Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Volume 7

470 Pages·1984·28.577 MB·English

by  Michael B. Schiffer

Advisory Board
MARGARET W. CONKEY COLIN RENFREW
Department of Anthropology Department of Archaeology
State University of New York Cambridge University
Binghamton, New York Cambridge, England
DON E. DUMOND STANLEY SOUTH
Department of Anthropology Institute of Archeology and
University of Oregon Anthropology
Eugene, Oregon University of South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina
ROBERT C. DUNNELL
Department of Anthropology STUART STRUEVER
University of Washington Department of Anthropology
Seattle, Washington Northwestern University
Evanston, Illinois
GEORGE J. GUMERMAN
Department of Anthropology DAVID HURST THOMAS
Southern Illinois University Department of Anthropology
Carbondale, Illinois American Museum of Natural
History
WILLIAM A. LONGACRE New York, New York
Department of Anthropology
University of Arizona ROBERT WHALLON, JR.
Tucson, Arizona Museum of Anthropology
University of Michigan
FRED PLOG Ann Arbor, Michigan
Department of Sociology and
Anthropology J. PETER WHITE
New Mexico State University Department of Anthropology
Las Cruces, New Mexico University of Sydney
Sydney, New South Wales
WILLIAM R. RATH J Ε Australia
Department of Anthropology
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Advances in
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
METHOD AND THEORY
Volume 7
Edited by
MICHAEL B. SCHIFFER
Department of Anthropology
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
1984
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers
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COPYRIGHT © 1984, BY ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
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ISSN: 0162-8003
ISBN: 0-12-003107-8
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
84 85 86 87 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contributors
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which the authors' contributions begin.
Christopher Carr (103), Institute for Quantitative Archaeology, Department of
Anthropology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701
Margaret W. Conkey (1), Department of Anthropology, State University of New
York, Binghamton, New York 13901
James I. Ebert (293), Branch of Remote Sensing, National Park Service,
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87125
Gary Feinman (39), Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison,
Wisconsin 53706
Francis P. McManamon (223), Division of Cultural Resources, North Atlantic
Regional Office, National Park Service, Boston, Massachusetts 02109
Jill Neitzel (39), Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University, Tempe,
Arizona 85287
Janet Spector (1), Departments of Anthropology and Women's Studies, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
Daniel Wolfman (363), Arkansas Archeological Survey, Arkansas Tech University,
Russellville, Arkansas 72801
ix
Contents of Previous Volumes
Volume 1
Optimizing Strategies for Evaluating Archaeological Significance
Michael J. Moratto and Roger E. Kelly
The Concept of Carrying Capacity in the Study of Culture Process
Michael A. Glassow
Demographic Archaeology
Fekri A. Hassan
Mortuary Practices and the Study of Prehistoric Social Systems
Joseph A. Fainter
Social Interaction and Stylistic Similarity: A Reanalysis
Stephen Ρ log
Inference and Evidence in Archaeology: A Discussion of the Conceptual Problems
Alan P. Sullivan
Independent Dating in Archaeological Analysis
Jeffrey S. Dean
Advances in Archaeological Seriation
William H. Marquardt
A Survey of Disturbance Processes in Archaeological Site Formation
W. Raymond Wood and Donald Lee Johnson
Decision Making in Modern Surveys
Stephen Ρ log, Fred Ρ log, and Walter Wait
Subject Index
Volume 2
Modern Material Culture Studies
William L. Rathje
The Cross-Cultural Method in Archaeology
Charles W. McNett, Jr.
xi
xii
CONTENTS OF PREVIOUS VOLUMES
Breaking Down the System: Recent Ecological Approaches in Archaeology
Michael A. Joe him
The Method and Theory of Site Catchment Analysis: A Review
Donna C. Roper
Three Locational Models: An Epistemological Assessment for Anthropology and Archaeology
Carole L. Crumley
Archaeologically, What Constitutes an Early Domestic Animal?
Stanley J. Olsen
On the Quantification of Vertebrate Archaeofaunas
Donald K. Grayson
The Role of Archaeometry in American Archaeology: Approaches to the Evaluation of the
Antiquity of Homo sapiens in California
R. E. Taylor and Louis Α. Ρ ay en
Paleoethnobotany in American Archaeology
Richard I. Ford
Subject Index
Volume 3
Cult Archaeology and Unscientific Method and Theory
John R. Cole
Evolutionary Theory and Archaeology
Robert C. Dunnell
The Archaeological Study of Adaptation: Theoretical and Methodological Issues
Patrick V. Kirch
The Use of General Ecological Principles in Archaeology
Donald L. Hardesty
Explanatory/Predictive Models of Hunter-Gatherer Adaptation
Robert L. Bettinger
An Optimum Diet Model, Coastal Variability, and Hunter-Gatherer Behavior
Stephen M. Perlman
Toward a General Model of Agricultural Systems
Stanton W. Green
Vicissitudes and Overkill: The Development of Explanations of Pleistocene Extinctions
Donald K. Grayson
Obsidian Hydration Dating: A Coming of Age
Joseph W. Michels and Ignatius S. T. Tsong
Index
Volume 4
Archaeoastronomy
Anthony F. Aveni
Explaining the Evolution of Cultural Complexity: A Review
Robert J. Wenke
xiii
CONTENTS OF PREVIOUS VOLUMES
Archaeology, Ethnohistory, and Ethnology: Interpretive Interfaces
Thomas H. Charlton
Seasonality Studies
Gregory G. Monks
Isotopic Discrimination and Correction Factors in Radiocarbon Dating
David L. Browman
The Expanding Role of Surface Assemblages in Archaeological Research
Dennis E. Lewarch and Michael J. O'Brien
Developments and Directions in Geoarchaeology
Bruce G. Gladfelter
Taphonomy and Paleoecology: A Critical Review of Archaeology's Sister Disciplines
Diane P. Gifford
Index
Volume 5
Cultural Resources Management
Don D. Fowler
The Study of Impacts on Archaeological Sites
Leslie E. Wildesen
Advances in Urban Archaeology
Edward Staski
Avenues of Inquiry in Historical Archaeology
Kathleen Deagan
Archaeological Applications of Computer Graphics
J. Bart ο Arnold III
Quantifying Archaeological Research
G. A. Clark
Ceramic Compositional Analysis in Archaeological Perspective
Ronald L. Bishop, Robert L. Rands, and George R. Holley
Archaeofaunas and Subsistence Studies
R. Lee Lyman
Nutritional Inference from Paleopathology
Rebecca Huss-Ashmore, Alan H. Goodman, and George J. Armelagos
Index
Volume 6
The Antiquity of Man and the Development of American Archaeology
David J. Meltzer
Investigating the Diffusion of Stylistic Innovations
Dave D. Davis
Breaking Down Cultural Complexity: Inequality and Heterogeneity
Randall H. McGuire
XIV CONTENTS OF PREVIOUS VOLUMES
Subsistence and Complex Societies: The Case of the Maya
Frederick M. Wiseman
The Role of Palynology in Archaeology
Vaughn M. Bryant, Jr., and Richard G. Holloway
Plant Opal Phytolith Analysis: Major Advances in Archaeobotanical Research
Irwin Rovner
The Siteless Survey: A Regional Scale Data Collection Strategy
Robert C. Dunnell and William S. Dancey
Regional Sampling in Archaeological Survey: The Statistical Perspective
Jack D. Nance
Index
1
Archaeology
and the Study of Gender
MARGARET W. CONKEY
JANET D. SPECTOR
INTRODUCTION
A serious challenge to the function of archaeology in contemporary society has
been raised with the assertion that a largely unrecognized rationale for archaeol-
ogy is the empirical substantiation of national mythology (Leone 1973:129). This
use of archaeology reinforces values of which we are not always aware. As
archaeologists, we 4c4an properly be accused of being acolytes ... to our cul-
ture," unaware of what we have been doing, and whom we serve (Leone
1973:132). Although Leone has offered a fundamental insight with respect to the
relationship of archaeology to a national mythology, we show how archaeology
similarly provides substantiation for a particular gender mythology. That is, the
following review of archaeology and the study of gender should make it clear
how archaeology has substantiated a set of culture-specific beliefs about the
meaning of masculine and feminine, about the capabilities of men and women,
about their power relations, and about their appropriate roles in society.
We argue that archaeology, like other traditional disciplines viewed through
the lens of feminist criticism, has been neither objective nor inclusive on the
subject of gender. Furthermore, because archaeologists lack an explicit frame-
1
ADVANCES IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL Copyright © 1984 by Academic Press, Inc.
METHOD AND THEORY, VOL. 7 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
ISBN 0-12-003107-8
2
MARGARET W. CONKEY AND JANET D. SPECTOR
work for conceptualizing and researching gender and—more widely—social
roles, we have drawn upon a framework that is implicit and rooted in our own
contemporary experience. Thus, we must formulate not only an explicit theory of
human social action (see Hodder 1982a, 1982b, 1982c) but also, as part of this,
an explicit framework for the archaeological study of gender. This framework
must begin with theories and terms that are gender inclusive, not gender specific.
As Minnich cogently argues, it is more radical than it appears to develop gender
inclusive theories and terms, given that our intellectual tradition is based on a
fundamental conceptual error. Man and mankind are not general, but exclusive;
they are partial, and so is the scholarship about man and mankind (Minnich
1982:7).
The role of archaeology in substantiating contemporary gender ideology is
complicated. There is virtually no systematic work on the archaeological study of
gender. There are no publications in the field with titles like "Methods for
Examining Gender through the Archaeological Record"; or "Gender Arrange-
ments and Site Formation Processes"; or "Gender Arrangements and the
Emergence of Food Production"; or, more generally, "Gender Structures and
Culture Change." We know of no archaeological work in which an author
explicitly claims that we can know about gender in the past as observed through
the archaeological record who then proceeds to demonstrate that knowledge, or
to describe how we can know.
This does not mean that archaeologists have not said anything about gender
structures or gender behavior in past human life. In spite of the absence of
serious methodological or theoretical discourse on the subject, the archaeological
literature is not silent on the subject of gender. Rather, it is permeated with
assumptions, assertions, and statements of "fact" about gender. This is a serious
problem.
We have two major purposes in this review of archaeology and the study of
gender. First, we critically evaluate and make explicit some of the messages
archaeologists convey about gender in their work. These messages exemplify
how archaeology functions to provide "empirical" substantiation or justification
for contemporary gender ideology. We illustrate that archaeologists, consciously
or not, are propagating culturally particular ideas about gender in their interpreta-
tions and reconstructions of the past. This aspect of archaeological interpretation
not only undermines the plausibility of our reconstructions of the past but also
has serious political and educational implications.
Second, we discuss some of the recent literature on gender by feminist schol-
ars within and outside anthropology. Here we suggest a variety of questions and
research problems about gender that might be approached by archaeologists,
even by those employing currently accepted methods of analysis. We hope that
the feminist critique of archaeology will contribute new ways of thinking about
what we do and what we can know about social life in the past. Most important,