« Moral behavior began with primates | Main | Gibson vs. history »
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Portrayal of women in prehistory
One of the most fascinating discussions in my Theory course last semester was about how ancient women have been described in the archaeological literature and how such portrayals are a reflection of the decidedly sexist history of academic archaeology. While much progress has been made since the days of "man the hunter," a Salon.com piece published today revisits the debate and how many portrayals of "cavewomen" in the popular media continue to be a caricature of reality. Accounts of man the hunter, woman the gatherer have become so entrenched in our culture that it still passes as the way things were. The Salon.com article discusses a new book by James Adovasio (of Meadowcroft Rockshelter fame) et al. entitled The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory that should prove to be an enlightening read. An excerpt from the article:
The lifestyles of the female and prehistoric are a surprisingly frequent topic of conversation, especially when you consider that Paleolithic women didn't have corporate careers to abandon in favor of becoming stay-at-home moms or the disposable income to buy Jimmy Choo sandals. As with their educated upper-middle-class sisters of today, people think they understand exactly how prehistoric women lived, even though these notions often turn out to be more cartoon than reality. And I mean that literally, since single-panel cartoons in the New Yorker featuring shaggy cavemen in one-shoulder bearskin outfits dragging their consorts by the hair probably represent the sum of what most of us know about the lives of our (very) distant ancestors.
Actually, what's astonishing is how much the members of the peanut gallery think they know about such things, considering how few sureties real paleoanthropologists will swear to. "The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory," by J.M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer and Jake Page, promises to lay out everything the most current research has established about archaic women, and the truth is that it's pretty thin gruel. The authors can point out some embarrassing mistakes made by past experts and suggest some intriguing alternative interpretations of various facts and artifacts, but even so there's a lot of padding and extraneous material in this book's 300 pages.
Posted by Will at March 21, 2007 10:34 AM in Archaeology