ancient Egypt The study of women and women’s roles in ancient Egypt has already been covered by several authors (Capel and Markoe 1996, Robins 1993, Watterson 1991). Some of the earliest evidence of non-royal women’s roles

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in Egyptian society is based primarily on art within the tomb chapels of highranking males in the Old Kingdom (Fischer 1989). Non-royal wives tended to share their husband’s tomb and be represented in a “submissive” or “reverent” manner (Bochi 1998). However, within these male tombs, images of the tomb-owners’ mothers (and occasionally mothers-in-law) are consistently given exalted treatment. This may relate to two aspects of women’s roles in society. The first, often-cited role is of the female as a nurturer of the young. One of the most common themes in artistic female representations was caring for small children (Roehrig 1996). Though the roles of women extended far beyond childcare, as women performing other social roles were displayed in art both with and without children, all classes of women, including queens, were depicted in this manner. Even within the tombs of pharaohs, wet nurses were given special treatment. The second aspect of women’s roles of power in society was their legal and economic independence (Robins 1993, Johnson 1996). Under the law, women had equal rights with men, including the right to own property and businesses. Though the institution of marriage was not legally recognized by the state, Egyptian culture placed a high value on the nuclear family. Women commonly married into their own social class and were financially independent of their husbands. For instance, many women seem to have received a house with their dowry, which perhaps suggests that the common title of “Mistress of the House” denoted financial as well as domestic control over households (Johnson 1996). Since children could inherit from both parents and women could usually not hold public office, men often inherited positions through their maternal grandfathers or uncles, thus often making women the source of a family’s political power (Robins 1993). Other aspects of the financial and political power of women stemmed from control of economic and religious institutions. Prior to the New Kingdom, it appears that women were responsible for all aspects of linen manufacturing (Roehrig 1996). Though no representations of cloth manufacturing appear in Old Kingdom tomb paintings, the hieroglyph for “weaver” is a seated woman holding a shuttle. Women also are shown accepting payment for finished cloth and have titles such as “Overseer of the House of Weavers” indicating that they were involved in both the manufacture and sale of linen. Given the amount of linen used in everyday life as well as in mortuary contexts, this enterprise was probably second in importance only to agricultural production (Roehrig 1996). Though it was not common for women to hold administrative positions, a review of court records by Fischer (1989) shows that the Old Kingdom contains the most instances of women in powerful political offices. Several women ruled Egypt as monarch or as a regent. The first record of a female monarch comes as early as the first dynasty. Also during the first dynasty, there is evidence of a female who was appointed to be vizier, the most prestigious court position (Bryan 1996). Most Egyptian females with

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powerful positions were affiliated with cults. In the Old and Middle Kingdoms, Priestesses of Hathor ran one of the largest mortuary cults, which originated sometime in the predynastic. Beginning in the eighteenth dynasty, an intellectual and spiritual revolution helped usher in the powerful women of Amarna (Green 1996). They called themselves “God’s wife,” which became the largest and most prominent female priesthood in ancient Egypt (Bryan 1996). Within other cults, high ranking women also held special positions, including singer, dancer, musician, mourner, and servant. Johnson (1996: 179) states “although women were legally men’s equals and could deal with property on equal terms with men, their social and public roles were vastly different from those of men.” Depla’s (1994: 48) review of wisdom literature concerning women shows that “men were not comfortable with the idea of women wielding power outside the domestic domain” and that “the procreation and rearing of children were the wife’s prime duties.” However, we have seen numerous exceptions to this and it was recognized early in Egyptian archaeology that compared to other ancient civilizations, women seem to have been unusually independent and powerful in ancient Egypt (Trigger 1993, Blackman 1921). While women seem to be highly under-represented in mortuary art, one must remember that it was men who commissioned and created most of the art (Roehrig 1996). Wisdom literature, another common source of information about the behavior of women in ancient Egypt, was also written by men, perhaps because most women could not read or write (Bochi 1998). Common women’s activities are often in the background and harder to see, though they are depicted as highly integrated in most aspects of society, such as agriculture (winnowing grain, gleaning the fields), food production (grinding grain, baking bread, helping men brew beer), and linen production (discussed above). Despite the advances in the study of women in Egyptology, noticeably absent from these general discussion of women’s roles throughout Egyptian history is any mention of the predynastic.

The Egyptian predynastic period Most scholars agree that the rise of Egyptian civilization was a direct result of the agricultural potential of the Nile river valley, which fertilized the land through seasonal flooding, gave nourishment in the form of fish and game that thrived along the lush riverside, and provided cheap, quick, and effective transportation (Wenke 1991). The importance of the Nile is reflected in the assignment of geographical areas within Egypt. Because the Nile flows north, “Upper” Egypt refers to the land surrounding the southern, up-stream segment of the Nile, while “Lower” Egypt encompasses the northern, or lower, section of the Nile. The Fayum is everything else that is not associated with the Nile, mostly scrub and desert land west of the river. Each

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geographical area has its own distinct ecology and terrain as well as being given credit for unique cultural developments. The change from limited horticulture and pastoralism to full-time intensive agriculture seems to have begun sometime during the sixth millennium BC, which was a time of great climatic change. Increased aridity forced pastoralists out of the desert oases and into the Nile Valley (Hassan 1984). At the site of Merimda, Hassan (1988) studied the remains of a small community from around 4100 BC, which had subsisted on hunting, fishing, herding, and some limited cultivation of emmer wheat. Houses consisted of pole-thatch constructions until the later phases of the site when housing became more substantial and granaries were found. Hassan interprets the changes in architecture as evidence for the shift to a more complex “formal” village organization. He reports no convincing signs of social ranking in the burials, thought to be commonly associated with increasing social complexity. At other sites along the Nile, evidence for social complexity beginning as early as the sixth millennium BC is abundant. In Anderson’s (1992) analysis of grave wealth from the site of Badari, she noticed that many objects included in wealthier burials were non-utilitarian, and thus were most likely made for the purpose of inclusion in a grave. Furthermore, clusters of burials tended to have similar amounts of wealth, which indicates different groups of individuals, perhaps familial, who had similar economic status. Though grave wealth is not necessarily an indication of economic status in life (Carr 1995), Anderson’s findings at least suggest that intra-populational differences in social customs, whether or not induced by economics, were evident in the archaeology of settlements between 5500 and 4200 BC. The adoption of a village-based agrarian culture by the Egyptians occurred roughly between c. 4500 and c. 3000 BC which is significantly later than the same development in either Palestine or Southwest Asia (Wenke 1989). Domesticated animals and grains were imported to Egypt, as well as some ceramic technology. Though these areas were known to be in contact through limited trade, the circumstances leading to complex society seem to have been drastically different. In Palestine and Southwest Asia, substantial sedentary communities were established before agriculture and domestication, while the opposite order of events seems to have occurred in Egypt. Proponents of models based on cultural transmission still point out similarities in housing styles and pottery types to advance their theories that Egyptian culture grew out of contact with, or even expansion of, the great civilizations of Mesopotamia (Algaze 1993, David 1997). However, most researchers believe that even though contact seems to have taken place between the two areas, the evidence for Mesopotamian influence being solely responsible for complex society in Egypt is not tenable (Hassan 1988). Hoffman (1979) notes a population explosion in a small settlement at Hierakonpolis in Upper (southern) Egypt between 3800 and 3400 BC, which had been settled by people from northern Egypt sometime around 4000 BC.

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At this time, Lower Egyptian populations, perhaps for ecological reasons, remained clustered in small, undifferentiated communities, which showed no signs of economic diversity. The population at Hierakonpolis is estimated to have reached 5,000 to 10,000 individuals as agricultural production grew, followed by the production of grains, pottery, beer, domesticated animals, and other specialized commodities. Other signs of increasing social and economic complexity come from public works such as fortifications and small temple structure, and from increasing disparity in the wealth from tombs. With the rise of complex city-states, former “egalitarian” communities such as Merimde were linked by economics and religion by 3000 BC (Hassan 1988). Most of the archaeological sites dating from around the fourth through third millennia BC are cemeteries located in Upper Egypt (Bard 1987). Lower Egyptian predynastic sites are generally settlement sites, which often have associated burials. Middle Egypt, around the Badari district, is the least explored region of the Nile with the fewest (though oldest) predynastic cemetery sites. Only three relatively small Predynastic sites have been located in the Fayum. The disparity between the settlement sites of the north and the cemetery sites of the south has puzzled researchers since the initial rediscovery of the predynastic period late in the nineteenth century. One explanation is the possibility of differential survival of sites from the disastrous effects of the Nile’s annual flooding, as well as historic and modern development over these sites. It has even been suggested that the existing predynastic settlements and cemeteries may not accurately represent predynastic culture because of their distance from the Nile, where most of the later large settlements are located (Trigger et al. 1983). However, differences in pottery, tools, and grave goods at known sites appear to show that within the predynastic, Egypt was not unified into a single political or social entity. So, it is from this limited material that archaeologists must attempt to reconstruct the nature and organization of the culture that set the stage for one of the richest and most complex civilizations in the world. The advantage in understanding social organization in the predynastic is then to show how the rise to a complex, state-level society was facilitated. In other words, how did a culture of simple farmers unite and differentiate into multiple social strata? From where did the source of this power originate? To answer this question, we study how society was organized in the predynastic and then compare that to the Dynastic periods, marking differences in power and access to resources between groups. Since the archaeological record is so scarce for the predynastic, we must use a number of different techniques to show changes in Egyptian culture before the rise of the Egyptian state. Many of these techniques involve the use of models to fill in gaps in our data. Especially prevalent are assumptions about the relationships between individuals or groups of individuals based on models of culture change. But what do we really know about sex-specific

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roles in predynastic Egyptian culture? There is no doubt that Egyptian culture became more complex over time, but there is also no reason to expect that all of our assumptions about how that happened are true. For instance, researchers have often noted that women seemed to have lost power to men during the formation of the Egyptian state (Hassan 1992, Brunton 1927). This is certainly one possible scenario, but my concern is that we believe this because the initial question being asked was “when did women lose power to men?” Questions like this are based on the Marxist theories of Engels (1884), who related universal events of cultural evolution to “the world historic defeat of women.” However, as discussed above, women in dynastic Egypt were much more powerful than their counterparts in other prehistoric civilizations (Trigger 1993), so are we right to assume that they lost power? The next section of this chapter will explore various pieces of information relating to women in the predynastic period.

Women in the predynastic period The most common themes of predynastic studies relate to changes in the general patterns of social organization, which are connected to the rise of the unified Egyptian state between 3200 and 3000 BC. Aspects of the lives of individuals are rarely discussed, and when they are, individuals are subsumed within groups. The cursory manner in which individual social roles are studied can be blamed on the nature of the artifacts and the culture from the predynastic. The possibility of recreating the daily lives of individuals is exemplified in a recent paper by Meskell (1998) on the New Kingdom settlement of Deir el Medina in which she links sociocultural, spatial, and temporal data to postulate relationships between individuals and groups within domestic contexts. For instance, she was able to distinguish domestic spaces utilized by males and females in both ritual and everyday situations. Unfortunately, settlement data rarely exist for the predynastic, and the generally poor preservation (and absence of the rich array of wall painting, such as found at Deir el Medina) of the uncommon predynastic dwelling does not allow the type of analysis performed by Meskell. Also, in contrast to the plethora of personalized writing and art that exists from the Dynastic periods, artifacts from the predynastic do not mention individuals and grave goods rarely show individualized attributes but instead generally contain more common or utilitarian objects. Current models of predynastic social organization are still based on evolutionary models, which are never questioned. For instance, Hassan (1992) argues that before the rise of complex society in Egypt, women were powerful because of their role in kinship-based social organization. This argument assumes that women’s role throughout time has been relegated only to the house, which we know is not the case. With the rise of formal power hierarchies, Hassan believes that power was transferred from the home

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to the temple, which is the domain of men. Within these models is an intrinsic characterization of individuals and relationships that surely must vary geographically and over time. Clues pertaining to ancient social organization are sought in ethnography, archaeological (especially mortuary) contexts, art, and physical anthropology.

Ethnographic analyses In an attempt not to “Westernize” interpretations of ancient cultures, archaeologists often will assume that ethnographic examples of modern, biologically-related populations can provide insight which archaeologists are blind to. While this approach often provides great insights into many behaviors such as tool use or land management, analogy is far too often taken to extremes. Though biological-relatedness may prove that modern populations are descended from the ancient peoples under study, one cannot predict or account for the changes in culture as extrasomatic adaptation, which takes place over hundreds or even thousands of years. The Western perspective eschewed by the archaeologist is likely prevalent among the modern descendants interviewed for an unbiased look into the past (Wolf 1982). Certainly some links to the past remain, but these links are indirect and have been filtered so that any analogy must be handled carefully and consciously. Researchers working with Egyptian predynastic cultural remains seem most often to focus on changes in technology that hint at growing complexity in economic and social systems. Of particular interest to Flannery (1972) is the shift from compounds of circular huts to a rectangular mudbrick village pattern, which he attributes to the transition from communal undifferentiated economies to economies based on the nuclear family. He follows this interpretation by making generalizations about this shift entailing a range of changes in intensification of production as well as economic and social stratification. Flannery’s rule of house geometry entails a broad spectrum of attributes to “households” simply by looking at “houses.” These ideas are easily enough supported by the theory of cultural evolutionism in which the ultimate goal for many Egyptologists would seem to be for Egypt to “once again become a primary data base for attempts to explain and understand cultural complexity” (Wenke 1989: 132). Ethnohistoric examples have also proven to lend insight into early Egyptian culture. Greek and Roman historians who visited Egypt often wrote accounts and interviewed priests. In particular, Herodotus, who traveled to Egypt in the fifth century BC, wrote about such varied topics as the process of mummification, syncretism between Greek and Egyptian deities, political organization, agriculture, and other aspects of daily life. However, while these tales can provide historical inference extending as far back as the Old Kingdom, they must be viewed with caution, as a number of studies have

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shown that these histories are often problematic because they are very selective in content, tainted by politically biased accounts of priests and officials, or simply fantastic tales that were too good for the authors to pass up (Africa 1963). Furthermore, some even believe that Herodotus may have never set foot in Egypt (review in Armayor 1978). Clearly, histories like that of Herodotus were subject to historical inaccuracy as well as sensationalism. When discussing the general population, the common theme in these histories is that everything in Egypt was backward (from Greece and Rome). Perhaps the most critical point of using these histories as reference to early Egypt is simply the amount of time that had elapsed before these were written. The priests who were (perhaps?) interviewed by Herodotus in the fifth century BC would relate their country’s history through the filter of their own time, which would then be interpreted by historians from another culture. Herodotus’ accounts are written as the experiences of an outsider who primarily interviewed men of political authority, the same sort who wrote Wisdom literature encouraging men to control their women. From what we know of the diversity of women’s roles in the Dynastic, this set of rules did not typify women’s experiences.

Mortuary studies Most predynastic archaeology revolves around cemeteries. Burial analysis offers a wide range of information relating to the distribution of wealth, the ideology of death and religion, as well as a number of biological traits of communities evident on the skeletal remains. When used properly, these data can elucidate patterns of behavior and structural organization within different portions of populations. Most of the larger predynastic cemetery sites, such as Naqada, el-Amrah, and Abdyos, were excavated in the early twentieth century by archaeologists with varying concepts of what to record in the field. Descriptions of large cemetery populations range from notations that burials were found, to the elaborate and careful field notes of archaeologists such as Flinders Petrie and Guy Brunton. Inter-site comparisons of mortuary practices and trends relating to burials among individuals are difficult due to the wide variation of traits recorded by different researchers, most of whom were preoccupied by the collection of pottery and other grave goods. One of the traits characteristically recorded at most sites is the sex of the individual(s) in the burial. However, the inclusion of a physical anthropologist in the field was not standard practice at any predynastic site excavated in the early 1900s. Most sexing analysis seems to have been left to the workers, who were often responsible for the quick removal of hundreds of burials within a single field season. Though some archaeologists cite particular physical anthropologists or anatomists as training them for recording basic physical anthropology in the field (Brunton 1927), instances such as the assignment of “female” to a preadolescent at Naqada suggest that sexing was sometimes based on the

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associated artifacts. (In some cases, the excellent preservation found in deserts can preserve genitalia. While this may be the case for the Naqada example, it still illustrates the general absence of notes for any part of the decisionmaking process related to the assignment of sex.) Sexing of preadolescents is extremely unreliable, and other preadolescents at the same site with little or no grave goods were simply assigned as juvenile. A reanalysis of 108 skulls excavated by Guy Brunton between 1924 and 1926 from the sites of Qau and Badari showed that 20.3 percent of the skulls were sexed incorrectly (Mann 1989). Several other examples were given in which obvious adults were classified as children and vice versa. Brunton’s workers, though not very accurate, were relatively well-informed compared to those on other contemporaneous projects since they were at least briefly trained by Professor Douglas Derry, a visiting anatomist (Brunton 1927). Given the obvious limitations of the data, numerous attempts have been made to sort out patterns in grave good distribution in order to make generalized statement about social organization in the predynastic (Castillos 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982a, 1982b, 1983; Seidlmayer 1988; Endesfelder 1990; Anderson 1992; Ellis 1992; Hendrickx 1989, 1994; Bard 1988, 1989, 1994a, 1994b; Savage 1995, 1999; Wilkinson 1996). Generally, these studies do not find appreciable differences between male and female graves, though comparisons between individual cemeteries and time periods usually shows greater wealth and social differentiation between groups in later time periods, indicating increasing social complexity. Of course, it is also possible that significant differences between sexes did exist and are simply obscured by the lack of reliable sex estimates. Bard (1988, 1989, 1992, 1994a, 1994b) has published a number of studies interpreting the evolution of social complexity in Egypt by quantifying the records of burial data. Bard’s analyses of the cemeteries of Naqada (1989) and Armant (1988) have provided great insight into the timing and location of the rise of social stratification in Egypt. Furthermore, she has attempted to synthesize all of the existing mortuary data on the predynastic in order to make sense of the social implications of changing mortuary patterns (Bard 1992). In her analysis, Bard concludes that “the evidence for symbolic behavior in Predynastic burials is both a reflection of social hierarchies and increasing stratification through time, as well as the transformation into material remains of concepts in the society’s ideational subsystem” (p. 19). Furthermore, she states that “such transformations of burial type not only reflect the evolution of social complexity, but also the politically motivated transformation of the belief system with direct consequences in the socio-economic system” (pp. 19–20). Bard’s argument points to the need for studies of the effects of such ideological manipulation by a ruling elite class. Despite problems in the reliability of sex estimates in individuals, studies that claim evidence for differences in status between males and females are

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common. More often than not, the results are shown to match the expectations of the models of social organization. In many cases, though, we can see that the argument is teleological since the models are used to explain the data, and the data are then used as supporting evidence for the model. An excellent example of the primacy of theory over data comes from Ellis (1992) who looked at differing social status of males, females, and children reflected in the burials of the Valley Cemetery at Tarkhan. Though males had larger and more differentiated grave sizes than females, females had more overall grave wealth and greater grave good diversity. Instead of accepting the data as showing high female status, Ellis (1992) postulated that male status must have been expressed in a form that left no archaeological trace. Others have agreed and helped explain away Ellis’ results by pointing out the unreliable sexing data of the burials (Wilkinson 1996), a valid consideration though not one that often arises if the data show what is expected. Other studies of social status in mortuary contexts use a variety of indicators in order to counter the discrepancies in grave wealth due to looting. For instance, some proponents of the New Archaeology, borrowing from White’s (1959) theory of increasing energy exploitation in increasingly more complex societies, theorized that since larger graves take longer to dig, the individuals occupying them controlled more labor resources than those with smaller graves (Tainter 1978). Larger grave volumes were thought to imply higher status because of the control of subterranean space as well as higher energy and time expenditure in digging the graves (Griswold 1992). In Egypt especially this argument seems to make sense, given the sheer size of the Dynastic rulers’ tomb pyramids. However, what often are omitted in these studies are the many different complicating factors that have the potential to affect the rules governing grave pit size, such as soil erosion, body size, and decreasing space within cemeteries as more individuals were added. Grave size has also been used to argue for changes in the status relationships between males and females. Brunton (1927) studied predynastic Badarian burials at Naqada where he found that female graves were larger than male graves at first, and then later, as the effects of economic differentiation came about, the opposite was true. This was supposed to show changes that occurred with increasing social and economic complexity. A reanalysis of Brunton’s data by Baumgartel (1960) showed no real trend over time and seems to imply that Brunton’s chronological data are fanciful. However, in a later publication, Baumgartel (1970) supports the conclusion that the females’ graves were originally larger than the males’ graves. From this, and seemingly this alone, she argues that Egyptian culture was originally matriarchal, until the later phases of the site when the political system was run by males. Still further analysis was performed on the Naqada data by Castillos (1982) who published some of the information that Baumgartel “chose to

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leave out of her tables on somewhat debatable grounds,” though the reasons for Baumgartel’s discretion are not made known. Castillos’ analysis showed that males had larger graves than females. However, he also showed that “in what concerns the remaining wealth of the tombs, men and women appear to have been treated in a roughly equal manner.” Following this is a very brief discussion of the subjective nature of the greater interest shown to women’s objects by archaeologists and that this might affect analysis. Regardless of whose tombs were larger, this seems to be an unreliable way to reconstruct kinship or status: the sexing is questionable, though never questioned; the correlation between grave size (not to mention the unknown reliability of the measurements) and wealth, status, or gender is tenuous; and there is no consideration of the possibility that there may have been more than two genders recognized in status variables. Recently, in a further analysis of predynastic mortuary practices from Cemetery N7000 at the site of Naga-ed-Dêr, Savage (1999) pointed out that mortuary ritual, instead of reflecting an honest picture of social organization or status, actually represents an idealized version of these relationships created by the living (like Hodder and Morris). Like most of the earlier studies of predynastic cemeteries discussed above, he found no appreciable differences between sexes for status indicators such as grave size, wealth, or evidence of associated funerary ritual. So, instead of continuing to quantify status indicators, he took a slightly different approach and uses many of the same data to explore changes in the social roles of women in early Egypt. Savage used correspondence analysis and found that his 16 grave good classes (i.e., artifact types) could be reduced to eight clusters, in which the particular artifacts tended to occur together. He hypothesized that these artifact clusters, or combinations of them, may have represented different social roles. His results show that female graves contained a greater variety of clusters than the graves of males. Furthermore, there were no clusters found in male graves that were not also found in female graves. Based on these results, Savage suggests that in the predynastic period, “females were able to fill all of the social roles available to males, plus additional roles which were not filled by males,” which he sees as different than in the Dynastic periods. Savage’s interpretation again supports Engels’ (1891) thesis of the “world historical defeat of the female sex,” which he cites at the beginning of the article (p. 77). Unfortunately, Savage’s assumption that all of the clusters of grave goods represented social roles is unfounded. Many artifacts, like flaked stone and animal bone, could have any number of possible uses thus implying different social roles, while others such as those related to body ornamentation may have simply been related to gender-specific behavior rather than specific roles, as mascara and high heels are in contemporary Western society. Furthermore, Savage relates the number of social roles to status, which he suggests changes after the predynastic. However, the evidence from the Dynastic period (discussed above) clearly shows that while

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the society was patriarchal, women seem to have been able to hold all of the same roles as men, including that of pharaoh, while men were not represented in traditional women’s roles, such as child rearing. Savage’s analysis is effective in pointing out differences in the formation of social complexity between Egypt and other areas of the Near East, but would benefit from a comparison of similar data from a later Dynastic cemetery to see whether the trends he has identified really do change significantly.

Symbolism in artifacts The pattern of increased social and economic complexity over time in the predynastic is now firmly established thanks to the excellent work done by Bard and others. However, objective studies of individual roles within predynastic society are scarce. Podzorski (1993: 119) states “a recurrent theme in Predynastic archaeology is that women were accorded differential burial treatment than men, although quantitative substantiation is seldom given.” In an effort to understand predynastic Egyptian sexual differentiation, Podzorski (1993) studied 635 graves from Naga-ed-dêr, a site at which the excavation of skeletal remains was supervised by an anatomist and so the remains are more reliably sexed. In her analysis, she found that grave size was functionally related to the size of the body and the number of artifacts. Similar to Bard (1988, 1989, 1992, 1994a, 1994b), Podzorski also shows that grave good number and diversity increased over time in the predynastic, and that sexual differentiation in this regard was not statistically significant. However, the association of particular classes of artifacts with individuals yielded perhaps more interesting results. Fishtail flints, disc mace head, and worked flint objects seemed to be exclusive to male graves, while hairpins and blue stone beads seem to be exclusive to female burials. With only some exceptions, tusks and “tusk” amulets, bead jewelry, baskets and palettes, were most commonly found in female graves. Though Podzorski makes no claim about sex-determined status in her study, can these “gender-specific” objects imply differences in status? Some of the “male” objects, mace heads, are often cited as a sign of status because of their similarity to that of King Narmer. However, only two examples of one particular type of mace head in the cemeteries studied were buried with men, and one must not forget that the first recorded ruler of Egypt, King Scorpion, is evidenced by a palette, a generally “female” grave good according to Podzorski’s study. Most likely, many of these objects served some sort of utilitarian function, while the symbolism associated with them does not make an effective gauge of individual status. While quantitative differences in artifacts (i.e. “grave wealth”) do not seem to occur between the sexes, Podzorski shows that closer scrutiny of individual graves can show regularities in gender-specific artifacts. Similarly, Cialowicz (1985) analyzed published material from over 20 cemeteries reporting all weapons found in 331 predynastic tombs.

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Cialowicz’s catalogue shows that sexed burials with weapons at many of the sites, such as Abdyos and Bahan, were markedly biased towards males, while at other sites, such as Naqada and Harageh, they were not. This disparity may indicate differences in symbolism associated with weapons over time or between sites, or may point to differences in sexing techniques, based on either physical attributes or associated grave goods, used by particular archaeologists. However, it is important to realize that men and women were buried with simple utilitarian blades as well as symbols of power, such as mace heads, suggesting either that “symbols of power” were not simply markers of status, or that women were well integrated into the power structure of early Egyptian society. Other studies of predynastic art show women or female deities in religious scenes, thought to represent their importance in religious ceremonies. The larger, more important figures within boat procession scenes are exclusively women. Women are also depicted as protectors of the dead (Hornblower 1930), though these scenes may also represent mourning. Figurines of women have been found at many sites, beginning in the Neolithic, suggesting their importance in symbolism (reviewed by Midant-Reynes 2000). Other evidence of the importance of females in ritual comes from instances of grave disturbances, where the skulls of individuals (usually women) were removed from primary interments for worship (Murray 1956).

Physical anthropology At present, most researchers have excluded the study of individuals from their analyses of the predynastic period. Most of those who have attempted to look at interactions between individuals have done so using the material remains left behind by looters, the cursory or incomplete field notes of early twentieth-century archaeologists, or ethnohistoric accounts of populations, which existed in the area nearly 5,000 years after Egypt was first unified into a complex society. Realizing the awkwardness of this situation, most archaeologists have chosen to stick to questions directly pertaining to macromodels of state formation. What they may not understand is that the identification of gender in the archaeological record directly pertains to these questions and may be used to test these models. If Hassan’s (1992) assumption that power transferred from women to men with the rise of social complexity is true, there should be some correlates identifiable in the archaeological record, such as differences in health and diet between men and women related to access to resources. Excessive looting at most archaeological sites in Egypt limits all types of analysis. Customary analysis of pottery types, number of pots, and the inclusion of exotic grave goods with bodies are hampered since these are exactly the type of artifacts that looters seek. Furthermore, the inclusion of artifacts in graves does not always represent wealth in life (Parker Pearson

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2000, Ucko 1969). Any number of philosophical-religious beliefs or factors of the local political economy can influence the quality and quantity of mortuary artifacts (Carr 1995). So, since material remains associated with predynastic graves are inconsistently left behind by looters and are, I believe, not always the best indicator of true prosperity or access to resources during life, an alternative must be found. Nevertheless, the concentration of efforts by archaeologists studying predynastic Egypt is still focused on the artifacts catalogued and seriated by an earlier generation of scholars. While many of these studies have shed light on issues of Egyptian state formation, they too often “treat pots as people” by assuming that change in cultural remains is a direct result of a change in society. Perhaps one of the most promising areas of research toward this goal is the field of bioanthropology. While artifact types often underwent rapid stylistic transformations, thus making analogies between time periods difficult, “the mode of life in Egypt changed only gradually from Pre-dynastic times through the Roman Empire” (Lasker 1972). The arid conditions at most excavated predynastic sites result in excellent preservation of skeletal remains and therefore offer an exceptional avenue of possibilities in which to explore a number of issues relating to changes in power and access to resources with the rise of complex society in Egypt, as well as other aspects of daily life. Until recently, most bioanthropological studies of predynastic Egypt dealt with small sample sizes. This, coupled with poor excavation records, forced archaeologists to rely on case studies of single individuals or generalizations of pooled samples spanning large time periods or of individuals from different geographical areas (Strouhal 1981). Though archaeologists have not kept a large proportion of skeletons from excavated sites, and other collections have most likely been misplaced, skeletons from existing collections and new excavations have a number of physiological traits that offer important, underused information. Since current models of state formation in Egypt include the distinction between male power and female power, the sexing of skeletal material by a trained physical anthropologist would aid in accurately dividing populations into two groups based on sex. From that point, hypotheses relating to status and social organization can be tested using a number of techniques. Physical anthropology has a long and distinguished history in Egyptology. Its first real applications reflected the categorical nature of the archaeology. Physicians, anatomists, and hobbyists sought to show that the rise of civilization in Egypt was a direct influence of cultural transfer from invading populations by using non-metric dental morphological characteristics to show possible biological differentiation between groups of individuals (see review in Rose et al. 1993). More recent studies have used dental traits to compare segments within populations in order to understand the origins of complexity in Egypt. Johnson and Lovell (1994) tested models of biological affinity between individuals buried in an elite cemetery at Naqada and the rest

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of the individuals at the site buried in less elaborate graves. Their research helped to support the commonly accepted archaeological interpretation that the elite Cemetery T of Naqada is composed of local individuals rather than a ruling or elite immigrant population. These findings are fundamental to the model of internal changes in Egyptian populations leading to increasing social complexity instead of the transmission of ideas from nearby areas, like Mesopotamia, where these changes had already taken place. In studies of social organization, physiological markers on the human skeleton can supplement archaeological data to elaborate on issues such as the sexual division of labor and differential access to resources (status). The inference of sex-specific roles from Dynastic sources such as tomb art and Wisdom literature has been argued to be male-biased and thus likely inaccurate (as discussed above). Furthermore, these sources do not exist for the predynastic. Several bioanthropology studies have used physiological stress indicators to seek patterns of work related stress within and between populations. For instance, differences in bone remodeling rates can be used to indicate higher mechanical stress in individuals, which is related to more strenuous work (Mulhern and Van Gerven 1997). Filer (1992) looked at evidence of head trauma to see differences in lifestyles between populations in Dynastic Egypt and Nubia. In her analysis, she says that men are more likely to sustain head injury due to their more common involvement in battle and heavy labor. When discussing differences in patterns of trauma between groups, her conclusions are inconsistent. Like archaeology, physical anthropology is also often guilty of model-based assumptions about human behavior. When women sustained high amounts of head injuries, it was blamed on domestic violence, while men’s injuries were attributed to possible warfare (based on lack of ethnographic evidence for women in formal armies). Other studies of trauma within nearby populations suggest factors such as rugged terrain or heavy physical labor as contributing to trauma in both sexes (Kilgore et al. 1997). Generally, the transition to the Dynastic period is characterized by less stressful conditions, shown by populations with more gracile features and slightly longer life spans (Masali 1972). The results of trauma studies contradict historical data, which suggests that high mortality in the Dynastic was due to violence. Indeed, in the Dynastic there are few indications of violence and relatively low mortality for males (Burrell et al. 1986). Status differences between individuals, one of the more popular themes in predynastic mortuary analysis, has a number of potential correlates in skeletal biology relating to differential access to resources. Dental enamel defects are general signs of growth disturbance caused by factors such as malnutrition and infection (Rose et al. 1985). A comparison of males and females in samples ranging from the Old Kingdom through the Greco-Roman period by Lovell and Whyte (1999) showed no statistical difference between the

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sexes, indicating similar amounts of childhood stresses. Other similar studies in different areas show sex-specific differences in stress frequency, which can be related to differences in general health (Van Gerven et al. 1990). Other physiological factors pertaining to health are discussed in reviews, which outline the problems of effectively demonstrating differential diagnoses of ailments common in prehistory (Buikstra et al. 1993, Sandison 1972, Bourke 1972). Factors such as missing provenience data, sample bias, and lost material all impede populational analysis, which inhibits us from getting an idea of which segments of society suffered from particular ailments. Because of these problems, physical anthropologists rarely discussed trends within populations, but instead focused on case studies of single individuals. Perhaps because of the competition to find the first type specimen of any condition, many of the original descriptions of pathological specimens are inaccurate (Bourke 1971). The potential for physical anthropology in Egypt is limited by the nature of the archaeology. The study of the Egyptian predynastic would benefit enormously from more conscientious excavation and curation of skeletal material.

Conclusion Though this review of the archaeology of predynastic Egypt dealing with women and women’s roles in society is not exhaustive, it has attempted to show that many of the assumptions made about social organization have little corroborative evidence in the archaeological record. By relying on models too much, they become laws, which shape our data instead of the other way around. What this means for Egyptology is that we risk not recognizing the specific mechanisms involved in culture change, which should be one of our main objectives. The archaeology of predynastic Egypt can benefit greatly from the exploration of questions pertaining to sex and gender. Meskell (1998), in her analysis of the New Kingdom settlement (c. 1500–1100 BC) of Deir el Medina, “stresses the potentials for an archaeology of individuals and their social bonds, rather than undertaking categorical studies like those which seek to identify women.” She notes the difference between the notion of a biological sex and a socially constructed gender, and then points out the difficulties in finding the latter in the archaeological record. The general questions about the predynastic period being discussed by modern Egyptologists are centered around changes in social organization and interaction as a measure of increasing social complexity, which has moved progressively further away from a discussion of individuals. Meskell’s perspective is that a focus on individuals rather than preconceived social categories will be more productive. But an archaeology that acknowledges the interactions between individuals should take into consideration a number of factors including such challenging social variables as gender.

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank Renée Friedman for her comments and advice on this chapter. Also thanks to K. Anne Pyburn, Della Cook, and Ethan Wattrell. Any mistakes are mine.

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(eds) Studia in honerm Fritz Hintze. Meroitica 12. Akademie-Verlag: Berlin, pp. 97–118. Engels, Frederick (1891) The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State. Fourth edition. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. Filer, Joyce M. (1992) Head injuries in Egypt and Nubia: a comparison of skulls from Giza and Kerma. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 78: 281–285. Fischer, Henry G. (1989) Women in the Old Kingdom and the Heracleopolitan period. In Lesko, Barbara S. (ed.) Women’s Earliest Records from Ancient Egypt and Western Asia. Scholars Press: Atlanta, pp. 5–30. Flannery, Kent (1972) The cultural evolution of civilizations. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 3: 399–426. Green, L. (1996) The royal women of Amarna: who was who. In Arnold, Dorothea (ed.) Images of Beauty from Ancient Egypt. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Harry Abrams: New York, pp. 6–15. Griswold, William A. (1992) Measuring social inequality at Armant. In Friedman, Renée and Barbara Adams (eds) The Followers of Horus: Studies Dedicated to Michael Allen Hoffman. Egyptian Studies Association Publication No. 2, Oxbow Monograph 20. Oxbow Books: Oxford, pp. 193–198. Hassan, Fekri A. (1984) Toward a model of agricultural developments in Predynastic Egypt. In Clark, J. D. and S. A. Brandt (eds) From Hunters to Farmers. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 221–224. —— (1988) The Predynastic of Egypt. Journal of World Prehistory 2(2): 135–185. —— (1992) Primeval goddess to divine king: the mythogenesis of power in the early Egyptian state. In Friedman, Renée and Barbara Adams (eds) The Followers of Horus: Studies Dedicated to Michael Allen Hoffman. Egyptian Studies Association Publication No. 2, Oxbow Monograph 20. Oxbow Books: Oxford, pp. 307–322. Hendrickx, Stan (1989) De grafvelden der Naqada-cultuur in Zuid-Egypte, met bijzondere aandacht voor het Naqada III grafveld te Elkab. Interne chronologie en sociale differentiatie. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven. —— (1994) Elkab V. The Naqada III cemetery. Brussels: Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Comité des Fouilles Belges en Égypte. Hoffman, Michael A. (1979) Egypt before the Pharoahs: The Prehistoric Foundations of Egyptian Civilization. Knopf: New York. Hornblower, G. D. (1930) Funerary designs on predynastic jars. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 16: 10–18. Johnson, Andrew L. and Nancy C. Lovell (1994) Biological differentiation at predynastic Naqada, Egypt: an analysis of dental morphological traits. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 93: 427–433. Johnson, Janet H. (1996) The legal status of women in ancient Egypt. In Capel, Anne K. and Glenn E. Markoe (eds) Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt. Hudson Hills Press: New York, pp. 175–186. Kilgore, Lynn, Robert Jurmain, and Dennis Van Gerven (1997) Paleoepidemiological patterns of trauma in a Medieval nubian skeletal population. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 7: 103–114. Lasker, G. W. (1972) The potential relevance of studies of ancient Egyptian populations for the microevolutionary study of modern populations. Journal of Human Evolution 1: 137–139.

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Lovell, Nancy C. and Ira Whyte (1999) Patterns of dental enamel defects at ancient Mendes, Egypt. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 110(1): 69–80. Mann, George E. (1989) On the accuracy of sexing of skeletons in archaeological reports. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 75: 246–249. Masali, M. (1972) Body size and proportions as revealed by bone measurements and their meaning in environmental adaptation. Journal of Human Evolution 1: 187–197. Meskell, Lynn (1998) An archaeology of social relations in an Egyptian village. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 5(3): 209–243. Midant-Reynes, Béatrix (2000) The Prehistory of Egypt: From the First Egyptians to the First Pharaohs. Blackwell: Oxford. Mulhern, Dawn M. and Dennis P. Van Gerven (1997) Patterns of femoral bone remodeling dynamics in a medieval Nubian population. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 104: 133–146. Murray, M. A. (1956) Burial customs and beliefs in the hereafter in Predynastic Egypt. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 42: 86–96. Parker Pearson, Mike (2000) The Archaeology of Death and Burial. Texas A&M University Press: College Station. Podzorski, Patricia V. (1993) The correlation of skeletal remains and burial goods: an example from Naga-ed-dêr N7000. In Davies, W. Vivian and Roxie Walker (eds) Biological Anthropology and the Study of Ancient Egypt. British Museum Press: London, pp. 119–129. Robins, Gay (1993) Women in Ancient Egypt. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Roehrig, Catharine H. (1996) Women’s work: some occupations of nonroyal women as depicted in ancient Egyptian art. In Capel, Anne K. and Glenn E. Markoe (eds) Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt. Hudson Hills Press: New York, pp. 13–24. Rose, Jerome C., K. W. Condon, and Alan H. Goodman (1985) Diet and dentition: developmental disturbances. In Gilbert, R. I., and J. H. Mielke (eds) The Analysis of Prehistoric Diets. Academic Press: New York, pp. 281–306. Rose, Jerome C., George J. Armelagos, and L. Stephen Perry (1993) Dental anthropology of the Nile Valley. In Davies, W. Vivian and Roxie Walker (eds) Biological Anthropology and the Study of Ancient Egypt. British Museum Press: London, pp. 61–74. Sahlins, Marshall and Elman R. Service (1960) Evolution and Culture. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor. Sandison, A. T. (1972) Evidence of infective disease. Journal of Human Evolution 1: 213–224. Savage, S. H. (1995) Descent, Power, and Competition in Predynastic Egypt: Mortuary Evidence from Cemetery N7000 at Naga-ed-Dêr. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University. —— (1999) The status of women in Predynastic Egypt. In Rautman, Alison E. (ed.) Reading the Body: Representations and Remains in the Archaeological Record. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, pp. 77–92. Seidlmayer, S. J. (1988) Funerärer Aufwand und soziale Ungleichheit: eine methodische Anmerkung zum Problem der Rekonstruktion der gesellschaftlichen Gliederung aus Friedhofsfunden. Göttinger Miszellen 104: 25–51.

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Strouhal, E. (1981) Current state of anthropological studies on ancient Egypt and Nubia. Bull. et Mém. de la Soc. d’Anthrop. de Paris 8(XIII): 231–249. Tainter, Joseph A. (1978) Mortuary practices and the study of prehistoric social systems. In Schiffer, Michael B. (ed) Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol 1. Academic Press: New York, pp. 105–141. Trigger, Bruce G. (1993) Early Civilizations: Ancient Egypt in Context. The American University in Cairo Press: Cairo. Trigger, Bruce G., B. J. Kemp, D. O’Connor, and A. B. Lloyd (1983) Ancient Egypt: A Social History. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Ucko, Peter J. (1969) Ethnological and archaeological interpretation of funerary remains. World Archaeology 1: 262–281. Van Gerven, Dennis P., R. Beck and J.R. Hummert (1990) Patterns of enamel hypoplasia in two medieval populations from Nubia’s Batn el Hajar. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 82(4): 413–420. Watterson, Barbara (1991) Women in Ancient Egypt. St Martin’s Press: New York. Wenke, Robert J. (1989) Egypt: origins of complex societies. Annual Review of Anthropology 18: 129–155. —— (1991) The evolution of early Egyptian civilization: issues and evidence. Journal of World Prehistory 5(3): 279–329. White, Leslie A. (1959) The Evolution of Culture. McGraw-Hill: New York. Wilkinson, Toby A. H. (1996) State Formation in Egypt: Chronology and Society. BAR International Series 651. Oxford: BAR. Wolf, Eric R. (1982) Europe and the People Without History. University of California Press: Berkeley. Wylie, Alison (1991) Gender theory and the archaeological record: why is there no archaeology of gender? In Gero, Joan M. and Margaret W. Conkey (eds) Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory, pp. 31–56.

Chapter 7

All the Harappan men are naked, but the women are wearing jewelry Candice Marie Lowe

The purpose of this book is to examine the way archaeological data have been collected from early states to test whether systematic bias of the sort described by Eric Wolf (1982) might explain the identification of cross-cultural continuity in the status of women. This chapter discusses data taken from excavation of Indus cities of the second and third millennia BC, considered some of the earliest urban settlements in the world. Nevertheless, these communities lacked many of the material cultural markers archaeologists expect to see as evidence of organizational complexity. As with many other chapters in this book, the question of women’s role in early civilization invariably turns on definitions of “state,” “civilization,” and “urbanism,” and it becomes apparent that few states (if any) that predate the modern world system actually fit the definitions devised by cultural evolutionists. By adhering so closely to andro- and ethnocentric models of “civilization,” archaeologists of the early Indus or Harappan culture have turned a deaf ear to some of the most telling pieces of evidence about early civilization: the “goddess” and her jewels. Heavily ornamented female figurines were found in almost every home, and jewelry both like and unlike the jewels on figurines was also discovered throughout the Indus. Archaeologists have assumed that this evidence was purely ideological, and comfortably dismissed the figurines and jewelry to the private sphere, far away from the political economy. In so doing, Harappan scholars may have overlooked important clues about the lives of the ancient Indus peoples. In this chapter, I will argue that Harappan figurines and jewelry are worthy of systematic exploration for the information that they might yield regarding the political and economic life of Harappa. I will show that Harappan archaeologists allow the “nontraditional” data to lie fallow, in favor of examining traditional data and inappropriate models that have not cast much light on the political and social life of Harappans. After archaeologists discovered the large “cities” of the ancient Indus, most notably Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, they became convinced that these large sites signaled the urbanization phase of societal development, and began the quest for proof that Harappa was indeed a civilization. This quest led many to a unilinear evolutionary framework for modeling the “rise of civilization,” a major

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component of which is the urbanization phase. I will critique the civilization model used by archaeologists, and illuminate what they may have ignored by focusing on “traditional” data, to the exclusion of other data present at archaeological sites. However, in order to talk about what we might know about the Indus civilization, I will begin with a summary of what we think we know already. The “Indus Valley Civilization” was located in the area of modern day Pakistan and India. Its most northern point was near Islamabad; the most southern point was just northeast of Bombay; its western border reached the place where the Pakistan–Iran borders meet at the Arabian Sea; and its most eastern border was located in the Yamuna Valley, near Delhi, India (Agrawal 1993: 446; Joshi and Bala 1993: 186). Material evidence identified today as the Indus civilization spread across a vast amount of land, with the Indus River running through its center (Wenke 1990: 407, 409). Archaeologists (Weber 1991; Roy and Gidwani 1982) divide the Indus1 into three “Cultural Traditions”: Early Harappan (c. 4000 BC to 2500 BC), Mature Harappan (2500 BC to 2000 BC), and Late Harappan (2000 BC to 1400 BC). There is a lack of agreement on the reasons for the decline of Harappa, though there have been several theories, including Aryan invasions, and floods or drought (Wenke 1990: 421; Weber 1991: 7–8, and others). While there is no evidence to support the claim of an Aryan invasion of Harappa, it is plausible that hydrological changes caused people to relocate. If Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were the economic or political “centers” of Indus civilization, as some scholars speculate, and major floods or droughts occurred too close together in time, the stability of the Harappan power base could be threatened, and this may have led to a loss of organization. However, the living conditions of the Indus peoples varied across ecological zones, and not every town or village was threatened by the same conditions. The reason for the disappearance of settlements far from the river is unexplained. Presumably, if all the “centers” were located near the Indus River, their decline meant that smaller settlements might disappear without their markets, guidance, and coordination, though ethnographic comparisons do not seem to support this possibility. Even in the most highly organized nation-states, the collapse of a city, even a capital city, does not cause depopulation of the hinterland. Some scholars reject the idea that Harappans disappeared abruptly and contend that Harappa was gradually abandoned (MacKay 1935; Fairservis 1971; et al.). Further analysis of data might reveal site specific information on the transition of Harappan society into smaller settlements and perhaps even their depopulation. At present the sequence of settlement abandonment is still unclear.

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Subsistence Geographic location, population size, and (of course) sociocultural factors helped determine the subsistence systems of the ecologically diverse Harappan populations. Though rice was cultivated in some areas (Weber 1991: 176), for most populations the “[trans-] regional food[s]” were wheat, barley, millet, and peas. Subsistence activities included hunting, herding, gathering, fishing, animal husbandry, irrigation agriculture, and dry farming (Weber 1991: 29, 114, 178). For the “cities” of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, the food economy was based on “domesticated plants and animals, including wheat, barley, millets, sheep, cattle, goats,” pigs, water buffalo, and domestic fowl (Weber 1991: 9; Wenke 1990: 415). Agricultural implements for plowing, sowing, and hoeing have been found at various sites. Overall, according to Weber (1991), there was a greater dependence on plants over animals, and on “domesticated or cultivated taxa in comparison to wild and gathered species” (178). However, the boundaries of each site are not well defined, so there is “no way to quantify the relative importance of pastoralism versus cultivation versus hunting and gathering activities” (Weber 1991: 114). Thus, even with the knowledge of food production techniques and some of the foods eaten, little is known about the patterns of food production and consumption at Harappan sites (Weber 1991: 114,175; Vishnu-Mittre and Savithri 1993: 206–211). Although the division of labor figures prominently in most evolutionary models, gender only appears in the literature on subsistence where stick figure drawings that show hunting or carrying axes or spears (see Allchin and Allchin 1968: 298) are assumed to depict men.

Polity and hierarchy Archaeologists have traditionally inferred information on political organization from ancient scripts, burials, and architecture. In the prehistoric Indus, however, the script has not been deciphered, few elaborate or uniform burial rituals are evident, and there is no clear evidence of temples, tombs, or palaces (Shaffer 1993: 48; Berger 1985: 310, and others). Consequently Harappan archaeologists rely heavily on more modest structural remains and settlement organization for information on general life and politics. Recognizing the technological sophistication of Harappan architecture and their standardization in material culture, archaeologists became embroiled in the semantic and typological confusion caused by using unilinear evolutionary models of civilization as a framework for inquiry. One of the primary foci of the literature on Harappan political organization is on the question of whether the Indus should be considered a bona fide “civilization.”

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Harappa and Mohenjo-daro had population sizes of approximately 20,000 and 40,000 inhabitants, respectively. These large sites are frequently cited as proof of the final phase of civilization: urbanization. Population size is a major component in evolutionary models, but in the absence of clear evidence of stratification its significance is enigmatic. Ironically, the ancient Maya, who inhabited Mesoamerica thousands of years later and left every evidence of stratification, are considered only marginally urban and not politically very complex, mainly because they lacked very dense populations (Webster 1998). According to scholars who take an evolutionary perspective on the rise of “civilization,” several events must take place before the “rise” of cities can occur (Maisels 1999). Robert Adams (1966), extrapolating from V. Gordon Childe’s original trait list, defined these events or “core trends” as: “social stratification, political differentiation, craft and career specialization, and militarization, culminating in urbanization” (Possehl 1990: 268). Working backwards, Harappan archaeologists reasoned that the existence of cities (dense populations) in the ancient Indus meant that the other “trends” had occurred. And since all these trends require hierarchical organization, archaeologists assumed a centralized authority in Harappa and began searching for the evidence that would support this model. The coercive power common to known states is usually realized through a military entity of some kind. However, scholars agree that there is no evidence of a military or of even warfare activity in the prehistoric Indus. Though there were walls around portions of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, there is speculation about whether these walls served as protection against people or (more likely) flooding (Fairservis 1971: 293; Miller 1985: 58). Coercion by a central authority (as opposed to, for example, ideological consensus) has been assumed to be the only force which could organize labor on a large scale and maintain the boundaries of stratification by authority and wealth that define civilization. However, the uniformity of Indus architecture alone could lead one to question the assumption that stratification and military coercion are necessary precursors to the development of urban and complex society (DuVall 2002). Architecturally, Harappa appears to have been egalitarian (Wenke 1990: 413). Houses were made primarily of burnt brick, and many stood on mudbrick platforms to raise them above flood levels (MacKay 1935: 9, 19, 26). Both brick size and house size and layouts were standardized and duplicated at every Harappan site (Naqvi 1993: 48; Jacobson 1986: 138–139). Apparently, there were no variations in architectural design, and no surviving decorations on the insides of Harappan structures (Miller 1985: 42–47). One of the original excavators lamented that “windows were nonexistent . . . [o]ne house is so like another, with its plain, unrelieved walls, that to the modern eye something seems sadly lacking in the mental and spiritual equipment of the builders” (MacKay 1935: 28, 30–31, 51–52). “The total absence of

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any surviving paint on walls is too disappointing” (Allchin and Allchin 1968: 308). All the houses were two stories high, with a flat top, and several rooms arranged around a courtyard that could not be seen from the street (Wenke 1990: 413). Inside the courtyards was a general cooking area, yet each house had its own kitchen and bathroom that was “always placed on the street side of the building for convenient disposal of water” (MacKay 1935: 35, 40–41, 43, 50). Water discharge sluices drained refuse from the houses into small cesspits lined with bricks at the base of the walls, from which the dirty water was led through conduits to the main drains which ran along the streets below the pavement level and were covered with sturdy bricks. This drainage system was connected to larger sewerage outlets, which were also covered over and discharged waste and dirty water outside the populated area (Naqvi 1993: 49). It is easy to see why the drainage system has so fascinated archaeologists and how some scholars might assume that such technology, order, and precision would require a central authority to organize local labor (see MacKay 1935: 46; Fairservis 1971: 293; Wenke 1990: 407, 415). In order to make the drainage system “watertight . . . they used ordinary bricks cemented with mud-mortar, although in better class work, lime or gypsum, or both, was mixed with mud” (MacKay 1935: 46). This archaeologist’s viewpoint recognizes the true magnitude of this achievement, but at the same time, the implicit evolutionary assumption that a preoccupation with sanitation necessarily make the Harappans “more evolved” (meaning “more like us”) is clear, also. Nearly all Harappan archaeologists mention the “Great Bath,” its plumbing, and its surrounding “dressing rooms” and “toilets” (Wenke 1990: 414). This “monumental public work” located at Mohenjo-daro, is one of the most frequently cited pieces of evidence for arguing that Harappa was indeed a civilization with a centralized authority and possibly “twin capitals” (Mohenjo-daro and Harappa). Monumental public works are viewed as evidence for a central authority because such a work should require a sophisticated set of architectural plans and highly organized and (perhaps) intensive or even specialized labor. Proof of a central authority would stand as evidence for the concentration of wealth and power that would by definition prove that Harappa was stratified by class. In sum, large “public” structures seem to support one-path-to-civilization models, and the Great Bath is the most oft cited evidence, though its monumentality might be questioned. The Great Bath has the appearance of a large swimming pool. The use of this pool is not known (it could simply be a public bath). However, since there is only one in all of the Indus region, some archaeologists assume that only city dwellers had the privilege of using it, or that it was used for religious purposes or that certain people may have made a pilgrimage to it (see

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MacKay 1935: 19). One scholar suggests that there must have been social class distinctions because “no one would have wanted to do the ‘distasteful job’ of maintaining (i.e. unclogging) the sophisticated drainage system” (Possehl 1990: 271). However, Maisels distinguishes the Great Bath from other old world temples because of its openness and argues that it be regarded as a “community ritual precinct” (1999: 224). In addition to the centrality of the Great Bath and the structuring of smaller sites according to a predetermined scheme (see Piggott 1952; Possehl 1990), other “evidence” of central authority that is frequently cited is the fact that Indus civilization “streets run in straight lines, and are crossed by others at right angles” (MacKay 1935: 21). Additional signs of stratification or centralized power are the “granaries” or warehouses, which may indicate that resources were redistributed (Possehl 1990: 271). However, there is no evidence to support the assumption that these structures were indeed granaries. Shaffer points out that granaries are only found in Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, and are not structurally2 or contextually3 similar at the two sites (1993: 45). One of them is even located outside of the “citadel walls” (Miller 1985: 49)! Shaffer rightfully questions why this striking dissimilarity has been overlooked if the uniformity of other material culture is so important. Not surprisingly, the similarities among Harappan sites are used not only to support the centralized authority model, but they also provide the only connections between sites, the only “proof ” that these settlements were connected into a single political and/or economic entity that had multiple urban centers. Scholars apparently accepted a priori Piggott’s (1952) assertion that Harappa, like Mesopotamia, was an “urban literate culture” that was “rigidly stratified [by a] centralized and authoritarian government” (Shaffer 1993: 41, 42). Archaeologists have been so interested in making Harappa “fit” into a predetermined formula for “the evolution of civilization” that they have only looked for clues to support this model. According to Shaffer, scholars have emphasized similarities among sites, and assumed that Harappa and Mohenjo-daro influenced smaller sites, instead of the other way around (1993: 42, 43). In other words, they have been so busy looking for connections4 between the “cities” and the “villages” to prove the existence of a civilization with urban centers, that they have not bothered to consider the sites themselves as units of analysis, though by doing so, the nature of the connections between sites might be revealed. The lack of state coercion and protection of wealth, along with the absence of apparent class distinctions, has raised the possibility that Harappa was an egalitarian society (Maisels 1999; Miller 1985: 56; Shaffer 1993: 47; Wenke 1990: 414). One scholar has even suggested that Harappa may have been the first democracy (Naqvi 1993). The evidence for an egalitarian society ranges from the lack of apparent wealth in the cities over rural areas, as indicated by a proportionately equal distribution of “precious” metals regardless of the size

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of the site, to the apparent literacy of the rural populations,5 to the relatively equal size of residences throughout Harappa (Wenke 1990; Shaffer 1993). Even in light of this, some scholars suggest that there were two or three “regional centers” leading or controlling smaller settlements (see Possehl 1990: 271), and that hierarchical political differentiation is indicated by the separation of public and private spaces (e.g. courtyards not seen from the street, Possehl 1990: 271–273). However, without knowing the uses of public and private spaces, it is difficult to assess the meaning of their separation. It appears that there are few clues in the traditional data about what type of differentiation existed or what this differentiation meant in the Harappan context. Recent work on skeletal and especially dental data from Harappa (Kenoyer 1989) has suggested that women had poorer diets than men, and suffered more physical stress in childhood (Maisels 1999). This has been used to argue for the existence of a gender hierarchy since burials rarely have more than a few modest grave goods. However, without knowing whether having more dental caries reflects a diet with higher, lower, or equivalent social status, this inference is not convincing. Similarly, even skeletal stress may result from high status activities as well as social subordination. Were the males found to have greater physical stress, no one would argue that this was a sign of male sociopolitical powerlessness. In fact, Kenoyer (1998) also argues that women were buried near their matrilineal kin, while men were buried near their wives, a situation which might suggest female authority. Thus far, the evidence offered for the Indus Valley polity does not unequivocally support arguments6 for a military, social stratification, or (arguably) political differentiation, three of the four criteria for urbanization. Even if one accepts that proving or disproving the existence of a “civilization” is a relevant and useful analytical endeavor, how can scholars conclude that Harappa was a civilization? All we can say is that the architecture and plumbing were technologically advanced and settlements were built according to a definite scheme, centering on some large, open non-residential structures.

Economy The last criterion for urbanization is craft specialization and markets. The evidence of technological sophistication and uniformity of material culture throughout Harappa and the Indus region suggests that specialization occurred. the pottery, bangles, fruit stands, seals, terra-cotta “cakes,” weights and measures, town planning, drains, graters, bathtubs, etc., were duplicated so precisely wherever Harappan settlement occurred. Fairservis (1971: 293)

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Analysis of specialist production has led several authors to argue that Harappans were organized by kin ties rather than an economic or political hierarchy (Hegde et al. 1993, Kenoyer 1989, Wright 1989). Extant jajmani systems are used to provide analogy, with caveats about the likelihood of change over time. According to Engels, a kin-based society would be expected to empower women. If production is kin based, then women’s role in the family would assure them a prominent place in the social order. Nevertheless, arguments that place household production in contrast to a market economy as kin based rather than “rational” owe as much to the historical context of their inception as to empirical evidence. Why must these be the only two alternatives and why must any type of production strategy necessarily privilege one gender over another? Archaeologists have found an equitable distribution of uniform goods throughout the Indus region, down to the smallest sites, many of which provide no evidence of manufacturing (though others do show signs of specialist production). Archaeologists have used these data to argue that an Indus state was involved in “long distance trade”7 (Shaffer 1993: 45, 47), which proves the existence of civilization. However, closer examination of the raw materials used to make products, identification of available resources, and the discovery of “workshops,” have led many scholars to accept only that Harappa had an excellent internal trading or redistributive system. There were very few “imported” goods; in fact, much of the manufacturing took place in the household (Miller 1985: 53–55). Presumably, specialization had economic rewards, but in the Harappan context it seems that advancement occurred along with some sort of social restraint. “The quality of objects found suggests a well distributed welfare and a comfortable standard of living, devoid of either luxury, or evident signs of exploitation” (Miller 1985: 56). What is intriguing is that just as public and residential structures showed very little variation, so it was with the production of tools, figurines, beads, and stamp seals (Shaffer 1993: 44). Interestingly, though the production of the technologically advanced beads and the high frequency of figurines is often mentioned, they are treated as politically insignificant, and remain unexamined, though beads and jewelry may have been one of the only products consumed and distributed without restraint. Stamp seals, on the other hand, due to their apparent connection to money and writing, are treated as an appropriate and significant form for political and economic consideration. Stamp seals have been found in most, if not all, of the Harappan sites (Roy and Gidwani 1982: 9). They are all inscribed with words or symbols, and (variously interpreted) representations of gods or goddesses, animals, men and women, plants, and so on. There has been much debate not only over the meaning of the inscriptions, but over the use of the stamp seals. Some scholars assert that they had religious significance; others argue that the seals were economic in nature, stating that they were “identifying symbols and

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signs of authority” (Roy and Gidwani 1982: 13). Other authors have argued that the seal stamps were used as personal identifiers and used to secure contracts or identify personal property, as was apparently the case in the better documented cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt (McIntosh 2002). The use of seals, and the ubiquity of mass-produced jewelry and pottery along with the discovery of the use of standardized weights, suggests sophisticated inter-community trade practices, and possibly long-distance exchange outside the Indus area, though few imports have been identified (Naqvi 1993, Kenoyer 1998). Despite the absence of clear economic distinctions among the populace, some scholars have argued that a large group of merchants ruled the cities (Kenoyer 1998, McIntosh 2002, Maisels 1999). Further analysis showing the correlation(s) between sites and seal inscriptions might help highlight the meanings and uses of Harappan seals. There is little mention about where stamp seals were found within each site. On the other hand, jewelry has been found everywhere: inside, outside, and underneath structures, in the “streets, drains, and trash deposits” (Shaffer 1993: 47; Fairservis 1971: 283). But most of it has been found in “hoards,” buried underneath houses in silver, copper, and bronze “vessels” often along with an “elaborate girdle” (MacKay 1935: 106–108). Among the items of jewelry, finds have included gold, silver, and copper bangles, wire ear and finger rings, and necklaces made of countless minute beads (MacKay 1935: 114–117). Harappans made these beads from gold, silver, copper, carnelian, steatite, jadeite, riband-jasper, red, yellow, and blue jasper, onyx, amazon stone, heliotrope, plasma, lapis-lazuli, tachylite, chalcedony, shell, pottery, faience, vitreous paste, quartz, serpentine, and (more rarely) turquoise (MacKay 1935: 110; Hegde, et al. 1993: 239). These microbeads were one to three millimeters in length, and one millimeter in external diameter. In a one gram sample, there were 310 beads. They are cylindrical, globular, spherical, biconical, segmented, or wafer-like; they were baked at high temperatures, and are 60 percent silica, 30 percent magnesia, 6 percent alumina, less than 2 percent lime, and less than 1 percent iron oxide. The beads were manufactured by extruding the forming material through an aperture. Microbeads are said to have been made by men, implicitly because men control activities with economic significance beyond the household level. Though there is little information about what and where jewelry was manufactured (or how it was used), it is possible that all jewelry was not completed from start to finish at the same settlement. This is illustrated by the fact that, while several copper furnaces were found at Harappa, copper workshops and copper oxide have been found in different locations. In addition to the processes and locations of jewelry making, what needs to be examined is the correlation between jewels (including their material), figurines, and seals. Judging from the abundance of (especially) female

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figurines, and the amount of time and energy spent on the production of beads for jewelry, it seems that Harappans found these items and related activities extremely important. Therefore, instead of dismissing figurines and beads as “spiritual” or simply “female adornment,” these artifacts may be a useful place to begin analysis.

Ideology and the economic goddess: figurines, bangles, and beads As mentioned previously, the absence of temples, or uniformity of burials, and the undeciphered Indus script have not allowed for much evidence on the ideology of Harappa. Nonetheless, scholars of the area seem to revel in this ambiguity, and use it as an open space for debate. Ideology is most logically the place where assumptions about gender are iterated. Even in light of the lack of sufficient evidence, many scholars make definitive statements about Harappan religion and in doing so, blatantly reveal their phallogocentric biases. For example, based on the highly contested meanings and use of stamp seals, scholars argue that the Indus peoples practiced animal and “virgin” (female) sacrifice (Sullivan 1964: 117; Atre 1985–6: 9, 10; Miller 1985: 60; and others), and worshipped priests, phalli, and goddesses. Priests (and phalli) are assumed to be the possible leaders of Harappa; goddesses are relegated to the spiritual realm only (see Piggott 1950: 203, 204; James 1957: 158; Possehl 1990: 262). There is no evidence to support the claim that priests ruled Harappa politically or spiritually. With the exception of one bust of a beardless male of questionable heritage (possibly an import from outside the Indus region, Maisels 1999), there are very few representations of males in Harappa at all. Of the few male figurines found, all are very crudely formed and entirely nude. In comparison, not only are female fire-holding figurines found in almost every home, they are also always (with two exceptions) clothed and heavily ornamented (Bhattacharyya 1977: 149, et al.), which tempts one to query whether in the Indus civilization, men might have been to nature as women were to culture. Scholars have reacted to the absence of clothing on male figurines, and the presence of clothing on female figurines in various ways. MacKay, one of the original excavators, commented that “For some reason which it is difficult to understand, figures of male deities in pottery are distinctly rare and are entirely nude, in contrast with the female figures which invariably wear a little clothing” (1935: 68). Other scholars jump to the unsustainable conclusion that “clothing around the waist of the goddess is an indication of her virginity” (Atre 1985–6: 7). Such statements reveal more about the authors’ beliefs than about Harappan religion. Of course those scholars who assert that Indus peoples practiced phallus worship are conspicuously silent about the phalli of the male figurines. This is in stark contrast to much of the

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archaeological literature on ancient societies where fertility goddess worship was inferred from similar data. Atre (1985–6) offers the most detailed, but unsatisfactory evidence to support the claim to phallus worship, arguing that the unicorn that is (arguably) depicted on a few of the seals is associated with fertility, and is symbolic of the value of the phallus (1985–6: 11, 12). Presumably this claim rests on Freudian assumptions that some aspects of human nature stand outside culture. According to Atre, Harappans may have used antlers as plough-shares (though there is no evidence of this) to “stimulate her [mother earth’s] powers of reproduction” (12). There was one reported sighting of an “erect phallus” depicted on a seal, but scholars later agreed it was the end of a goddess’s waistband (Sullivan 1964: 119). Though no pictures of phalli are presented, the enigmatic stone or ceramic cones that have been found in some houses are thought to be phallic symbols, even though James (1957) admits that “some of the larger cones . . . found at Mohenjo-daro in ordinary dwellings do not appear to have been phalli or lingas, their smooth worn bases suggesting rather that they were grinders” (159). As for the unicorn claims, other scholars have argued that the animal depicted is really bovine, and that the angle of the depiction superimposes one horn over the other (Allchin and Allchin 1968: 306). There is also mention that the horns of bulls were emphasized, but the authors also note that the humps and sometimes the dewlap were also exaggerated (299). Fairservis (1971) argues that it is logical that Harappans would use antlers for plough-shares in the absence of hard metals, but Fairservis (1971) argues that there was such an abundance of metals (which they used tin to harden) that they used them to make toys (289, 291). It is obvious that this matter is still open for debate. Even if an object originally represented the phallus, the symbol may have become so thoroughly encoded with other meanings that to recognize its origin as phallic would say little or nothing about the processes or rituals in which it was used – let alone about concomitant beliefs (Sullivan 1964). In certain European myths, for example, unicorns symbolized female virginity. Not every Harappan scholar writes about phallus worship, but the ubiquitous female figurines do not escape comment. They do escape systematic analysis. There is a general consensus about the notion that fire and water were ritually significant. This is assumed primarily for three reasons: the inexplicable function of the Great Bath, the fact that almost every house contained bathrooms, and the fact that most domestic areas contained female figurines that were used to burn fire or incense (MacKay 1935: 66; Sullivan 1964: 116; Bhattacharyya 1977: 149; Miller 1985: 60; Atre 1985–6: 10; and others). That Indus people kept themselves clean and lit their homes with decorative lamps is not considered sufficient explanation for the existence of these features.

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Some female figurines are described as having “fan-shaped headdresses . . . with pannier-like projections” where fire or incense burned. Frequently, they are called “fire-altars” for worship of a goddess, but what distinguishes them from lamps to facilitate night vision is not discussed. After the agreement on fire and water rituals, the second most agreed upon assumption is the existence of a “goddess” in Harappa. But as Lynn Meskell (1995) wrote: “to assume a priori that there is a goddess behind every figurine is tantamount to interpreting plastic figures of Virgin Mary and of ‘Barbie’ as having identical significance.” Some authors believe that the so-called goddess is connected in some way to “the” ancient Mother Goddess who guided “mankind” through “his” primitive years of reliance on vegetation (again the focus is on phase of societal development). She is said to have had a “partner or consort under the guise of a son or husband” (James 1957: 166). Instead of being representations of women, female figurines are said to represent a single goddess who appears in different forms, usually in figurines and other objects, and in different places over time. According to James (1957), the same goddess was worshipped in the Agean, where she was called the “Mistress of the Trees and Mountains” or, “Lady of the Wild Beasts” and the dove was her symbol. As a Maltese goddess, she was obese and painted red (associated with fertility), and had “enormous” hips and prominent breasts. In Britain and northern France, emphasizing fertility, she was “fat and pregnant” and carved in chalk. The list goes on. What should help dispel the idea that the Harappan female figurines are not related to these mythical figures is that Harappan figures were almost never depicted as pregnant,8 with children, or nude; “maternal organs” were never disproportionately represented; the figurines have no traces of red paint (arguably associated with menses or parturition), and there is no evidence of a partner. With all of this lack of evidence, some Harappan scholars still conclude that “the Indus goddess was a symbol of fertility”9 (Berger 1985: 5, et al., Sullivan 1964: 117–78; Gimbutas 1982), a blatant example of blinding gender biases. According to Atre, the motif of the Harappan goddess is a horned headdress with “foliage or plume sprouting from the centre,” she is sometimes only half human, and frequently seen around trees (1985–6: 9). However, Atre only refers to the seals, and while most archaeologists seem to assume that almost all figurines are representations of deities, Atre asserts that the figurines are not divinities (1985–6: 8). This seems strange because according to Sullivan, only the figurines with elaborate headdresses have a place for burning incense in them (1964: 116). Why were there at least two types of figurines? What does this distinction mean? Are there other characteristics of context of ornamentation that would distinguish these two types of figurine? Atre never addresses this question. At this point, there is not enough evidence to safely conclude what ideological and ritual significance the female figurines had for Harappans.

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Harappan archaeologists have dealt with the bulk of potential evidence on politics, economics, and ideology by dismissing it, usually indirectly. In doing so, they may have overlooked pertinent information regarding the development of Harappan nations. For example, though archaeologists Allchin and Allchin (1968) note that the number of heavily ornamented female figurines increased with the rise of the civilization (310), no one (to my knowledge) has problematized this phenomenon and attempted to grapple with its significance. Many scholars make ideological assumptions about the figurines, but I have yet to find a systematic analysis of the figurines and their most prominent feature: ornamentation. Jewelry, apparently worn only by women,10 is assumed to have been a matter of “personal adornment”, and is dismissed as “nonfunctional”11 (Shaffer 1993: 46, 48; Sullivan 1993: 239). I think this is an oversight. Blinded by Western phallocentrism, archaeologists have based entire arguments on the lack of evidence, instead of considering data (e.g., Miller 1985) relating to women, because the rise of civilization is a priori determined to be traceable only through men. Piggott argued that from Pre-Harappa through Mature Harappa, “Although the faces of these figurines are so sketchily presented, a great deal of care was lavished on the representation of their hairdressing and ornaments” (1962: 110, 111). Yet he dismissed these figurines as “household” deities (1962: 107). Fairservis admits that ornaments of many kinds – bangles, earrings, necklaces, beads, etc. – “are not only depicted on the figurines but are themselves found in great numbers on the sites” and “Clay bangles often occur in such abundance that in any random sample of finds they are among the most common” (1971: 283, my emphases). Yet bangles and other jewelry made of gold, silver, bronze and other metals contemporarily constructed as precious or semi-precious are also found (MacKay 1935: 131; Shaffer 1993: 47). In fact, it seems that the bulk of the labor on precious metals went toward making jewelry! What is not clear is where gold bangles are found (Mohenjo-daro?) and where clay bangles (and those of other types) are more likely to be found (smaller sites?). Moreover, as I mentioned previously, bead technology was one of the few areas where there was continual advancement (this is in contrast to the numerous complaints by scholars about the lack of “improvement” and “creativity” in architecture). Is it possible that jewelry (e.g. metal bangles over the more common bangles) was used as an indicator of political status and/or achievement in Harappa? In order to help determine whether or not there was social differentiation by wealth, document societal change in Harappa, and begin figuring out the political economy and ideological significance of the female figurines, scholars might develop a taxonomy (see Spector 1991) of seals, objects of ornamentation, and figurines. This would be useful for correlative studies, and preserving data for reanalysis. What needs to be recorded is not just what

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and how much was being produced when in Harappa, but intra- and inter-site patterns of representations (that is, types of decoration). If detailed enough, scholars should be able to detect patterns across space (e.g. within and across ecological zones) and time. In addition, such a table would enable scholars to “compare [Harappan] technical knowledge and skills, mobility patterns, use of resources, equipment, materials and space” (Spector 1991: 391). It is difficult not to speculate that if the most figurines were male and only the male figurines were depicted wearing clothing and elaborate jewelry, discussion of a “god cult” would be limited, and systematic analyses of the distribution of types and quantities of beads would be common. Probably these would be considered as a possible medium of exchange, rather than relegated to the category of insignificant ornamentation.

Paradigmatic reflections Not only did Harappan populations not lack for much, they had a surplus of goods. Harappa was also possibly one of the most architecturally and technologically sophisticated societies of its time, so why is it that signs of economic exploitation and political oppression, militarism and social stratification cannot be detected? Why does it appear that labor was organized, but not controlled by a wealthy class operating from an urban center? Miller has admitted that “even the smallest sites (less than one hectare) try to emulate the structure of the largest ones (85 hectares)” – even when it is impractical (1985: 46–47). Scholars have been very busy trying to find a distinction between “town” and “village,” but they have not stopped to think that perhaps this dichotomy inherent in an evolutionary perspective was not the means by which Harappans distinguished themselves or categorized their communities. In general, Harappan archaeologists speak about the Indus Valley “civilization” as an almost completely static, unchanging whole. The only changes that took place were related to the rise, maturity, or decline of the nation. That is, scholars have primarily considered change between designated periods, but not within temporal classifications. They have also been focused on changes between designated sites, that is, the relationship of all sites to the so-called centers, while paying little attention to changes within sites, or between smaller sites. Thus, scholars of the Indus civilization need to examine the way populations functioned within sites, not just their relationship to Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. Lastly, the tacitly agreed upon assumption of Harappan archaeologists is that women were not involved in the political and economic affairs of the empire. In literature on the Indus, women are located in “all the most familiar social, mythical, and sexual places” (Handsman 1991: 333), but among the Harappans, archaeologists have identified no other sorts of places. There are no clear public/private distinctions with which archaeologists can relegate

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women to the private. There is no evidence of a hierarchy at all, much less the patriarchy required by unilinear cultural evolutionists. I have shown that possible class and other distinctions, as well as other important political and economic information may potentially be illuminated by focusing on the connections between jewelry, stamp seals, figurines, and most especially in the production and use of beads, at various Harappan sites. Representation of jewelry associated with women may or may not mean women themselves controlled wealth or trade, since it is also possible that men controlled the women who were so decorated. But the simple fact that jewelry is associated with feminine dress in modern cultures has placed the study of beads outside the serious consideration of scholars interested in political economy. It would be a stretch to conclude that women were rulers in Harappa. This could be the farthest possibility from the truth. It is possible that men displayed their wealth through women, in a culture where modesty of men was unimportant. Whatever the case, archaeologists who used social evolutionary models, blinded by their own temporal gender biases and relying solely on traditional evidence even when the artifacts suggested alternate paths, may have dismissed potentially significant evidence that might test evolutionary models. Scholars who have concluded that Harappa was egalitarian may have jumped the gun because they, too, dismissed evidence that appeared to be related to women, and in doing so may have overlooked evidence that would contradict their conclusions.

Notes 1 There is no consensus about the division between Early, Mature, and Late Harappa. 2 One is a “rectangular series of mud-brick platforms separated by narrow corridors” and the other is “two long blocks of subdivided rectangular units separated by a central aisle” (Mohenjo-daro and Harappa respectively) (45). 3 One is “found on the high mound in the context of other public units,” while the other is “found on the low mound surrounded by ordinary domestic structures” (45). 4 This is the inverse of what Eric Wolf wrote about in Europe and the People Without History. 5 Objects with inscribed letters were found at even the smallest sites. 6 This is not to say that this was not the case, only that the evidence presented does not support such assertions. 7 This is another state qualification. 8 Fairservis (1971: 292) is the only one who mentions that there is a depiction of pregnancy, but he does not say where, nor does he display it with any of the other plates. It is strange that Atre (1985–6), whose article is devoted to proving the relationship of the Harappan goddess to a mother goddess, does not make any mention of a pregnant Harappan figurine, though s/he insists she was associated with fertility. 9 Another underlying assumption is that female reproductive ability has always been associated with the “fertility” of the soil. And if virginity is not connected

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to private property, how did it come to be associated with the Mother Goddess who was worshipped in “primitive” times? 10 Most scholars of Harappa agree that jewelry is worn mostly or only by women. The only evidence they have to support this is the representation of female figurines with jewelry, and the representations of males who are scarce, but always nude. 11 Has Shaffer ever heard of the Kula ring?

References cited Adams, Robert (1966) The Evolution of Urban Society: Early Mesopotamia and Prehispanic Mexico. Chicago: Aldine. Agrawal, D. P. (1993) The Harappan Legacy: Break and Continuity. In Harappan Civilization: A Recent Perspective. Gregory L. Possehl, ed., pp. 445–454. New Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta: American Institute of Indian Studies and Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd. Allchin, Bridget and Allchin, Raymond (1968) The Birth of Indian Civilization: India and Pakistan before 500 BC. Baltimore: Penguin Books. Atre, Shubhangana (1985–86) Lady of Beasts: The Harappan Goddess. Puraatattva 16(16): pp. 7–14. Berger, Pamela (1985) The Goddess Obscured: Transformation of the Grain Protectress from Goddess to Saint. Boston: Beacon Press. Bhattacharyya, Narendra Nath (1977) The Indian Mother Goddess. New Delhi: Manohar Book Service. Du Vall, Karen (2002) War is Hell, But Peace is Just Plain Weird: The Lack of Warfare in the Indus Valley Civilization. Unpublished manuscript in possession of the author. Fairservis Jr, Walter A. (1971) The Roots of Ancient India: The Archaeology of Early Indian Civilization. New York: The Macmillan Company. Gimbutas, Marija (1982) Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe. Berkeley: University of California Press. Handsman, Russell G. (1991) Whose Art Was Found at Lepenski Vir? Gender Relations and Power in Archaeology. In Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory. Joan M. Gero and Margaret W. Conkey, eds, pp. 329–365. Oxford, UK and Cambridge, USA: Blackwell. Hegde, K. T. M., Karanth, R. V., and Sychanthavong, S. P. (1993) On the Composition and Technology of Harappan Microbeads. In Harappan Civilization: A Recent Perspective. Gregory L Possehl, ed., pp. 239–243. New Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta: American Institute of Indian Studies and Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd. Jacobson, Jerome (1986) “The Harappan Civilization: An Early State”. In Study in the Archaeology of India and Pakistan. J. Jacobson, ed., pp. 137–173. Delhi: Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd. James, E. O. (1957) Prehistoric Religion: A Study in Prehistoric Archaeology. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. Joshi, Jagat Pati and Bala, Madhu (1993) Manda: A Harappan Site in Jammu and Kashmir. In Harappan Civilization: A Recent Perspective. Gregory L. Possehl, ed.,

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pp. 185–195. New Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta: American Institute of Indian Studies and Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd. Kenoyer, Jonathan, ed. (1989) Old Problems and New Perspectives in the Archaeology of South Asia. Wisconsin Archaeological Reports, Vol. 2. —— (1998) Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McIntosh, Jane R. (2002) A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization. New York: Westview. MacKay, Ernest (1935) The Indus Civilization. London: Lovat Dickson & Thompson. Maisels, Charles K. (1999) Early Civilizations of the Old World: The Formative Histories of Egypt, The Levant, Mesopotamia, India and China. New York: Routledge. Meskell, Lynn (1995) Goddesses, Gimbutas and “New Age” Archaeology. Antiquity, 69(262): 74–86. Miller, Daniel (1985) Ideology and the Harappan Civilization. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 4: 34–71. Naqvi, Syed (1993) The Indus Valley Civilization – Cradle of Democracy? (Reflections). UNESCO Courier, February, p. 48. Piggot, Stuart (1950) Prehistoric India to 1000 BC. Baltimore: Penguin Books. —— (1952) Prehistoric India. London: Penguin Books. Possehl, Gregory (1990) Revolution in the Urban Revolution: The Emergence of Indus Urbanism. Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 281–282. Roy, Ashim Kumar and Gidwani, N. N. (1982) Indus Valley Civilization: A Bibliographic Essay. New Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta: Oxford and IBH Publishing Co. Shaffer, Jim G (1993) “Harappan Culture: A Reconsideration”. In Harappan Civilization: A Recent Perspective. Gregory L. Possehl, ed. New Delhi: American Institute of Indian Studies and Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd. Spector, Janet D. (1991) What This Awl Means: Toward a Feminist Archaeology. In Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory. Joan M. Gero and Margaret W. Conkey, eds. Oxford, UK and Cambridge, USA: Blackwell. Sullivan, Herbert (1964) A Re-examination of the Religion of the Indus Civilization. History of Religions 4 (i): 115–123. Vishnu-Mittre and Savithri, R. (1993) Food Economy of the Harappans. In Harappan Civilization: A Recent Perspective. Gregory L. Possehl, ed., pp.205–221. New Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta: American Institute of Indian Studies and Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd. Weber, Steven A. (1991) “Plants and Harappan Subsistence: An Example of Stability and Change from Rojdi. Boulder, CO: West View Press. Wenke, Robert (1990) Patterns in Prehistory, 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wolf, Eric (1982) Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wright, Rita (1989) The Indus Valley and Mesopotamian Civilizations: A Comparative View of Ceramic Technology. In Old Problems and New Perspectives in the Archaeology of Southeast Asia. Jonathan Kenoyer, ed., pp. 153–181. Wisconsin Archaeological Reports, Vol. 2.

Chapter 8

Oh my goddess A meditation on Minoan civilization Sean P. Dougherty

Minoan civilization has been highly romanticized since the discovery of Knossos by Sir Arthur Evans at the turn of the century. Evans’ romantic interpretation of the site has persisted with little change since its inception (Renfrew 1972; Muhly 1990). To Evans, the delicate frescoes of Minoan art depicting peaceful images of women and nature signified a society that was tranquil in ideology and action. This idea was buttressed by what he interpreted as a lack of arsenal artifacts, defensive walls, or recognizable evidence of hostilities in the ruins of Knossos and other sites on Crete. Weapons and walls have since been discovered, along with other more disturbing aspects of Minoan culture, but the idea of a “Pax Minoica” continues in the literature (as in Castledon 1990). Amid this intellectual setting, the consistent foreground appearance of women in frescoes and seals suggested high female social status, a topic much elaborated by early authors, though Evans did not concede political leadership to women. Leadership was attributed to a “priest-king,” perhaps even Minos himself (Evans 1928; McDonald and Thomas 1990; Castledon 1990; but see also Niemeier 1988). Women received their status from roles in religion as priestesses, cult leaders, and at times, incarnations of the goddess (Evans 1930; Marinatos 1993) for a teleologically conceived protomonotheistic religion. These interpretations were based on Minoan art: the seals and the frescoes, which were said to provide “probably the fullest picture of Minoan life” (Thomas 1973: 175). The Minoan civilization, itself, was modeled as a unified, solid, and unique entity. Located at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, it was a great center of trade and exchange in both goods and ideas. Yet, despite its place in the network, this prehistoric civilization was conceived to persist as a pure culture within a constant flow of exchange and interaction. More recent ideas about cultural evolution suggest that “identity” arises through reaction and interaction among various groups, rather than through isolation or cultural apartheid. Eric Wolf (1982) develops this point in his epic Europe and the People without History, arguing that there is no cultural isolation, no purity. This suggests that Minoan civilization was less “Minoan” than Evans and

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many later scholars thought. But this point has often been ignored; influences have been downplayed, if not dismissed. This chapter will explore the nature of Minoan civilization both as an isolate, and as a part of a greater Mediterranean network of inter-cultural exchange. The role of women, a topic of much assumption, will focus the discussion. Although few new data are likely to be discovered that shed unequivocal light on gender, an examination of the assumptions underlying reconstructions of the roles of men and women in Minoan society can point to new paths of investigation. At the very least we will have a better idea of what is known and what has only been assumed. An investigation of the status of women in Minoan civilization must necessarily involve religion, as the two were tightly entwined in Evans’ thoughts. A discussion of Minoan religion is no small task, and much has been written on the subject since its discovery and (re)creation. Nevertheless, our main concern is the use of the goddess in current scholarship, and how it relates to views on Minoan women, gender roles, and rulership. In general, Minoan religion is reconstructed as naturalistic and agrarian, arising out of local cultic worship of fertility figures to ensure a good harvest. According to such models, religion was closely tied to community welfare, explaining the dual nature of the Minoan palace as both a center of redistribution and religious festivities. Minoan symbolism is full of female images, and goddesses played a major part in religion. The pantheon, though it may not have been organized as such, if such a pantheon even existed, is suggested to be inhabited by the major fertility goddess, the snake goddess, the sea-goddess, a goddess of chthonic power, and even a goddess of the caves (Castledon 1990). No male god images have been found, but several, such as the Master of Animals, have been proposed (Gesell 1985). The nature of these goddesses is questionable. Most are named as they appear. It has been argued (Marinatos 1993) that they represent different aspects of the same goddess, a sort of multi-purpose, all-encompassing goddess reflecting Evans’ notion of a proto-monotheism, which was likely highly influenced by the Madonna and Child imagery of Christianity (MacGillivray 2000). The idea of the Great Goddess came from a time when “the well-documented evidence in the Near East for later goddesses such as Inanna, Ishtar, and Astarte had already conditioned… archaeologists to label (almost indiscriminately) all prehistoric nude female images as emanations of the Great Goddesses” (Talalay 1994: 167). And from there, “Evans’s ideas shaped much of the conceptual framework within which Minoan religious beliefs and practices are still discussed . . . religion is presented as a powerful force that permeated both private and public life” (Muhly 1990: 54). This fact becomes even more problematic when it comes to light that, as one biographer has noted, Evans rarely reexamined the evidence, “and even when

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he did, changes of heart were the exception rather than the rule” (MacGillivray 2000: 168). All accounts of the Mother Goddesses and gender roles in Minoan civilization have been based on interpretations of some form of Minoan art with an occasional use of ethnographic analogy. There are no texts available to inform archaeologists of the true nature of Minoan social and religious practices, beliefs, or roles. The problems inherent in making conclusions about social organization on this basis are obvious. This may be why, excluding discussions of religion, Aegeanists avoid issues of gender and focus primarily on the analyses of objects (Talalay 1994). The texts they create from their object studies “fail as narratives, but have been successful in avoiding disrupting the way in which the intellectual landscape has been prefigured” (I. Morris 1994: 37). There is some feeling within the discipline that what cannot be known with certainty need not be discussed, but this clearly has not stopped speculation on other topics, such as religion. Still, “contemporary classical archaeologists are trained as cautious positivists, whose greatest fear in life is making some unsubstantiated statement which will be refuted by the next potsherd produced in trench 1A, and will then expose them to professional ridicule and humiliation” (Dyson 1995: 43). As noted, the study of Minoan religion has not been limited to analysis of objects, though it could not exist without the object. Through countless interpretations and re-interpretations of Minoan art, scholars have explored issues of sexual divisions of labor, power, and social and ritual practices. Scholars who discuss these issues may find that the inherent subjectivity allows for a more “forgiving” theoretical environment. After all, anything attributed to art seems to be in the eye of the beholder. Nevertheless, even among these scholars, one gets the impression that several feel that they have the “Minoan eye”; that they can, somehow, know the meaning of the image as it was understood by the Minoans who created it. Unfortunately, the conclusions made by these scholars have been used as solid evidence for proponents of the great prehistoric matriarchal system. This feature of Aegean archaeology, that art provides the “fullest picture,” is problematic because of the nature of art, and therefore, the nature of symbols. Using art to identify social practices and customs, such as gender roles, involves deciphering symbols with the belief that they are bound by a structure that is assumed to permeate and manipulate the philosophical, theological, ideological, and social realms of Minoan culture. This necessarily implies that the meaning of such symbols, i.e. that which they signify, is absolute on all levels of thought, whether theological, philosophical, or sociological. There is also implied a continuity of symbolism over time, thus allowing for similar signs to signify similar things regardless of chronology. This, too, is questionable, as Hodder points out, since “representational systems involving gender are constructed historically and specifically” (1992: 259).

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The acceptance of Minoan art as “true” images of Minoan society began with Sir Arthur Evans himself. The perspective was later expanded by turnof-the-century historian, Gustave Glotz, who had this to say about the Minoan women: “Although the women are represented with white skins, and it is true that they live in the shade, they are not recluses” (1925: 143). He then goes on to pronounce that the sexes did intermingle in public. Interestingly he adds, “Doubtless their ordinary occupations kept women at home. They spent most of their time in sitting on low benches [men had high benches] and spinning wool in the Room of the Distaffs, or in taking the air in a small courtyard” (143). The description Glotz creates is more Victorian than Minoan. Then, again on the same page, within the same paragraph, Glotz places the women back outside of the home, actively participating in society: But gentle or humble, they were not afraid of showing themselves outside their homes . . . pottery was made by women . . . artists are fond of representing high-born maidens standing up in chariots and holding the reins like Nausikaa. Like Atalante they go hunting . . . and on the frescoes of Knossos . . . we actually behold the ladies of the court flaunting their charms in balconies (143). At first, Glotz’s statements may seem contradictory, but he may have been trying to account for all of society with only the evidence of the elite. He does state that a woman’s superior cultural position could be status related (1925: 144). With that in mind, it may be that the women kept at home were at a lower status level then those making more public appearances. Glotz, though admitting that women were of high position in society, does not give them “full rein.” He ends his section on women with, “It is unnecessary to see in them symbols of political power. Ariadne is the ‘very sacred’ queen, but Minos is the king” (146). Of course, all of Glotz’s writing is based on Evans’ reports frequently published as his excavations took place. The assumptions the two make are based only on symbolic interpretation, but, as one can see, speculation about the roles of women in Minoan society has a long history. In recent years, Evans’ conception of a Great Goddess has taken on a life of its own. “Much of the twentieth-century documentation has been uncritically influenced by this, mostly, ‘leisure-classes’ interpretation, as far as women were concerned” (Kopaka 1997: 524). Yet despite its “leisure-class” roots, a number of archaeologists and New Age feminist scholars have take the Minoan Great Goddess and incorporated it within a grand, matriarchal scheme of prehistory. Most notable of them is Marija Gimbutas, an advocate of a gynocentric prehistoric paradise in which “there were no husbands, yet men fulfilled important roles in construction, crafts and trade. Women’s lives were liberal, socially and sexually, and inextricably bound to the rich religious

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system which ensured their prominence” (Gimbutas in Meskell 1995: 78). In this social system, women are given power by virtue of their being women; necessarily fertile and motherly. “The proponents of this interpretation never specify whether the power of women in these early matriarchies was given, granted, or taken, they assume that the elevated status of women was ultimately due to their reproductive capabilities” (Talalay 1994: 175). This, ironically, places women out of the realm of cultural importance, for “as Wylie (and others) have observed, if ‘biology is destiny’ where . . . women’s roles are forever fixed, then women run the risk of being defined as irrelevant to . . . cultural change. Being static, women’s roles can never account for developments in cultural systems” (Talalay 1994: 175). The irony of the Mother Goddess position, at least when Minoan religion is used as evidence, is the lack of motherly images in Minoan art. Marinatos recently (1995b) made a comparison of Minoan and Egyptian iconography. She found that unlike Egyptian images, Minoan art does not depict its subject in a human, family way. In short, the Mother Goddess is seldom seen among subjects that would exhibit her motherly qualities, namely children. A similar conclusion was reached by Olsen (1998). Examining terracotta figurines from Mycenaean and Minoan contexts, Olsen found that gender role iconography differed in its depiction of women’s roles. Mother–child imagery was found to be limited to Mycenaean art. Such images did not occur from Minoan contexts. Olsen thus concluded, “Minoan society does not invest in idealizing women as mothers . . . above all emphasis is on the social rather than the biological, the public rather than the domestic” (1998: 390). Apparently, the Minoan fertility goddess is not as fertile as Evans once dreamed. Another example of an attempt to understand women’s roles in Minoan society through the interpretation of art is analysis of a Minoan seal called the Mother on the Mountain. This seal depicts a female figure atop a mountainlike feature, flanked by two lions and another figure. The central figure has been interpreted as a goddess (Davis 1995) based on the scale of the female image, her “commanding gesture,” the environment (i.e. nature; surrounded by lions; a sacred building), and a figure “worshiping” her. In most cases, the use of natural images alongside female figures has been the telltale sign of either a goddess or a goddess incarnate (Davis 1995; Koehl 1995). This is why, for example, Evans’ “king’s throne room” at Knossos, a large room holding a throne flanked by two griffin frescoes, has been recently reclaimed in the name of the Goddess (in Koehl 1995). A similar seal, known as the Master Impression, depicts a male image making the same gesture atop what has been interpreted as a temple, a city, or a mountain-top seaside shrine (Davis 1995). Because of its similarity in style to the Mother on the Mountain seal, this figure has been called a god (Davis 1995: 18), although one secondary to the Great Mother, since he normally appears younger in other depictions. Interestingly, Davis (1995)

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titles the article in which this discussion appears with the heading “The Missing Ruler.” Of course, it may not be that the rulers are missing, but that they have all become deities! However, Davis’ point is well taken in light of a more pan-Mediterranean context. In her article, she notes that unlike Egyptian and Near Eastern iconography, Minoan civilization has no “kingly” symbols (1995: 11–12). There are no depictions of kings on thrones or kings smiting opponents. Davis also observes, “whenever there is any indication of dominance, it is the women who appear to be the main figures” (14). Her conclusion for Minoan society, again, based on her study of its art, is that it is a society unlike any other, “one we have yet to understand” (19). Marinatos (1995a), however, has come to a slightly different conclusion. In light of the fresco discoveries at Avaris, Marinatos hypothesized that the Minoan rulers might be very much like their Egyptian counterparts who were considered divine. This idea was based on three premises (1995a: 41). The first, citing Davis, is that there is no Minoan ruler iconography because Minoan rulers are interchangeable with gods. The second premise is that the images of the “deities” are based on real performances during ecstatic rituals. Thirdly, the tripartite shrines seen in Minoan iconography are in fact depictions of the palace façade. This façade can be seen in the Master Impression. However, like many others, this is merely an interpretation of symbols for which meaning has been lost in time. Marinatos sought to answer the question of the missing ruler simply by making the ruler a god, and human acts god-related. It is all too apparent that there is a stern refusal to look at Minoan society outside of a religious context. Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate the Minoan images with a less Evansian eye, to ask not “what god or goddess is this?” but “why is this a god?” The seal images of the Mother on the Mountain and the Master Impression are extremely similar. Both depict imposing figures standing high atop an edifice, each holding a staff of sorts. These commonalities suggest the two would hold very similar meanings for any observer. Koehl (1995: 26) refers to Waterhouse’s assertion that Crete was a theocratic society controlled by palace priestesses, who were connected with nature and the environment. In fact, Waterhouse posited that their failure to control the earthquakes of the Bronze Age led to the decline of the palatial administration! The men, however, were confined to more mundane work, such as trade and sailing. All earthquakes aside, this may be a possibility, if not a necessity in the Mediterranean. Both Davis (1995) and Koehl (1995) noticed a dichotomy in the iconography. Koehl found that the iconographic “vocabulary” for men is limited in terms of pose and gesture (1995: 26). Davis found that only males are on “portrait” seals, and as single standing figures. Of this she wrote, “this suggests that these men functioned in the Minoan hierarchy of administration in a capacity that was not shared by females” (16). This suggests a separation of male and female roles in Minoan society. Marinatos (1995a) noted the same duality of roles in her interpretation of the “naval”

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frescoes from Thera. Alternatively, these frescoes have been interpreted to depict scenes from an early epic poem rather than from everyday Minoan maritime life (S. P. Morris 1989). We can now re-evaluate the seals. The Master Impression, depicting the male over a city, can be seen as a ruler of sorts holding sway over his domain. If the idea of the Minoan thalassocracy (e.g. Platon 1984; Hagg and Marinatos 1984) is added, the presence of the seas in the image could also serve to show his realm of power. The Mother on the Mountain could be seen as a queen, or even a priestess-queen. However, unlike her male counterpart, she holds sway over nature. The building feature of the seal is off to the side and not shown in full because it is not completely under her control. That a male figure is shown in a gesture of reverence beneath the female may suggest either a religious or a secular hierarchy. From this point of view, Minoan society had two rulers, not necessarily divine, each holding power over separate, but not mutually exclusive domains. Like the others, this “theory” of the Minoan power structure is not grounded on anything stronger than logic and inference. It was created not only as a critique of those who came before me, but also out of a necessity that Minoan civilization, by virtue of its own existence, seems to create. Remember that the Minoan civilization was very much part of a grand system of exchange in the Mediterranean. The Minoans were also involved in trade with other parts of the Mediterranean area such as Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Greece proper (Dickenson 1994; Raban 1984; Agouridis 1997). Thus, to assert its uniqueness is, in a way, an assertion of its isolation. But isolated it was not. It had to adapt, perhaps evolve out of gynocentrism – to interact and trade with other cultures. Davis writes, “I find it very difficult to conceive a major civilization in the Mediterranean Bronze Age without a male ruler or rulers” (1995: 18). Of interest here is the discovery of Minoan frescoes at Avaris (Tel ed-Dab’a) by M. Bietak (as addressed in Cline 1995b). The presence of these paintings indicates the presence of Minoan craftsmen working in Egypt. This has been expanded to the conclusion “that the Minoans were not simply visiting, but were residing in Avaris . . . the presence of a ‘Minoan princess’ has also been suggested” (Cline 1995b: 268). Since Avaris was the capital of the Hyksos dynasty during the seventeenth century, it is not unlikely that such exotica, either as art form or artisan, were imported to adorn such a place. Cline’s (1995a) textual study of Bronze Age trade relations in the Mediterranean and Near East shows that the kings of trading lands commonly referred to each other as brothers, if not as sons. It is likely that trade and exchange were conducted in a similar fashion between Crete, Egypt, and the Near East, suggesting that Minoan society had a ruler in place to receive the title of brother, and to establish merchant, if not military, alliances. Leaving the goddess behind, status is another factor discussed within the prehistoric matriarchy framework. Rohrlich-Leavitt (1980) interpreted the

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use of women in symbolism as evidence for a matriarchal society. She sites the same evidence as Glotz, but finds a deeper message within it: the women of Bronze Age Crete had no boundaries in society. It is the men who are in the background of society. She also makes her own interpretation of the Rings of Minos, and the Ring of Mochlos. To her, it is not a goddess on the water in Minos’ seal, but a female sea captain. The woman on the ring of Mochlos is a merchant who deals in trees (47). Rohrlich-Leavitt sees Minoan civilization as “socially stratified, but not politically centralized” (46), where there is a great appreciation and freedom of sexuality, which allows gender roles to be crossed. This is suggested by the sharing of attire between the sexes. ‘While the women bull leapers wore the loincloth and codpiece of the men, in funerary rites women and men wore identical sheepskin skirts. In other rituals . . . men donned long flounced robes, initially worn by women” (48). The men in flounced robes she refers to are actually the man that Castledon (1990: 140) describes as a transvestite priest. What we have here, then, are more assumptions about what the artistic portrayals actually mean. Frescoes, for example, are taken out of the context and applied to all of society. The problem is that frescoes are generally found in upper class residencies like Knossos and Agia Triada, for example (Hamilakis 1996; Watrous 1984; Popham et al. 1984). Thus the representations in the frescoes may have a symbolic meaning relevant only to a certain social rank. For example, the codpiece garb worn by Minoan men, to which Rohrlich-Leavitt (also Castledon 1990) refers, may actually have been an indication of rank rather than a matter of common garb. This can be inferred from the similar fashion worn by Minoans depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphics (Rehak 1996). Similarly, seals may have a symbolic purpose for a particular function rather than for the whole society. Another interesting parallel with Egyptian culture is the possibility that transsexual clothing signifies roles that were gendered, while the people who performed the roles could be of either sex. The well-known Egyptian example is Hatshepsut, who ruled as a king and had herself portrayed as a male monarch, though she did not conceal her sex. While these arguments support Rohrlich-Leavitt’s fundamental point that sex may not have been an obstacle to rank or social power, they highlight the distinction she fails to make between biological sex characteristics and cultural gender identities. Most arguments rely heavily on Minoan art as evidence for high female status, if not outright matriarchy. However, Thomas (1973) put forward an argument using art in addition to evidence from a later point in history. He defined a matriarchal society as “one in which women enjoy recognizable economic, social, and religious privileges which, in sum, give them greater authority than men” (173). Frescoes and other artifacts were used to support the premise of “recognizable” religious and social privileges. The problems with using art as evidence have, by now, been overstated, so a counter-

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argument is unnecessary. The last premise, that of economic privileges, finds support in the Cretan Law Code of Gortyn, which probably dates well into the Solonian period of early Classical Greece (Merriam 1885). The Law Code has several sections devoted to the rights of women, and appears to have roots in a past matriarchal society. The particularities of the Code that Thomas refers to (178) are laws concerning the division of land during divorce; property division upon the mother’s death; and choice of groom if the woman is an heiress. For example, in divorce, women could take away the land they came with, as well as half of what was produced during the marriage. The law was the same if the wife was made a widow (Merriam 1885). From that, it would seem that women had economic privileges (i.e. their own land), which supports gender equality if not necessarily Thomas’ idea of a matriarchy. A study of the Law Code itself, though, leads to a different conclusion. Women, it seems, did not have rights over their children. In section III, which concerns children born after a divorce, the Code states that the woman must present the child “to the husband at his house, in the presence of three witnesses; and if he does not receive it, it shall be in the power of the mother whether to bring up or expose” (Merriam 1885: 335). The mother’s lack of control over her children is explicitly stated at the beginning of the following section: “The father shall have power over his children and the division of the property, and the mother over her property. As long as they live, it shall not be necessary to make a division” (Merriam 1885: 337). In general, and this point is made clear in the laws concerning the marriage rights of heiresses (Merriam 1886: 27–31), the rights of women are only a concern when there is property involved. All other rights, even of child custody, were denied to them. Thomas (1973: 179) sees this as the result of growing patriarchal dominance, but there is no unequivocal evidence of a past matriarchy. It is at least as likely that a law code influenced by Minoan culture would take women’s maternal rights into account. Minoan women, according to some scholars, would have had less control in the secular and profane world of property and business than in the natural, fertile world of motherhood and ritual. Nevertheless, the possibility of a decline in the status of women as predicted by Leacock (1978), concurrent with the rise of more complex social organization and statehood, is clearly possible. Returning to the premise that initiated the investigations in this book, this is an important point. Despite the insubstantial nature of the data and the poetic license of scholars, Minoan women were probably held in some regard in early times and in lesser regard later. And this provides an interesting twist, as most interpretations of Minoan society put forward seem to be inherently timeless and absolute, free of the challenges of history and rebellion (as discussed by Bloch 1977). But the Minoans either gave rise to, or were in close contact with, the Greek civilization that gave rise to the gender stereotypes of the modern world system. Minoan culture may have

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subordinated women to the rise of the state; in fact it may be the culture in which gender hegemony as practiced today in the west originated. Evidence supporting any line of thought concerning gender roles, rules of status and rank, or even kinship is not available. These terms are sociocultural constructs, which lose their force in the absence of those that believed in them. Concerning gender, Wylie wrote, “gender . . . is a highly variable social construct which incorporates irreducibly symbolic and ideational components” (1991: 36). Broad-sweeping statements based on “just-so” stories or the New Age rhetoric of “biology is destiny” serve no one, least of all Knowledge itself. Gender can easily be replaced with any other abstract social construct. These “symbolic and ideational” components are a part of the intellectual framework of a particular society. Caution must be used when undergoing an investigation that involves the interpretation of cultural symbolism. Even if we recognize the subject matter correctly, interpreting decontextualized images is like interpreting a sentence from an unknown language using only a dictionary. It is the context and the grammar of the word, the object, or the image, that give it meaning, and that context is exactly what we lack for Minoan civilization. Archaeologists are, after all, outsiders of the most extreme sort, treading on uncertain ground. Broad sweeping assumptions serve only to cloud the past in romance or idealism. But perhaps this is the result of the difficulties inherent in archaeological inquiry. The evidence exists only in fragments, yet the desire of the archaeologist is to replace those fragments into a context, a design, which gives those fragments meaning, and in doing so, recreates the past. In this sense, the frescoes of Minoan civilization are laid out like so many of LéviStrauss’ notecards (Lévi-Strauss 1963: 206–231), creating a pattern that will inevitably lead to meaning. Yet in this, perhaps they are misled by the promise of predictability inherent in such an approach. Already it has been noted that researchers such as Olsen (1998) and Marinatos (1995b) have reexamined Minoan iconography to show that certain notions of female status and roles were unfounded. Recently, Rehak (1998) has reached similar conclusions. According to his analysis of iconography and art there is often little gender differentiation of key figures, such as bull leapers, who appear to have sex characteristics (some females have breasts; females may be white, males red) but not clearly distinct social roles. Not even the hair distinguishes males from females. While women are ubiquitously depicted and not confined to any particular context (they are even wearing boar tusk helmets and wielding swords), the role of musician appears to be exclusively male. Thus, when viewed as a whole there is great iconographical ambiguity in Minoan art concerning gender roles. It would appear, then, that the previous models of Minoan gender roles are unstable, or, at least, incomplete. Yet, the evidence, even in these examples, is often read as representative art, without delving into its social dimension. In a sense, the frescoes and terracotta figurines are isolated as sacred objects with meaning

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specific to that purpose. What is lacking here is an approach that takes into account a more profane point of view. Bloch (1977: 287) has suggested that “cognition of society . . . is double,” that a society exists with a superstructure based on ritual, and an infrastructure used by those acting within “invisible system,” born of ritual. In exploring these concepts, Bloch was seeking to understand the problem of rebellion and social change. He concludes his essay with a lament, “Unfortunately many anthropologists, fascinated as usual by the exotic, have only paid attention to the world as seen in ritual, forgetting the other conceptualization of the world . . . denied by ritual communication” (290). The investigation of Minoan civilization and iconography must then move toward an inquiry at a more profane level, asking whether or not the assumed meanings portray or conceal the practical world of everyday people. That the art comes from elite contexts does make such a mode of inquiry difficult. An alternative would be to explore distinctions in gender status and roles through the examination of burials. The great difficulty in this task has recently been discussed by Mee, writing, “the fact that skeletons from these cemeteries have so seldom been sexed by physical anthropologists has impeded the analysis of gender distinctions” (1998: 165; see also Cavanagh and Mee 1998). Yet among those cemeteries where sex data were available, it was found that more males than females were present in Mycenaean cemeteries. However, there was no gender bias in grave goods. This presents an interesting picture of the Mycenaean culture, a culture thought to be the antithesis of Minoan civilization. Though thought to be a patriarchal society in which women are of lower status and resigned to a more domestic existence, and men alone achieved authoritative status – the Linear B wanax – (Olsen 1998; Cavanagh and Mee 1998), the mortuary practices allude to a less simplistic reality in which status assignment and display was negotiated through different levels of communication signified through both material culture (grave goods) and internment behavior. The study of Minoan civilization would do well with a comparable examination. While general social status and social identity have been recently investigated (as by Karytinos 1998; Maggidis 1998; Preston 1999), gender distinctions have not been specifically examined. This too may be the result of the rarity of available sex data. Though not prevalent in Classical Archaeology, the approach of physical anthropology has not been ignored for mainland Greece. J. Lawrence Angel pioneered such work in the mid century, and, though not always addressing status specifically, added new insight into the lived experience of the Mycenaeans (as in 1971; 1973), noting, for example, that at the Bronze Age site of Lerna, there was a higher prevalence of dental disease among females than males. Bisel and Angel (1985), also addressing Mycenaean health, found that females were less healthy than males, and had a lower average age at death. While, again, this does not specifically address the problem of status

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seen through health indicators, it does suggest the possibility that Mycenaean women ate and behaved differently and may have had lesser status than healthier males. More recent approaches have taken a particular interest in status as interpreted from osteological indicators. For example, Smith (1999) examined both skeletal and dental evidence to examine health and status among Late Bronze Age Mycenaeans. While there were no significant differences in dental pathologies between the sexes, differences existed between high and low status groups. In this case, those in the low status group had higher rates of dental pathology caused by the consumption of cariogenic foods, while the less carious high status individuals enjoyed a diet rich in protein and fat. However, while disparity in food resources existed between the classes, such disparity did not appear to exist within those classes between the sexes. This is an interesting observation. While Mycenaean society is thought to be patriarchal and male-dominated, the skeletal evidence, like the grave goods, alludes to a more complicated social reality in which different modes of conduct dominate the public and private spheres. Returning to the island, the skeletons of the fallen Minoans have not gone unstudied. In 1960, Carr examined 1,500 teeth, loose and articulated, from a Middle Minoan III context with an interest in morphology, pathology, and attrition. However, because of the great number of loose teeth, the sexes were pooled, so comparative data were not presented. More recently, the majority of skeletal research has been conducted by P. J. P. McGeorge (1987; 1988; 1989; 1992). Her work, generally variations on a theme, offers a view of the ordinary inhabitants of Minoan civilization. Often, McGeorge (1987; 1988; 1989) relies heavily on life expectancy data derived from skeletal remains in her interpretation of Minoan quality of life. From this, she observes that diachronically, Minoan women constantly had lower life expectancy and higher mortality in the 20–25 age range. While this does shed new light on the erroneous nature of previous assumptions concerning the life of Minoan women, we must be cautious in our conclusions. Typically, life expectancy is derived from model life table computations guided by five-year age intervals and certain demographic assumptions. Several authors have written extensively on the difficulty of divining such tight age units from skeletal remains (reviewed in Jackes 2000). Concerning the demographic problems, Angel (1969: 428) wrote, “One can construct a model life table (including life expectancy) from ancient cemetery data . . . but this falsifies biological fact to a greater or lesser degree since as such it rests on three false assumptions: that the cemetery represents a single generation cohort, that death rates are even at all ages after infancy and hence directly reflected in cemetery age frequencies, and that the population is virtually stable biologically and socially over the period of cemetery use . . . these same assumptions are extremely hard to avoid in making inferences from cemetery data.” Such studies also depend on the assumption that

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available cemetery data constitute a representative sample of the population of interest. Given that, McGeorge’s conclusions based on constructed life expectancy are tentative at best. Moreover, while expectancy data are provided in her work, the life tables from which they are derived are not. It is therefore not possible to follow her from skeletal data to conclusion. However, it is possible that she is using life expectancy synonymously with mean-age-at-death, as she compares her expectancy data with Angel’s meanage-at-death data from various Greek mainland sites (as in McGeorge 1989: 421, fig. 2). While this would make more sense given the raw data available, mean-age-at-death is an average measure of the ages of those in the mortuary sample, not in the living population. Thus, the cemetery population likely does not accurately reflect the demographic reality of the living population (the so-called “osteological paradox” of Wood et al. 1992). More helpful to our cause are McGeorge’s data concerning dental disease among Minoan populations. In most cases, she uses dental caries and antemortem tooth loss as indicators of lived conditions, though not necessarily to interpret status distinctions. In her study (McGeorge 1988: 53) of the skeletons from the Middle Minoan site of Armenoi and the Middle Minoan population from Knossos, she observed higher incidences of caries, in general, at Armenoi (17.7 percent), than at Knossos (9 percent). She notes that generally women had greater rates of antemortem tooth loss, and the women from Armenoi had more dental pathology than men (1988: 48). Similarly, women from the Late Minoan site of Odos Palamos in Khania had twice the incidence of dental caries and antemortem tooth loss of males (McGeorge 1992). Given what has been written concerning Minoan women’s status, the data provided by dental disease are unexpected. However, dental evidence has often shed light on previously unexpected social circumstances. In their study of living Pygmies in central Africa, Walker and Hewlett (1990) observed significant differences in dental health among a society considered to be egalitarian. The dental health of Pygmy leaders was better than that of nonleaders. Pygmy women had higher rates of dental caries than Pygmy men. For both cases, those with a greater incidence of caries were subjected to a more cariogenic diet either by rank, or, as with the Pygmy women, due to their lot in the division of labor. Moreover, in both these instances, statusrelated differences in diet existed in a social environment seemingly unconcerned with status distinctions. The same “unspoken” distinctions may hold for Minoan society. While projecting an outward appearance of matriarchy, the reality of the Minoan society may have been quite different, as McGeorge’s observations seem to suggest. Yet, there is another wrinkle on the surface of this dental ordeal. In describing further the dental pathology of the individuals from Khania, McGeorge discusses the presence of enamel hypoplasia. Enamel hypoplasias are defects in dental enamel caused by a disruption in the activity of

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ameloblasts, the cells that produce and lay down tooth enamel. This “cessation in ameloblastic activity” (Sarnat and Schour 1941: 1989) produces a reduction in enamel thickness giving rise to the phenomenon of enamel hypoplasia, which can be manifest in both pitted and linear forms of varying degrees. The enamel defects of this kind are often the result of metabolic disturbances, described in general terms as stress, taking place during odontogenesis (Sarnat and Schour 1941, 1942; Goodman et al. 1980; Goodman and Rose 1990). Because enamel, unlike bone, is not remodeled during an individual’s life, enamel hypoplasias serve as permanent records of experienced childhood physiological disturbances. In general, researchers use enamel hypoplasia not as an indicator of a specific disease, but as an indicator of physiological stress typically brought on by changes in subsistence or dietary deficiencies. Evidence from living populations has proven that such conclusions may be warranted (Goodman et al. 1991; Zhou and Corruccini 1998). Among her sample, 12 adults and 10 juveniles displayed hypoplastic defects. For all individuals, enamel hypoplasias were concluded to have developed during the 2.5 to 5.5 year period. In general, the appearance of enamel hypoplasia in this age range is not uncommon. In addition to the Late Minoan group addressed above, similar ranges have been observed among Native American populations (Malville 1997; Powell 1988), industrial populations (Goodman 1988), and medieval Nubians (Van Gerven et al. 1990). McGeorge (1992: 39) attributes her findings to the stress of weaning. Recently, Saunders and Keenleyside (1999) argue against the weaning stress hypothesis. As among the Minoans, their sample from a nineteenthcentury cemetery population displayed defects occurring most frequently within the 1.5–4 year range. While weaning stress is a tempting conclusion for this age group, it may be incorrect. Information gained from stable nitrogen isotope analysis and historic sources on infant weaning and rearing practices revealed a pattern of breast-feeding for 14 months with the introduction of alternate food sources as early as five months after birth. These ages did not correspond with the ages of defect occurrence within the nineteenth-century skeletal sample. With that in mind, the use of weaning stress as the single contributing factor of stress may oversimplify a more complicated phenomenon (Katzenberg et al. 1996). Interestingly, McGeorge also observed defects estimated to have occurred within the 11- to 12-year range exclusively among females, though she does not specify which teeth were affected. In this case, the pathologies are attributed not to illness or malnutrition, but to the physiological stress brought on by the physical changes occurring with onset of menarche (1992: 39)! This interpretation is problematic in that the crown development of the permanent dentition is typically complete prior to this age range (Gustafson and Koch 1974; Anderson et al. 1976). However, the age of third

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molar crown development and completion can vary among populations, and McGeorge’s results may reflect this variability. Menarche and weaning aside, it is certainly significant that both males and females were subjected to some form of stress, nutritional or otherwise, during their childhood. If one were to assume a society in which one sex was valued higher than the other, one would not err to think that the valued sex would receive social benefits, such as better access to resources. However, differential treatment would then lead to differential health status between the two groups, and if females in general were of higher status, one would expect the female children to have preferential treatment. The flaw in this chain of reasoning is obviously that what constitutes a culturally defined “better” diet may not correspond to a biologically healthier diet. However, among these Minoans, both male and female children experienced physiological stress that disrupted amelogenesis. This suggests that neither received preferential treatment, and would seem to contradict many of the conclusions drawn from Minoan art. The research performed by McGeorge on Minoan populations, while it did focus on general health, did not explore directly the relationship of health and status. Clearly, there is much potential in this, and more information can be gained in the regard beyond the loose conclusions suggested here. Future work incorporating both skeletal and archaeological data will aid in the understanding of Minoan society and lived experience.

Conclusion This chapter set about the great and ambitious task of examining the assumptions of gender present in the archaeology of Minoan civilization. To do so was no small task, and most assuredly pertinent pieces of evidence borne of over a century of archaeological research and discovery were overlooked in the undertaking. Nevertheless, the argument is not invalid. As can be seen from the writings concerning Minoan civilization, there has been a great deal of romanticizing in the creation of the Bronze Age past. Assumptions are made from even the most inconsequential pieces of evidence, and are substantiated not by the culture for which they were made, but by the image of the culture the investigator prefers. For over a century, the pristine and unthreatening images of Minoan civilization have remained untouched, only to be called into question in recent years by researchers, such as Olsen (1998), who have relied more on hypothesis testing than art interpretation. Clearly, the results of Olsen (1998), Marinatos (1995b), and McGeorge (1992) do suggest that the social structure of Minoan society goes beyond simplistic ideas about matriarchy, the Mother Goddess, and gender roles. Future research should embrace and examine that complexity, not ignore it. Caution must be exercised in the interpretation of cultural symbolism because

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all too often, as Bloch (1977) points out, the mundane aspects of cultural life are too often sacrificed on the altars of ritual and exotica. Such has been the case for the archaeology of prehistoric Crete. But that is the nature of archaeology, and the danger of the task. The real question, though, is why we are drawn to romanticize the past. What provokes us to view the past not as it was, but as we think it should be? Modern bias has been used to answer this question, but for many, the bias may not be modern so much as nostalgic, a longing for the good old days. Evans created what he felt was a beautiful image of the past. In an era of conflict culminating in World War I, it was probably needed; a reminder that not all of humanity was war bent and brutal. The tranquility and softness of Minoan culture served as a fantasy of what humanity once was, and perhaps could be again. But those wars are over, and the past need no longer be constrained by a future that is itself now already past. New evidence, and recent reanalysis of old data, have shown the inequities of the old ways, and the dangers of romance.

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Chapter 9

Ungendering the Maya K. Anne Pyburn

“When did you stop beating your wife?” is the classic example of the bad interview question, because it leaves the respondent no option but to confirm his status as a wife-beater; “yes, I have stopped” or “no, I haven’t stopped.” The goal of this chapter is to discuss the issue of gender in the context of what is known about ancient Maya states without beginning with the assumption that Maya women invariably played a supporting role in the political economy. That is, without asking if dead kings ever stopped beating their wives. This is not a modest goal. A number of important contributions have recently been made to the study of gender systems among the ancient Maya. These may be roughly grouped into two sets: scholars who use biological analogies exemplified with direct historic data to extend a timeless division of labor they believe to be empirical into the past of all Maya, and those who begin with archaeological data to argue for contingent realities, question generalized models of the division of labor, and evidence suspicion of claims to objectivity by archaeologists in general. The former approach, until recently the most common, is associated with the tenets of the “New Archaeology” and characterized as second wave feminism (Gilchrist 1999). It is exemplified in works by Bruhns and Stothert (1999), Clark and Houston (1998), Haviland (1997), McAnany and Plank (2001), Sweely (1999), and Tate (1999) among others. Haviland (1997) and Bruhns and Stothert (1999) will be considered here as representative of a processual perspective. The second approach employed by Cohodas (2002), Hendon (1996, 1997, 2002), Joyce (1992, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002), Robin (2000, 2002), among others, and associated with postmodern theorists such as Judith Butler (1990, 1993) and Marilyn Strathern (1988), more recent and more compatible with the perspective of this book, will be considered here through the work of Joyce. This dichotomy of approaches that I suggest is an oversimplification; authors from all perspectives invariably evince awareness of the biases of ethnohistoric documentation and archaeological practice, as well as the political impetus to reconstruct a particular past. Nevertheless, authors fall easily into one or the other category depending on whether continuity

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between the past and the present in gender distinctions is assumed or rigorously interrogated, and whether extant models of the division of labor form the basis or the target of the investigation. As the foregoing chapters have shown, there are good reasons to question continuity between cultural forms existing before and after the spread of the modern world system. The ultimate goal of this book is to show that questioning timeless models of human organization is not an assault on science, but an attempt to establish an archaeological approach that can actually make scientific discoveries instead of extending the present uncritically into the past. The ramifications of this are both empirical and political.

Exploiting the women of Tikal: new data for old models The New Archaeology perspective on Maya gender roles is exemplified in an article subtitled “Death and Gender at Tikal, Guatemala” (Haviland 1997). On the basis of 109 sexed burials (out of a total sample of 208; the remaining 101 could not be sexed) Haviland argues that the subordination of elite Maya women increased over time, consistent with the idea that the subordination of women increases over time with the growth of political and economic complexity. The 109 sexed burials, less than a third of whom are female, are treated as representative of social status changes over a period of more than 1,000 years at a site with a population that topped 50,000 (considered by some authors to be a modest estimate for the height of the Maya Classic Period). The basis for this argument is that more males were buried in more prestigious places and had costlier tombs and furnishings. Clearly the possibility of sample bias in this data set is enormous. Haviland’s argument relies heavily on the significance of absent evidence with no attempt to consider competing hypotheses to explain why certain data are absent. Perhaps women were simply treated differently. For example, they may have been sent home to their families for burial, since elite female burials are more common outside Tikal’s center and at other sites; this would not necessarily mean that women had lesser sociopolitical standing. Another possibility is suggested by recent findings at the small site of Chau Hiix where I have worked for the last nine years. Here, an Early Classic tomb was found to contain what we believe to be an ancestor bundle, consisting of partial skeletons of at least twelve individuals (Della Cook, personal communication). This bundle was added to the tomb of the deceased (a male about 45 years old at death) sometime after his original interment, in place of his left leg which was removed, presumably to be added to someone else’s ancestor bundle. In fact, burials at Chau Hiix almost invariably contain bits and pieces of human skeletal material added to burials in the manner of grave goods. Bones of deceased relatives may have been kept by their descendants and parceled out into appropriate burials over time. Since these bones are always secondary and partial, they are usually badly preserved and impossible

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to sex. If they are female ancestors, does this treatment indicate subordinate status? It seems unlikely that the known Tikal burials constitute a representative sample of elite Maya women, since little of the huge city has been excavated. Nor do we know that the archaeological remains of offerings provide a complete inventory. Haviland (1997), Joyce (1996), Sweely (1999), and others associate women with production of food and cloth, neither of which would be preserved in most tropical contexts 1,000 years after interment. If a male is buried with five pots and a female with three, is the pot count the only salient variable? What if the woman’s pots were filled with chocolate beans or human blood soaked paper strips (a typical offering for some kinds of ceremony) and the man’s contained corn? What if the woman’s pots came from her mother’s family 500 kilometers away and the man’s were made locally by his wife? Haviland proposes that elite males are found more often by archaeologists because they were buried in more prominent and therefore more prestigious places. Since men are found more often in central Tikal, central Tikal must have been a more prestigious place; this is exactly circular. Pendergast reports finding the only female tomb at Lamanai by accident in the course of the excavation of a male’s tomb (with which it was contemporary) that was located in the predictable centerline locus; the female was “off axis” (Pendergast, personal communication in Fekete 1996: 127). Might lack of off axis excavations at least partly explain why there are fewer women in the Tikal sample? How secure is our knowledge of the sociopolitical meaning of centerline burial versus off axis burials at AD 800? What if the only elite female burials discovered are those of women not powerful enough to require reburial with their descendants or with their own lineal kin in their home city? If a queen’s remains are curated and parceled out to be included in the graves of elite members of the next generation, does this indicate her lack of political clout? Can burial away from Tikal only mean subordination? In other contexts, archaeologists often argue that a non-local power base and access to distant trade partners are very important sources of elite status. This failure to consider sample bias comes from the assumption that gender roles are not statistical or historical but biological. Since sex is a biological fact, the argument goes, it has no history; gender being tied to sex is therefore always the same in all contexts, what is sometimes called the correspondence model (Gustafson and Trevelyan 2002). Therefore, to find gender differences is to find female subordination. The fact that sacrificial victims in burials were mostly men is interpreted to mean that men were a more valuable sacrifice, not just more expendable. Female sacrifice is invariably treated as generalizable evidence of subordination. Without Haviland’s filtering assumptions, what we know about the dead at Tikal is:

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Women are disproportionately missing from the archaeological record, both in burials and on stele. When women are found at all they have smaller, less formal tombs. Women were buried with the same grave goods as men, but had fewer non-perishable grave items. No items or burial treatments are exclusively associated with males or females, even grinding stones, spindle whorls, and stone weapons.

On these data one might argue that women and men were treated somewhat differently in death, and that the historical events at Tikal resulted in male rulers being buried in the places most easily found by archaeologists. But one could also argue that for a group who so dramatically symbolized status differences between rich and poor, there seems little unequivocal evidence for female subordination. This is certainly the case outside of Tikal, where a statistical analysis of burials from all over the Maya Lowlands showed no sex differences other than that males tended to have more preserved objects in their tombs (Pyburn and Rathje 1984), which is easily accounted for by the fact that burials were often sexed male because they had elaborate grave goods. Is this special pleading? Haviland and most archaeologists who study the rise of civilization would certainly think so. If we could not press our meager data into ethnographic molds we would have little to say. Nevertheless, the use of insufficient data to situate sexism in the distant past seems a politically motivated endeavor, and most scientists would argue that such blatant agendas ought instead to be held to very high standards of analysis. It is only the crumbs of data that contradict our expectations and startle the status quo that ought to be given a bit of leeway to inspire further research.

A space–time continuum: the Mesoamerican “woman” Because of its broad comparative sweep, Bruhns and Stothert’s book Women in Ancient America (1999) epitomizes the processual approach more completely than Haviland (1997). Although the assumption underlying the organization of their book by topics rather than cultures is that cultural institutions are functionally inter-linked and interdependent, the institutions chosen are also regarded as cultural universals that can be split up and laid side by side for comparison and analysis in the service of that central goal of processualism: nomothetic generalization. The problem with traditional processualism is that it unintentionally oversimplifies human behavior and history into a small set of categories related more to western experience than to a full range of possibilities. Convinced they were doing science, researchers could only see data as relevant if they fit into preconceived categories of human organization and behavior. That is, if their activities correspond to what we expect women to do; we can see evidence of female behavior that

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fits our pre-existing definition of female behavior. Women who left traces of hunting, ruling, making stone tools, raiding, or controlling economic institutions are likely to be either misidentified as men or interpreted as exceptional, without much data on what constituted the cultural background to the exception. By this mechanism, what is essentially ethnocentric (and androcentric) rhetoric ends up looking to the investigator like empirical truth. This sort of study, and Bruhns and Stothert are only two of many who use this form of reasoning, succeeds in verifying prior assumptions. Despite contradictory examples, the reader invariably learns that ancient women had more control in the family than in politics, more visibility in religion than in the military, cared for children, and occasionally shared in some political power. Having allowed an andocentric perspective to set the terms of the debate, the authors are stuck with a model that defines human history as three million years of male domination. Implying that to argue against the model is to argue against science, every analysis ends up making the same admission about the predominance of stereotypes in the past. Ethnographers have long known that by abstracting selected details from an unlimited number of cultures it is possible to support almost any argument. Determining the categories in advance determines which data will be acknowledged and which ignored, and holds out little possibility that something new will be recognized. When cultural evolutionism is the basis of the comparison the resulting analysis is likely to be both ethnocentric (Wolf 1982) and oversimplified to the point of inaccuracy. From numerous studies we learn that Maya women were involved in cloth manufacture, food preparation, ritual, and heir production, and that these rights and obligations varied somewhat between rich and poor (Bruhns and Stothert 1999, Clark and Houston 1998, McAnany and Plank 2001, Sweely 1999, Tate 1999). Whether these points are revealed by the published analysis or underlie it as assumptions, the upshot is the same and a question arises about the value of additional contributions, since the model is impervious to data. Elite males associated with craft products are said to have made them or controlled their production; women similarly represented used the products they hold. The absence of males on stelae is an indication of political disruption; the absence of females is politics as usual. The close convergence between the status and role of living Maya women and archaeological reconstruction of their ancestors would seem to suggest that as far as the Maya are concerned, gender research is complete.

The documents in the case The standard use of ancient documents to argue for the inferior status of women fails to treat hieroglyphic records as historical and political, not empirical or representative (Marcus 1993). Most ancient Maya monuments

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commemorate men, but the number of possible historical scenarios that would explain this difference is huge. Joyce (2002) has recently proposed a particularly interesting possibility that exemplifies the necessary scholarly struggle to apprehend alternative gender systems. She proposes that Maya representations be considered in terms of their intended audience and convincingly argues for the sexualized nature of representations of men. Images of kings and lords might be regarded as standards of human beauty and ultimate objects of sexual desire for anyone of any gender. As objects of desire, the males are to be construed, at least in part, as subordinate to the lustful gaze of the observer. Fertility goddesses, after all, are never argued to indicate the existence of all powerful queens, but only as the “natural” juxtaposition of human and environmental bounty. Key to the reconstruction of Maya political hierarchy is identification of how and by whom the standards of beauty, including standards of comportment, skill, and accomplishment, were set (Gell 1998, Wilk 2003). The nature of Maya representations makes it clear that standards of successful lordly-ness existed, and that although there was some degree of continuity, these standards differed between cities and changed over time. Such standards apparently included excellent heritage, the appropriate performance of ritual, correct selection of mates, timely production of offspring, and the identification of heirs, but all to a greater or lesser degree in differing historical and political contexts. Epigraphers traditionally have assumed that the ruler himself (occasionally herself) set the standards of his own performance, but if that were the case, why perform at all? Perhaps the king merely has to exemplify his own standards, but this would imply more variation among rulers’ portraits than is apparent across either time or space. Monumental art, as well as widespread artistic styles implies ideals outside the control of individuals, pretensions to divinity notwithstanding. To call these conventions traditional is a red herring – who decides what is traditional and what is not in the face of political upheaval or economic opportunity? In the perpetual interpretation and reinterpretation of reality presented in civic art, whose vocabulary is employed, whose gaze must be flattered and appeased? Joyce does not see Maya rulers as fertility symbols, but suggests that as the embodiment of political power, they might, by definition, embody potent sexuality and physical beauty. Ball player, warrior, or dancer costumes signify, not the actual performance of these activities, but the embodiment of youthful vigor and sexual attractiveness. The motif coupling a young woman with an old man is not a symbol of male control, but a parody of inappropriate sexuality and perhaps a warning against foolishness, or sin. Wilk develops this theme in his discussion of beauty pageants (1996) and further in his model of common difference (2003, 2004). Pageants are competitions against a standard set by a ruling class and used to maintain control of a political arena, not by entering the contest, but by defining the

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nature of the competition and thereby holding the power, for which the contestants serve as exemplars of this power and the winner as the embodiment and therefore the reification of the power of the judges. Combined with Joyce’s model of kingly ideals, the unseen judges constitute not the power behind the throne, but the throne itself, upon which poses the embodiment of their potency. Gillespie and Joyce (1997) suggest it is possible that rulership was gendered male, but maleness was not necessarily prescribed for the rulers themselves, so that rulers in some periods may have been represented as men regardless of their sex, or else the costume we consider male may actually have been androgynous for the Maya. The assumption that all characters are male unless clearly marked female would be ethnocentric, if there ever has been a culture in which females were not the marked category. If we assume none existed before we begin, we will certainly never find one.

The spoils of war In her extended and nuanced analysis of Maya gender relations, Joyce (2000) argues that the rise of social hierarchy among the Maya was a causal force in the subjugation of women and their virtual disappearance from public roles in the Postclassic. Her argument is similar to Siverblatt’s in its focus on later developments after states were already extant, although no one has ever suggested the Maya had an empire comparable to that of the Inca (but cf. Pyburn 1997 for something close). Strictly speaking, Joyce’s argument does not posit female subordination as integral to original state development, but as coming out of a broader political hegemony. Unlike previous authors, Joyce is extremely careful not to conflate Postclassic and Post-Conquest data with Classic Maya experience. Her data derive from hieroglyphic texts, burials, and the figural representations on stele, pots, and figurines. Although she deemphasizes the importance of gender in much Maya sociopolitical context, she follows the work of Gailey (1987a, 1987b, and the premise of Engels 1884), arguing that “with political centralization, the separation of control of production from kinship groups erodes the status of female producers, particularly when potential independence of kinship groups based on women’s production is perceived as a threat to centralized political authority.” (Joyce 2000: 89.) The credibility of her argument rests on our confidence in our ability to tell Maya representations of one gender from their representations of another, that the threat to centralization posed by kin groups resulted in subordination of producers including all women as a class, and acceptance of the interpretation that a change in the visibility of recognizably female gendered actors on public monuments is an indication of increased political, economic and ideological subordination of women, at least elite women, in a political context.

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As with Silverblatt (1988), Bruhns and Stothert (1999), and other authors attempting to explain cross-cultural parallels, Joyce attaches the loss of political authority among Maya women to the rise of warfare and the conquest states of the Postclassic. She supports her contention with a combination of textual references and the virtual disappearance of characters marked female from stele and public monuments. Although she does not explicitly say that the emphasis on violence would privilege male actors’ physical dominance, her argument that women’s production must be subordinated and controlled for centralization to occur suggests implicitly that institutionalized violence is both the means of centralization and the province of male advancement and authority. Traditional constructions of cultural evolution suggest that warfare results in a loss of status for women and an increase in organizational sophistication allied with defensive and aggressive institutions that are necessarily the province of men (Mortensen, this volume). “The fact that women did not customarily participate in warfare in the later kingdoms of Peru must have made it difficult for them to achieve status and gain authority” (Bruhns and Stothert 1999: 260). This model owes some of its authority to ethnographic analogy derived from examples occurring after the rise of the modern world system. A logical alternative might be that, as has been demonstrated by a number of ethnographies, also from after the rise of the modern world system, the absence of men, both temporary and permanent, leaves rulership and production in the hands of women, thereby greatly increasing their political and economic power. The fact that men are waging war (even if we assume that only men do this, and there are many examples to the contrary, cf. Warren 1998, pp. 153–154) increases organizational requirements placed on the “home front” at the same time as it decreases the number of men available to achieve them. A number of historians have pointed out that the division of labor in the US became much more gendered after World War II in order to get women out of the workforce. The rhetoric of sexual difference used to promulgate this economic change is still with us. An equally logical construction of the rise of complex society based similarly on select ethnographic analogy might propose that state-like hierarchies may arise when participation in warfare undermines male domination, allowing state level organization based on economic rather than kin and gender differences to arise. In this light, the argument that the symbolism of Puuc architecture evidenced at Uxmal and elsewhere in the Maya Postclassic is a language of power derived from woven designs is most interesting (Trevelyan and Forbes 2002). This is a period occurring immediately after one of conflict when political structure seems to have changed, as evidenced by the decline in stele production, abandonment of the long count dating system, and apparent departure of elites from many loci.

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The possibility that in some contexts women may actually be empowered by warfare does not answer the issue raised by Joyce in her investigation of gender frequencies on public monuments, but Wilk’s model of common difference might. Stele changes in the Postclassic may represent not a more gendered power structure but a tightening of the standards of rulership to a smaller number of closely defined candidates, i.e. a more rigid hierarchy. Intense competition does narrow the range of successful types, but it also elides the fact that to acquire their status they must meet standards they did not set. To argue that the emphasis on male physical prowess in a context where such characteristics enhance personal risk is an indication that males dominate the political arena seems a superficial reading, though perhaps accurate to the intended message if not the reality of experience. At the risk of violating my own proscription on the use of biological models, I cannot help but think about baboon females stationing themselves and their young at the center of the troop when moving into new and potentially dangerous territory. An increased mortality rate among males seems a poor argument for an increase in male political dominance, though perhaps this is a situation in which such claims are likely to be proclaimed as loudly as possible.

Constructing a valuable history A number of feminist scholars have considered the possibility that complex social institutions sometimes improved the status of women, or at least the status of some women (Ortner 1978, 1981). Nevertheless, archaeologists studying gender in early Maya states usually attempt to identify how deeply women were able to penetrate the male realm of political economy, or how women benefited from the preservation of “traditional” or “prestate” kinship structures (Marcus 1987, Molloy and Rathje 1974, Schele and Freidel 1990). The only place we will ever be able to test hypotheses about the origin of the characteristics we attribute to states is in the archaeological and literate record of ancient states that existed outside western tradition. Unfortunately, because the lives of individuals and the implications of gender differences are impossible to dig up and challenging to reconstruct from sketchy documents, scarce burial data and opaque epigraphy, archaeologists find historical analogies drawn from world system cultures irresistible. So when the male lord of an ancient Maya city is identified as related to the lineage of another city, this is interpreted as political takeover or conquest. But when a Maya lady is identified as having nonlocal parentage, she is considered the pawn in a political deal to ally two ancient patriarchal polities. Schele and Freidel even go so far as to explain the Naranjo-associated polychrome bowl and other elite trappings of the woman buried in Structure 5G-8 at Tikal as the result of “love” rather than political power (Schele and Freidel 1990: 177). There is no doubt that Maya women are exploited and unequal today, which has been construed as continuity with an ancient pattern. The point of

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my Kekchi story in the introduction to this book was to suggest the possibility that our patriarchal model of a patriarchal system may sometimes deny women the credit they are due for achieving a certain amount of hardwon autonomy. In Domination and the Arts of Resistance, Scott (1990) has made some interesting points about the ability of dominated people to use their subordinate status to manipulate and control social situations, implying that both dominators and resistors have a stake in the cultural construction of an ideological apartheid. Nevertheless it would be ridiculous to ignore the desperate plight of living Maya people, or the fact that women are usually the greatest victims of the modern world system. It has been suggested that women are for various reasons sometimes more culturally conservative than men and that cultural conservatism can be a strategy of resistance against political domination. But it would be equally ridiculous to deny the impact of the passage of time, the effects of the changes experienced in Maya political centers in the Peten after AD 900, or the consequences of the conquest both on the status of Maya women and on their reaction to the changes in their status. Silverblatt (1987) has documented dramatic changes in the status of Peruvian women, first as a result of the conquest of local polities by the Inca and later as a consequence of the Spanish conquest of Peru. Other dramatic examples of rapid change in the status of women are available from contemporary experience, as when Diola women of Senegal underwent conversion to Islam. Women are inherently neither more nor less culturally flexible than men. The modern world system often leaves women in situations where they are economically more vulnerable than men, but this can be met with resilience, subversion, resistance, or accommodation. There is no reason to rule out a priori any strategy for women in the past. To argue that living Maya women are the conservators of an ancient patriarchal tradition is a rather unflattering construction if the accusations against men and political patriarchy made by modern heroines like Elvia Alvarado and Rigoberto Menchu are considered. But even if we are willing to accept this unlikely possibility, we must then identify which Maya are conserving which ancient traditions, since there are quite a few ethnically distinct Maya today and there may well have been ethnic variety in the past. The lives of all living Maya women are not exactly the same, so which ethnic experience is authentic? Which cultural pattern is really traditional? Now we are asking bad questions again.

The ungendered dead So are there any archaeological data to support the hypothesis that Maya women were not just the exploited dupes of a nasty ancient patriarchy? Unfortunately, there are very few. I have already noted that women appear on monuments as gendered females both with and without male accouterments.

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By this I do not mean to dismiss the important detective work by Marcus (1976, 1987) and others that suggests there was something special going on between ancient cities that depended on women. I only want to emphasize that we are not really sure of the nature of these transactions. The very fact that women appear at all and are not portrayed in particularly servile conditions underscores Joyce’s point (Joyce 2001, Gillespie and Joyce 1997) that women and men were constructed as complementary, rather than as the opposites or antagonists they represent in much European mythology. Joyce proposes that early Maya depictions suggest collaboration between genders, which has as much biological logic to it as western ideas about “natural” domination. Another indication that all was not seamlessly patriarchal came from a study I did some years ago analyzing a set of 1,009 burials from the Maya Lowlands (Pyburn and Rathje 1984), recently echoed by Eva Fekete in an analysis of burial data from Altun Ha and Lamanai (1996). Archaeologists rarely understand the complexity and opacity of burial symbolism. Perhaps it is some heritage of western ideology that inclines us to think that people are honest when they bury the dead, and perhaps they are, but honest with whom? The deceased? The creator? The ruling elites (dead or alive)? The relatives? The children? The neighbors? And what aspect of the deceased is to be portrayed? The emotion they inspire in the people left behind (fear or joy or sorrow)? Their family connections? Their age? Their marital status? Their parental status? Their manner of death? Their religious devotion? Their loyalty to the king? Their profession (at death or perhaps an earlier one that was more prestigious)? Their gender? What if their family really loved them – or really hated them? Even a society with a rigid caste system presents all these choices plus the factor of cost. The burial data I analyzed, originally collated by William Rathje for his dissertation and generously loaned to me, were from all the published site reports he could get his hands on in the 1970s. The burials dated to all periods of Maya occupation and all periods of archaeological investigation. The quality of the records was remarkably inconsistent and very few burials (less than 200) had been sexed. Nevertheless, I selected out all burials in which the excavator claimed to have determined the sex and attempted to find patterns in the offerings, orientation, location, or position that correlated with sex of the deceased. What I found, although unreliable certainly, is still rather surprising, given the prevalence of gender distinctions in the treatment of the dead elsewhere. There was almost no difference in the way men and women were treated. Both women and men were variably oriented, and positioned, and variably placed in different parts of buildings. There was no type of funerary offering that occurred exclusively with males or with females; the only difference was that males tended to have larger assemblages than females, and females were more likely to be buried without offerings.

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This might symbolize the greater economic power of males, or the greater need for symbolizing male economic power felt by those who organized the ceremony. If the tomb population is male biased by archaeologists’ excavation strategies, this would easily account for the modest amount of difference in quantity between males and females, but Rathje’s sample was biased toward tombs, having been produced by earlier excavators whose research strategy was not statistical. This introduces the further complication of the difference in motive between elites and everyone else when burying their dead. Elites may be motivated to emphasize (or de-emphasize) their wealth or to focus on some obscure aspect of status not transparent to archaeologists. Alternatively, the apparent difference in quantity of mortuary furniture may be a result of the tendency of early excavators to assume that rich burials were male. As Claassen has pointed out, the determination by an archaeologist of the sex of a body in the ground is a cultural act (Claassen 1992:153). At any rate, despite the inadequacy of the sample, which could not claim a complete assemblage for any of the sites or periods included, it is still intriguing that for people who were able dramatically to symbolize status distinctions with burial goods, and did so with great consistency across many sites, no consistent male/female differences were found. Fekete’s (1996) study found virtually the same thing with a much more reliable data set from Lamanai and Altun Ha. She performed a number of statistical tests on a burial population of 730 from the two sites and found that after subtracting the skewing effect of the tombs, there is virtually no quantifiable difference in the treatment of males and females. About half the people of either sex had no grave goods, and those who had them had similar stuff in similar quantities. The only two manos (food preparation tools) found in graves were found in the graves of men; other traditionally gendered artifacts such as stone tools and spindle whorls were found distributed between both sexes. Interestingly for Joyce’s argument about the importance of acculturation of children (2000), the only statistically valid association Fekete found was between juveniles and shoe-shaped pots; age seems to have been more necessary to symbolize than sex. There was a slightly higher proportion of females with grave goods at Altun Ha than at Lamanai, which is probably a statistical anomaly, since the burial populations cannot be considered representative, but Fekete uses this anomaly to make an important point. If the difference in grave goods does indicate a difference in the relative status of females (admittedly not likely), then women were more valued at one site than at the other neighboring and contemporary site. The idea that women’s status was uniform across the Maya Lowlands for 2,000 years is hardly credible; a point Marcus (2001), Cohodas (2002), and others have made clear at a broader scale. Neither Fekete nor I investigated the possibility that grave goods might cluster independently of sex in order to represent more than two genders.

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Arts, crafts and specialists Despite the complexity of these issues and the scanty nature of archaeological evidence for gender relations among the ancient Maya, gender studies do have implications for understanding ancient Maya organization and political economy. It is futile and obstructive to look for evidence of an evolutionary transition from extensive to intensive agriculture and from kin- to class-based society; all these are options in a range of possibilities, not on a timeline. One area in particular that needs to be broken out of this evolutionary gridlock model if we are ever going to see women in the context of past states is the notion of specialization. Ceramic production provides an interesting example. Traditionally, western archaeologists see the development of ceramic technology as a result of the advent of sedentism and food production. Changed subsistence practices would alter food preparation techniques and create new needs for both cooking and storage vessels. Gradually, the manufacture of pottery could become a specialized task, as society became more differentiated, and more complex. The origin of specialists has always been regarded as a necessary response to overpopulation and resource depletion (Earle 1987: 21) that becomes institutionalized due to the pressures of a ruling class (Earle 1987: 12). The efficiency of specialization permits the production of surplus goods needed for trade to replenish shortages. According to this construction, domestic (female) activities, such as pottery production, become economic specialist (male) activities as social life gradually becomes more differentiated, more complex, more hierarchical, more populous, and more civilized (Rice 1987: 180). Vitelli (1989, Perles and Vitelli 1994, see also Clark 1996) has questioned the universal applicability of the traditional model of the development of ceramic technology as proceeding from simple homemade cookware to a differentiated specialist product. She points out that the earliest pottery in Greece was technologically sophisticated and uniform, and not well suited for cooking. At the risk of appearing to substitute a new unilinear model for the old one, I believe that the model proposed by Vitelli (1989) for the origin of Neolithic Greek pottery may also apply to the origin of pottery among the Lowland Maya (Pyburn 1994), where very high quality pottery appeared over a rather large area within a short period of time – less than 100 years. Even if agricultural products and sedentary life selected for the use of pottery at one site, an evolutionary model cannot account for the sudden autochthonous appearance of extremely uniform high quality pottery at sites in a wide variety of microenvironmental zones hundreds of kilometers apart. It is not true that lowland people only knew how to make double-slipped dichromes, it is only true that they all made the same double-slipped dichromes. And it is not convincing to argue that the monotonous tropical ecosystem required that all early corn farmers in the Maya Lowlands use pattern burnishing.

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There are also empirical reasons for breaking apart specialist production from any particular stage of cultural development. Netting (1993) described a social form that he called smallholders. Smallholders are intensive agriculturalists who own their land and are relatively self sufficient, although they exist within a variety of political contexts. Land rights are maintained through kinship bonds, which may be biological or fictive or (more often) both, but kinship provides a vocabulary for human interaction and negotiation. Smallholder strategies are flexible and resilient, but their basic characteristics seem to be consistent cross-culturally. Most interesting for the point I want to make here is the fact that smallholders voluntarily create and participate in markets and they produce surpluses for tribute or profit or (mostly) both. In other words, specialist production is not necessarily a last resort for those living in overpopulated cities or for hungry rural poor, or required only by the need for mass produced goods. Both quality and uniformity (which is quite difficult to achieve with handmade pottery) are motives for specialization. So if there are no cultural prerequisites for specialization other than some outlet for its products, then specialists can appear at any time in history. If Swasey (1100 BC; Hammond 1991) pottery can be taken as an indication that craft specialization occurred very early among the Maya, then the depiction of a woman holding cotton cloth and a ceramic bowl containing tools or ritual implements on stele becomes extremely interesting (Joyce 1992). Why must the association of women with specialized weaving or pottery making indicate domestic production and economic subordination? The answer is, the very fact that women are associated with weaving and pottery is taken by some scholars to indicate the economic domination of women by men at the same time as it is taken to indicate incomplete, or in the words of one scholar, “immature” levels of specialist production by other scholars. To quote Hayden (1992:35) “generalizations that have emerged from cross-cultural studies” . . . “include the almost universal role of women in scraping and preparing hides in societies without specialists, in grinding foods, and in processing fish for storage” (italics added). Women’s work is not specialized and does not result in political or economic hierarchy.

In conclusion The only way confidently to assert that Engels correctly predicted the loss of status of Maya women with the rise of the state is to insist that archaeologists have excavated a statistically representative sample of signs and symbols for all periods and can interpret their gender and status import accurately. Since this is demonstrably untrue, the hypothesis needs more testing. However, if we emphasize the clarity with which the Maya communicated messages of status and power in many circumstances, it continues to be a reasonable

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possibility that the picture we have of a somewhat fuzzy association between gender and power is an accurate one.

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Index

Adams, R. 182 Africa, T.W. 165 African Iron Age 57 age 100, 125 Agean 36 agency 5 aggression 12, 13 Agouridis, C. 202 Agrawal, D.P. 180 Al-Zubaidi, L. 33–4, 117–34 Alcalde, C. 34, 136–53 Algaze, G. 161 Allchin, B. 181, 183, 189, 191 Allchin, R. 181, 183, 189, 191 Alva, W. 34, 151, 152 Alvarado, E. 225 Ambrosiani, B. 101 American Bottom 71, 73–4, 76–80, 85, 88, 90 Andean utopia 137 Anderson, D.L. 209 Anderson, W. 34, 161, 166 Angel, J.L. 206, 207, 208 animal behavior 10–14 animated objects 150 Arbman, H. 104 Armayor, O.K. 165 Armelagos, G.J. 157 Arpasi, P. 139 art 198–9, 200, 203–4, 228–9 Arwill-Nordbladh, E. 94, 100 Asante 7, 24 Asher-Greve, J.M. 33, 121, 123–4, 129, 131 Ashmore, W. 8 Asia 101 Askew, K. 8 Atre, S. 188–9, 190

baboons 12 Bantu Pattern 56, 57 Barber, E.W. 9 Bard, K. 35, 162, 166, 169 Bareis, C.J. 74 Barker, P.T. 55 Bateson, G. 9 Baudin, L. 34, 138 Baumgartel, E.J. 158, 167–8 Bawden, G. 141 Beach, D.N. 32, 57, 58, 60 beauty 1–2, 221; pageants 21–8, 221 behavior pattern 19 Belize 23–4, 27, 28 Benson, E. 34, 144, 146, 147, 148 berdaches see two-spirits Berger, P. 181, 190 Bertelson, R. 95, 96 Bevan, L. 5 Bhattacharyya, N.N. 188, 189 Bietak, M. 202 Binford, L. 105, 156 biology 48 bipedalism 11 Bisel, S.C. 206 Blackman, A.M. 160 Blackwood, E. 76, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90 Blindheim, C. 101 Bloch, H.B. 84 Bloch, M. 204, 206, 211 Bochi, P.A. 159, 160 Bond, G. 95 bonds 12–13 bonobos 12, 13, 14 Boserup, E. 60 Boss, B. 5

Index Bourget, S. 145 Bourke, J.B. 173 Brace, C.L. 11 Brain, C.K. 54–5 bridewealth 58, 60 Britain 7 British South Africa Company 52–3 Brown, J.A. 73, 74 Brown, J.K. 84 Bruhns, K. 4, 147, 148, 149–50, 216, 219–20, 223 Brumfiel, E. 29 Brunton, G. 163, 165–6, 167 Bryan, B.M. 159, 160 Buikstra, J.E. 173 Burial Theme 146, 150 Burrell, L.L. 172 Butler, J. 4, 216 Cahokia 71–91; ethnographic analogy 74–8; Mississippian period 73–4; physical environment 73; sweatlodges and menstrual huts 78–80; twospirits 81–8 Calderón, E. 145 Callender, C. 81–3, 84–5, 86 Campana, C. 34, 145, 148–9, 150 Capel, A.K. 34, 158 capitalism 21–2, 23, 31, 37, 38 Carr, C. 161, 171 Carr, H.G. 207 Castillo, L.J. 152 Castillos, J.J. 35, 166, 167–8 Castledon, R. 107, 196, 203 Caton-Thompson, G. 53 cattle 51, 54–60 Cavanagh, W. 206 Central Cattle Pattern 56 Chalfant, M.L. 73 child-rearing 2, 14, 15, 17–18, 27, 159 Childe, V.G. 29, 182 chimpanzees 12, 13, 14 Christiansen, E. 97, 105 Chukchi (Siberia) 81 Chumash 87 Cialowicz, K.M. 169–70 Claasen, C. 227 Clark, J. 216, 220, 228 Clarke, H. 101 class 22, 23, 24, 28, 31, 34; Cahokia 72, 78; Great Zimbabwe 55, 59, 66; Harappans 184, 192; Maya 221–2,

235

228; predynastic Egypt 159; Sumerians 126, 130, 131; Vikings 105 Clews Parsons, E. 82 Cline, E.H. 202 clothing 82, 149–50, 188, 203; see also cross-dressing Cohen, C. 23, 26 Cohodas, M. 216, 227 Collett, D.P. 57 Collins, J.M. 73 commoditization 23, 24, 25, 26 competitiveness 12, 13, 33 complex society 1–38; animal behaviour 10–14; beauty pageants 21–8; family values: functional models 14–18; feminism, second-wave 4–6; nations, remaking of 28–30; postmodern science 19–20; states, questionable 30–7; Wolf, E. 1–4; womanhood, essence of 7–10; women with a past 20–1; women as ‘people without history’ 6–7 Congo 89 Conkey, M.W. 4, 6, 49–50, 58–9, 95, 118 Connah, G. 32, 52, 54, 55, 59, 62, 63 Cook, D. 217 Cooper, J.S. 120 correspondence model 218 Corruccinni, R.S. 209 crafts 228–9 Crawford, H. 123, 127 Creoles (Belize) 27 Crete 202 Cromwell, F. 81 cross-cultural participation 26 cross-cultural similarity 20 cross-dressing 81, 89 cross-gender 140, 203; see also twospirits cults 77–8, 128–31, 132, 160, 196 culture 20, 47, 48, 50, 58, 66, 157 curandero (shamanic folk healer) 145–6, 148 Dallas culture 29 David, R. 161 Davis, E.N. 200–1, 202 Davis-Kimball, J. 14 de la Calancha, F. 146, 148 de la Vega, G. 137, 138, 140

236

Index

De Waal, F. 12, 13 debt slavery 126 Deliette, P. 85 Denmark 94, 97, 98, 99, 101, 103, 104 Depla, A. 160 Derry, D. 166 Devine, T.L. 138 di Leonardo, M. 48 Dickenson, O. 202 diffusionism 2 Diola (Senegal) 225 division of labor 2, 3–4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 15, 18, 24, 34; Cahokia 72, 75–6, 77, 80; Great Zimbabwe 47, 50, 63; Harappans 181; Maya 216, 217, 223; Minoan civilization 198, 208; predynastic Egypt 172; Sumerians 123, 125; Vikings 100 Dommasnes, L.H. 33, 95, 96, 100, 105–6, 107, 108–9, 110–11 Donnan, C. 34, 145, 146, 151, 152 Dougherty, S.P. 36, 196–211 Drennan, R.D. 71 Du Vall, K. 182 Dumont de Montigny 85 Durand, J.-M. 121 Dyson, S.L. 198 Earle, T. 29, 228 economic factors 8, 21, 27, 34; Cahokia 80, 86, 90; Great Zimbabwe 48, 50–1, 64, 65, 66; Harappan culture 185–8; Moche society 136, 146; predynastic Egypt 159; Sumerian civilization 122–3, 129; Vikings 108 Egypt 30, 34–5, 60, 187, 200, 201, 202, 203 Egypt, predynastic 156–73; ethnographic analyses 164–5; mortuary studies 165–9; physical anthropology 170–3; symbolism in artifacts 169–70; as topic of conversation 157–8; women 158–60, 163–4 Ellis, C. 35, 166, 167 Ember, C. 7 Ember, M. 7 Emerson, T.E. 32, 73, 74, 77–8, 79, 80, 82 Endesfelder, E. 166 Engels, F. 3, 4, 22, 28, 30–1, 32, 36, 37; Cahokia 90; Egypt 163, 168;

Great Zimbabwe 47, 48, 50, 67; Harappan culture 186; Maya 222, 229; Moche society 144; Sumerian culture 118, 125, 126 Engelstad, E. 95, 111 equal rights 159 essence 23, 24 essentialism 20–1, 23, 49–50, 67 essentialization 27, 32 Europe/European 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 15, 21; and Cahokia 83, 84, 89; and Vikings 96, 101 Evans, Sir A.J. 36, 107–8, 145, 196, 199, 200, 211 exchange 21 exploitation 5 Fairservis Jr., W.A. 180, 182, 183, 185, 187, 189, 191 Falk, D. 12 family 5, 14–18, 48, 99–100, 108, 124–5, 159, 164; see also kinship Farnham, C. 4 Fekete, E. 218, 226, 227 femininity 23 feminism/feminist critiques 4–6; Great Zimbabwe 47–8, 49–50, 59, 67; Maya 216, 224; Sumerians 118; Vikings 95, 96, 104, 105, 108, 109 fertility 34; cult 77–8; goddesses 221 figurines 25–6, 179, 186, 188, 191, 193 Filer, J.M. 172 Fischer, H.G. 34, 159 Fitzhugh, W.W. 110 Flannery, K. 164 Flores Galindo, A. 144 food sharing 13 Forbes, H. 223 Fowler, M.L. 75 Freidel, D. 224 frescoes 196 Gailey, C.W. 22, 126 Galloway, P. 33, 79–80 Galton, F. 2 Garlake, P.S. 51–2, 53, 55, 58, 61, 63 Gebhard, P.H. 147–8 Gell, A. 221 gender, theorizing of 47–52 Gero, J.M. 4, 6, 11, 58–9, 95, 118 Gesell, G.C. 197 Giddens, A. 57

Index Gidwani, N.N. 180, 186–7 Gilchrist, R. 4, 5, 8, 216 Gillespie, S. 89, 222, 226 Gilliam, A. 95 Gillin, J. 144 Gimbutas, M. 190, 199–200 Glotz, G. 199, 203 goddess culture 15–16; Harappans 179, 188–92; Maya 221; Minoan civilization 197–8, 200; Sumerians 129, 130–1 gold 63–6 Goodall, J. 13, 14 Goodman, A.H. 209 Gräslund, A.-S. 100, 106, 107 grave goods 104–8, 226–7 grave size 167–8, 169 Great Bath 183–4, 189 Great Goddess 199 Great Zimbabwe 31–2, 47–67; archaeology of Zimbabwe plateau 52–4; cattle 54–60; gender and state, theorizing of 47–52; trade 60–6 Greece 228 Green, L. 160 Griswold, W.A. 167 Grosz, E. 8 Gunder-Frank, A. 3, 22, 26 Gustafsen, L. 4, 218 Gustafson, G. 209 Hagg, R. 202 hairstyles 82, 149–50 Hall, M. 32, 57, 61, 65 Hall, R.N. 53 Hallo, W.W. 121, 129 Hamilakis, Y. 203 Hamilton, L. 152 Hammond, N. 229 Handsman, R. 9, 192 Harappan culture 35–6, 37, 179–94; economy 185–8; goddesses and jewelry 188–92; paradigmatic reflections 192–3; polity and hierarchy 181–5; subsistence 181 Haraway, D. 4, 8 Harding, S.G. 4 Harn, A.D. 76, 77 Hassan, F.A. 34, 161, 162, 163–4, 170 Hatch, J.W. 29, 72 Hauser, R.E. 32, 77, 82, 83, 85 Haviland, W. 37, 216, 217, 218, 219

237

Hayden, B. 229 Hayes-Gilpin, K. 4 health 210 Hedeager, L. 105 Hegde, K.T.M. 36, 186, 187 Hendon, J. 216 Hendrickx, S. 166 Henry, J. 119 Herbert, E.W. 65 Herodotus 157, 164, 165 Hewlett, B.S. 208 hierarchy 12, 36, 148, 218–15, 222; see also rank Higgins, P. 9, 12 historical sequences 86 history 2 Hocquenghem, A.M. 34, 150 Hodder, I. 168, 198 Hoffman, M.A. 161 Holley, G.R. 73 Hollimon, S.E. 81, 82, 87–8 homogenization 23 homosexuality 83 Hornblower, G.D. 170 Houston, S. 216, 220 Huffman, T.N. 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 65 Hughes, E.G. 57 Human Relations Area Files 3, 9, 14, 20 Hurst-Thomas, D. 5 Hvass, S. 98 identity 5 ideology 8 Illinois tribe 82, 85, 86 Inca empire 2, 136, 137–8, 140 independence 20 Indus 179 Ingombe Ilede 62 interaction 21 interconnections 21 inter-relatedness 31 intersubjectivity 5 Iroquois tribe 84 Islam 8 Jackes, M. 207 Jacobs, S.E. 30, 81 Jacobson, J. 182 James, E.O. 188, 189, 190

238

Index

Jesch, J. 33, 96, 98, 100, 101, 104, 106, 107–8 jewelry 179, 186, 187–92, 193 Jochens, J. 98 Johnson, A.L. 171–2 Johnson, J.H. 34, 159, 160 Joshi, J.P. 180 Joyce, R. 5, 37, 89, 222, 226; Maya civilization 216, 218, 221, 223, 224, 227, 229 Kano, T. 13 Karytinos, A. 206 Katzenberg, M.A. 209 Keenleyside, A. 209 Kehoe, A. 5, 75 Kekchi Maya 19–20 Kenoyer, J. 35, 36, 185, 186, 187 Kilgore, L. 172 kinship 1–2, 34, 36; Cahokia 79; Harappans 185–6; Maya 218, 222, 224, 228, 229; predynastic Egypt 163, 168; Sumerians 125, 126, 130 Koch, G. 209 Kochems, M. 81–3, 84–5, 86 Koehl, R.B. 200, 201 Koehler, L. 77, 82 Kongolese culture 6–7 Kopaka, K. 199 Kramer, S.N. 121, 129 Kristiansen, K. 99 Kroeber, A. 83, 89 Kuklick, B. 119–20 Kuna of Panama 140 Kuper, A. 56 Kus, S. 71 labor 121, 123–4; see also division of labor Lambert, W.G. 33, 121, 128, 129, 130–1 Lamphere, L. 4, 8 Lane, P. 32, 57, 58, 59 Lanning, E.P. 148, 150 Larco Hoyle, R. 146, 147–8 Larsen, M.T. 117, 119 Lasker, G.W. 171 Leacock, E. 3, 8, 47, 126, 204 Lévi-Strauss, C. 3, 21, 26, 205 Lloyd, L. 4, 8 López, R. 139 Lorente, S. 138

Lovell, N.C. 171–2 Lowe, C.M. 35, 179–94 Luedke, T. 31, 47–67 Lyon, P. 34, 150 McAnany, P. 37, 216, 220 MacCormack, C. 15 McDonald, W.A. 196 McGeorge, P.J.P. 207, 208, 209, 210 MacGillivray, J.A. 197, 198 McGuire, R.H. 126 McIntosh, J.R. 187 MacKay, E. 180, 182, 183, 184, 187, 188, 189 MacKinnon, C.A. 4 Madhu, B. 180 Maggidis, C. 206 Maisels, C.K. 182, 184, 185, 187, 188 Malinowski, B. 9 Malville, N.J. 209 Mann, G.E. 166 Mannarelli, M.E. 138 Marcus, J. 220, 224, 226, 227 Marinatos, N. 36, 196, 197, 200, 201–2, 205, 210 Markoe, G.E. 34, 158 Marks, J. 12, 13–14 Marquette, J. 83 marriage system 86 Marx, K. 3, 22, 37, 125 Marxism/Marxist theory 33, 78, 90, 118, 125, 163 Masali, M. 172 matriarchy 3, 167; Minoan civilization 198, 200, 202–3, 204, 208 matriliny 3, 6–7, 30, 79, 185 matrilocality 79 Mauch, C. 52 Maya civilization 2, 25, 36–7, 182, 216–30; arts, crafts and specialization 228–9; documentation 220–2; history construction 224–5; spacetime continuum 219–20; Tikal 217–19; ungendered dead 225–7; warfare 222–4 means of production 29 Mee, C. 206 Menchu, R. 225 menstrual huts 78–80, 88 mercantilism 21 Merchant, C. 4 Merriam, A.C. 204

Index Meskell, L. 4, 5, 163, 173, 190, 200 Mesopotamia 30, 31, 33–4, 161, 172, 184, 187; see also Sumerian civilization Mexico 60 Miami tribe 85 Midant-Reynes, B. 170 Middle East 34, 120, 132 Millard, A. 120 Miller, D. 35, 182, 184, 186, 188, 189, 191, 192 Mills, J.O. 157 Milner, G.R. 73, 74, 75, 78–9 Minoan civilization 36, 196–211; art 198–200, 203; dental evidence 207–10; enamel hypoplasia 208–9; goddesses 196–9, 200; Law Code of Gortyn 204; life expectancy data 207–8; religion 196–9; roles 205–6; stamp seals 200–2; status 202–3, 205–8 Moche society 34, 136–53; archaeology 140–4; gender and women’s roles 145–52; implications of the past for the present 137–40; past interpretation through participant observation 144–5 Molloy, J. 224 Mono 87 Moon/Boat 150 Moore, H.L. 4 Morris 168 Morris, I. 198 Morris, S.P. 202 Morrison, I.A. 111 Mortensen, L. 33, 94–113, 223 Mother Goddess 36, 200 Moundbuilders 32–3 Mozambique 55 Muhly, P.M. 196, 197 Mukhopadhyay, C. 9, 12 Mulhern, D.M. 172 Murdock, G.P. 3, 7 Murray, M.A. 170 Naqvi, S. 182, 183, 184, 187 Natchez culture 85, 86 nations, remaking of 28–30 Native Americans 209; see also Cahokia nature (heredity) 10, 47, 48 Naven ceremony 9 Near East 202

239

Nelson, S. 4, 9, 10, 16, 95 Nemet-Nejat, K. 33 Netting, R.M. 229 New Archaeology 5, 156, 157, 167, 216, 217 Newton, E. 89 Niemeier, W.D. 196 Niles, S. 34 Nissen, H.J. 120, 127–8 North America 140 Norway 94–5, 97–8, 100–1, 106–8, 111 Nubians 209 nurture (environment) 10 O’Brien, P.J. 75 Olsen, B.A. 200, 205, 206, 210 origins research 10–12 Orrling, C. 94 Ortner, S. 8, 47, 224 Parker Pearson, M. 170 Parrot, A. 129 passivity 8 Pasternak, B. 7 Pate, L. 32–3, 71–91 patriarchy 3, 7, 20, 25, 29, 30; Great Zimbabwe 48, 51; Maya 224–5; Minoan civilization 204, 206, 207; predynastic Egypt 169 patriliny 3, 6–7, 30, 51, 56, 60 Patterson, T. 5 Pauketat, T.R. 73, 76, 77, 79 Peebles, C. 71 Pendergast, D. 218 perceptual difficulties 19 Perles, C. 228 Peru see Moche society Petrie, F. 165 phallus worship 188–9 Phimister, I.R. 63, 64 Piggot, S. 184, 188, 191 Pikirayi, I. 65 Plank, S. 216, 220 Platon, N. 202 Plog, E. 71 Podzorski, P.V. 169 political factors 8, 12, 13, 14, 22, 27, 34; Cahokia 80, 90; Great Zimbabwe 48, 50–1, 59, 66; Harappans 191; Moche society 136, 146; predynastic Egypt 159; Sumerians 118, 129

240

Index

polity 181–5 Pollock, S. 33, 118, 121, 122, 124, 129 polygamy 11 Popham, M.R. 203 Popson, C.P. 145 Porter, J.W. 74 Portugal 6–7 Possehl, G. 182, 184, 185, 188 postmodern science 19–20 pottery 228–9 poverty 5 Powell, M.L. 209 power 5, 14, 19, 27; Maya 222, 229–30; Minoan civilization 198, 200, 203; predynastic Egypt 160, 163–4, 170, 171; Sumerians 118, 125, 126, 127, 130; Vikings 107, 108 Presentation/Sacrifice Ceremony 150–2 Preston, L. 206 Price, J.E. 76, 77 priestesses 128–30, 131, 151–2, 160, 196 private sphere 2, 47–8, 118 public sphere 47–8, 124 Pwiti, G. 60, 61 Pyburn, K.A. 1–38, 90, 216–30 Pygmies 208 Raban, A. 202 racism 5 Ramey Incised pottery 80 Randall-MacIver, D. 53 Randsborg, K. 100, 103–4 rank 32, 35, 72, 108; Vikings 99, 105, 108 Rapp, R. 33, 121, 126 Rathje, W.L. 219, 224, 226–7 Rattray, R.S. 7 Rehak, P. 36, 203, 205 religion 127–8, 130; Minoan civilization 196, 197–8, 200; see also goddess culture; priestesses Renders Ruin 61–2, 65 Renfrew, C. 196 Restall, M. 37 Rhodes, C. 52 Rhodesian Front regime 53 Rice, P.M. 228 rights 204 Rita-Naess, J. 96 rituals 170, 198

Robin, C. 216 Robins, G. 34, 158, 159 Robinson, D. 53 Rodriguez López, L.F. 34 Roehrig, C.H. 159, 160 Roesdahl, E. 100, 102 Rohrlich-Leavitt, R. 202–3 roles 28, 31, 32, 36; Cahokia 77; Great Zimbabwe 66; Harappans 179, 186; Maya 220, 222; Minoan civilization 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 205–6; Moche society 136, 139–40, 145–52; predynastic Egypt 156, 158–9, 160, 163, 168, 169; Sumerians 131, 132; Vikings 99, 105 Rosaldo, M.Z. 4, 8, 47 Rose, J.C. 171, 172, 209 Rousseau, J.-J. 26 Roy, A.K. 180, 186–7 rulers, female 127–8 runestones 109–10 Russell, P. 15–16 Sacks, K. 47, 126, 132 Sahlins, M. 157, 158 Said, E. 3, 33 Sanders, W. 60 Sandison, A.T. 173 Särlvik, I. 99, 100 Sarnat, B.G. 209 Sassaman, K. 11 Saunders, S.R. 209 Savage, S.H. 166, 168–9 Savithri, R. 181 Sawyer, B. 33, 98, 109–10, 111 Sawyer, P. 97, 103, 107 Scandinavia 94–8, 100, 102–3, 105, 108–11; see also Denmark; Norway; Sweden Schele, L. 224 Schiebinger, L.L. 4 Schlegel, A. 88 Schmidt, E. 60 Schmidt, P.R. 5 Schmidt, R. 5 Schnarch, B. 81–2, 83, 85 Schofield, J. 58 scholarship 8–9 Schour, I. 209 scientific reasoning 8–9 Scott, J. 23, 25, 225 secular rule 127–8

Index Segobye, A. 60 Seibert, I. 118 Seidlmayer, S.J. 166 Service, E.R. 157, 158 settler paradigm 51, 53 sexing analysis 165–7, 168 sexism 5 sexual aggression 11 sexual behavior 83 sexual contact 12 sexual dimorphism 12, 13 sexual relationships 85 sexuality 5, 13, 23, 34, 147–8, 221 Shaffer, J.G. 181, 184, 185, 186, 187, 191 Shimada, I. 142–3, 146, 153 Shona people 53, 58, 60 Signorini, I. 84 Silberman, N.A. 120 Silverblatt, I. 34, 48, 140, 222, 223, 225 Sinclair, P. 55, 66 size 12, 13 slavery 6–7, 126 smallholders 229 Smith, S.K. 207 Smuts, B. 12 Snead, J.E. 3 social issues 66, 146, 198 Solberg, B. 105, 106–7 specialization 228–9 Spector, J. 4, 11, 191–2 Stahl, A.B. 58 Stalsberg, A. 33, 99, 104, 108–9, 110–11 stamp seals 186–7, 188, 193, 196, 200–2 state formation and women 124–7 state, theorizing of 47–52 states, questionable 30–7 status 7, 9, 22, 28–9, 30–1, 32, 35–6, 37; Cahokia 72, 82, 85; Great Zimbabwe 56, 59; Harappans 179, 185, 191; Maya 217–18, 219, 220, 222, 223, 224, 225, 227, 229; Minoan civilization 196, 197, 199, 200, 202–3, 204, 205–6, 207; Moche society 136, 138, 144, 146, 151; predynastic Egypt 156, 166, 167, 168, 169, 172; Sumerians 120, 122, 125, 126, 131, 132; Vikings 94, 105–6, 107, 109; see also class; hierarchy; rank

241

Stoeltje, B. 23, 26 Stoltman, J.B. 73 Stone, L. 9 Stothert, K. 4, 147, 148, 149–50, 216, 219–20, 223 Strathern, M. 4, 8, 15, 19, 22, 216 Strong, W.D. 145 Strouhal, E. 171 subsistence 181 Sullivan, H. 188, 189, 190, 191 Sumerian civilization 33–4, 117–34; domestic and public labour 123–4; essentializing ancient Mesopotamia 117–18; female rulers and rulers’ wives 127–8; gender identification 121–2; Late Uruk period 120–1; research, state of 121; women in cults 128–31; women in the economy 122–3; women and state formation 124–7 Summers, R. 53, 63, 64 supernatural females 150 Swahili 8 Swan, L. 63, 64 Swanton, J.R. 75, 76 sweatlodges 78–80, 88–9 Sweden 94, 97, 98, 101, 104, 106, 109 Sweely, T. 216, 218, 220 symbolism in artifacts 169–70 Tainter, J.A. 167 Talalay, L.E. 36, 197, 198, 200 talent 100 Tate, C. 216, 220 Tello, J.C. 141, 149 Tesch, S. 99 Thayer, J.S. 81 Thomas, C.G. 196, 203, 204 Thomas, L.A. 82, 83, 84, 87 Thorp, C.R. 54, 55 Tice, K.E. 140 tool use 11 trade 21, 51, 60–6 tradition 20, 24 Trevelyan, A. 4, 218, 223 Trigger, B.G. 160, 162, 163 Tringham, R.E. 2 Trobriands 8, 9 Tubatulabal 87 two-spirits 81–8, 89 Uchitel, A. 121, 122 Ucko, P.J. 171

242

Index

Uhle, M. 141 United States 15, 16, 83, 84, 89, 223 Upham, S. 71 Uribe, C.A. 71 Vaiman, A. 122 Valcárel, L. 137–8 van de Mieroop, M. 34, 121, 122, 124 Van Gerven, D.P. 172, 173, 209 Venus figurines 25–6 Verano, J. 34, 141, 145, 151 Viking culture 33, 94–113; archaeology 97–9; life 99–103; women, role of 103–10 Vines, A.E. 57 violence 13 virility 34 Vishnu-Mittre 181 Vitelli, D. 228 Voigt, E.A. 55, 61 Walker, P.L. 208 Wallerstein, I. 3, 22, 26 Ward, E.I. 110 Warren, K.B. 223 Waterhouse, H. 201 Watkins, J. 5 Watrous, L.V. 203 Watterson, B. 34, 158 wealth 9, 19, 32, 102, 107; Moche society 148; predynastic Egypt 159, 168; Sumerians 126; see also bridewealth Weber, S.A. 180, 181 Webster, D. 182 Weiner, A. 4, 8, 9 Wenke, R.J. 35, 60, 158, 160, 161, 164; Harappan culture 180, 181, 182, 183, 184–5

White, L.A. 167 Whitehead, H. 84 Whitley, D. 4 Whyte, I. 172 Whyte, M.K. 14 Wilk, R.R. 16, 19, 23, 24, 26, 27, 221–2, 224 Wilkinson, T.A.H. 166, 167 Willendorf 25 Williams, S.H. 49–50 Wilson, D. 102 Winter, I.J. 33, 117, 121, 128, 132 Wolf, E. 1–4, 6, 20–1, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 30, 31–2, 38; Cahokia 89–90; Great Zimbabwe 49, 50; Harappan culture 179; Maya 220; Minoan civilization 196; Moche society 136, 153; predynastic Egypt 164; Sumerians 118; Vikings 97, 110 womanhood, essence of 7–10 women with a past 20–1 women as ‘people without history’ 6–7 Wood, J.W. 208 Woods, W.I. 76, 77, 79 Wright, R. 33, 35, 36, 95, 186 Wrobel, G. 34–5, 156–73 Wylie, A. 4, 5, 8, 95, 156, 200, 205 Yerkes, R. 73, 79 Yokuts 87 Zagarell, A. 33, 121, 122, 125–6 Zhou, L. 209 Zihlman, A. 12 Zimbabwe Cattle Pattern 56 Zimbabwe Culture Pattern 56–7 Zuni 82