“The Indians did not have any written languages. Even though archaeologists can tell us a great deal about aspects of Indian subsistence such as diet, settlement patterns, and population size and density, to date they have not developed adequate methods for studying gender. Pot shards, for example, are not labeled ‘made by a woman’ or ‘made by a man’ nor do tools indicate who used them. Unfortunately, we do not really know what division of labor or other gender relations looked like archaeologically. Inferences about women and men based on archaeological findings too often tend to be little more than speculations based on our own stereotypes about gender.” – Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America
Categories: