Over the past twenty years, feminist thinking has profoundly influenced almost every field of the humanities and social sciences, and has impinged upon both the content and methodology of social enquiry. Moreover, human social structures in prehistory have always been a subject of great interest to feminist scholars, who have sought in them an understanding of the origins of inequality between the sexes and of the part women have played in the rise of societies and states. This pathbreaking book brings gender issues to archaeology for the first time, in an explicit and theoretically informed way. In it, leading archaeologists from around the world contribute original analyses of prehistoric data to discover how gender systems operated in the past. The scope of the studies is broad: chapters range from hunter-gatherer societies, through early agricultural communities, to civilizations of the Old and the New Worlds, across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Discussion of such diverse archaeological arenas as art, the domestication of plants, shellfishing, acorn processing, stone tool production and ceramics, and the arrangement and use of space for social, residential and work activities, demonstrates how the extent and significance of woman's role in the prehistoric world has previously been devalued.

Engendering Archaeology exposes the androcentric nature of traditional archaeological enquiry, from its assumptions and preconceptions to the presentation of evidence and knowledge. It questions the accounts of mankind's history that have been common currency, and demonstrates convincingly the centrality of the past to any considerations of gender.