We will begin with how you find actual humans, female, male, young, old, in the past and we will proceed in a more or less linear manner from the first hominids and what has been said, thought, and fantasized about gender roles in scientific origins stories to studies concerning various aspects of gender roles in now extinct societies of Eurasia, Africa and the Americas. Although much remains to be done, the new field of gender in archaeology has already uncovered a great deal concerning women s economic roles and statuses, their exercise of familial and political power, and their roles in art, mythology, and ritual. We will also look at how so much of this has been trivialized and marginalized in presentations to the general public. Along the way we will look at how you can study sex and gender in the past, the nature of feminist archaeology, and the nature of gender bias in interpreting the archaeological record. Margaret Mead Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies .
Any edition is fine.
Karen Olsen Bruhns and Karen E. Stothert Women in Ancient America . University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Karen Olsen Bruhns, compiler, Reader in the Archaeology of Women . SFSU, February, 2001. The texts are available through February in the Franciscan Bookshops, Student Union.