Ungendering Civilization

by Pyburn,K. Anne; Pyburn,K. Anne

• ISBN13: 9780415260572
• ISBN10: 0415260574
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-26
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Ungendering Civilizationexamines early state societies for evidence of the long-assumed male dominance/ female subordination that has characterized archaeological study, research and scholarship since our ancestors first started speculating about the lives and societies of prehistoric man. The authors have each taken a distinct body of archaeological data, including Predynastic Egypt, Minoa and Maya, in order to determine what the available data may or may not really show about past societies. The fascinating result of this research leads the authors to believe 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.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	ix
Preface	xi
Introduction: Rethinking complex society	1	(46)
K. ANNE PYBURN
1 Gendered states: Gender and agency in economic models of Great Zimbabwe	47	(24)
TRACY LUEDKE
2 The use and abuse of ethnographic analogies in interpretations of gender systems at Cahokia	71	(23)
LAURA PATE
3 The "marauding pagan warrior" woman	94	(23)
LENA MORTENSEN
4 Tracing women in early Sumer	117	(19)
LAYLA AL-ZUBAIDI
5 Leaders, healers, laborers, and lovers: Reinterpreting women's roles in Moche society	136	(20)
CRISTINA ALCALDE
6 The benefits of an archaeology of gender for predynastic Egypt	156	(23)
GABRIEL D. WROBEL
7 All the Harappan men are naked, but the women are wearing jewelry	179	(17)
CANDICE MARIE LOWS
8 Oh my goddess: A meditation on Minoan civilization	196	(20)
SEAN P. DOUGHERTY
9 Ungendering the Maya	216	(18)
K. ANNE PYBURN
Index	234