User:Dallas Rose/sandbox

Venus de Willendorf

Introduction

Feminist theory in Gender Archaeology has presented a new perspective and introduced some biases in the overall Archaeological theory. This new perspective that focused on feminist viewpoint in Archaeology was initiated by the rapid evolution in the 20th century, of the Western Societies outlook and interpretation of Gender. The development of this perspective commenced from the late 1960's feminist movement.

Theory

The feminist theory of Gender archaeology gave archaeologists a new perspective of the past. This modern structure for theoretical perspective addressed many of the patriarchal biases instilled in the interpretation and excavation of past archaeology. Modern methods "treat gender as a process, not a thing". The new gender studies introduced biases in archaeological theory. This shift of focus is theorized to be from the increase in women in the archaeological field and from the change in the social interpretation of Gender. Women Archaeologists began in the last twenty years, focusing on how the gender roles of our ancestors are not being represented correctly and also the gender roles were not as rigid as once believed. The theory supports that prior archaeologists were not equipped to differentiate between the sex and gender of our ancestors. Due to this lack of technology, scientists made assumptions about a variety of topics including the division of labor between the sexes and past societies view of sexual anatomy and desires. These assumptions caused a gap in our understanding of past social structures. Gender archaeology pushes for theories that are gender inclusive, unbiased and factual.

History

Archaeology used to be a mostly male-dominated field that discouraged gender research. But, in the last few decades with the rise of the 2nd feminist movement, female archaeology students began rejecting prior assumptions about gender and experiences in the past because they believed these assumptions distorted societies perception. The ongoing feminist movement that began in the late 1960's provoked the conception of a modern, feminized outlook on archaeology. Archaeology students were not satisfied with the limited information available about past women's roles and experiences, and the assumptions that were made for decades. So they took it upon themselves to use new technology and research how women in the past lived. Began focusing on the difference between sexuality and gender, and the importance of Intersectionality.

Criticism

Although the new feminized outlook on archeology addressed detrimental biases in the analysis of past societies and made progress in the study of gender, the feminist theory created a new set of criticisms about archeological research.

Gender Archaeology in cross cultural studies

- People argued

- pointing out the more significant cultural biases

Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Nelson, Sarah M. Gender in Archaeology : Analyzing Power and Prestige / by Sarah Milledge Nelson.AltaMira Press, 1997.

The Society for Historical Archaeology published Sarah’s Nelsons Article, “Gender in Archaeology: Analyzing Power and Prestige”. This site is supported by JSOR a reliable website. Her article is about the development and current state of feminist archaeology. Also, she talks about the consequences of Gender Archaeology being a male-dominated field. I used her article in my project for a large portion of my history section, when I wrote about when archaeology shifted from a mostly main dominated field and why female archaeologists took a stand against the assumptions the male archeologists were making about past women’s experiences and societies views on gender and sexuality.

Annotated Bibliography

Varteresian, Amelia, "A Critical Evaluation of Gender Studies in Archaeological Accounts of Etruscans" (2014). Honors Scholar theses. 451.

This thesis was published by the University of Connecticut, Archaeological Anthropology Commons. The site is official and only uses scholarly, reputable, up to date sources. This thesis explained the history behind gender archaeology and made it easy to understand its history and how it formed into the field it is today. Also, it touched on the biases that developed due to the evolution of Gender Archaeology. I used the author's elucidation of the Etruscan civilization to analyze and to improve on my elaboration of the theory of Gender Archaeology. Along with my history and criticism sections.

Annotated Bibliography

Brumfiel, Elizabeth. Gender, Households, and Society: An Introduction. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association Volume 18, Issue 1, 2008.

The American Anthropological Associations official website published this archaeological paper and many other papers used this as a citation. The credibility of the website supported my belief that this source was authoritative and a safe, credible source to find information. Focuses on how in the past archeologists did not concentrate on men and women’s daily role's overlapped. By realizing this, the goal of young archaeologists this is to break the original ideology of what life was like for ancient people and how our ancestor’s possibility did not have a gender system as rigid as what was believed by many, for decades. Also, this paper touches on binary and exclusive gender roles, the axis of social organization, long-term archeological history, gender, and cloth production and recovering the diversity of the past. This article helped me explain the time women archaeologists began focusing on standing for both genders and this article helped me bring to light to the social relations of our ancestors accurately and find data that explains gender archeology with a non-biased, neutral opinion.

Annotated Bibliography

Conkey, Margaret W., and Janet D. Spector. “Archaeology and the Study of Gender.” Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 7, 1984, pp. 1–38. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20170176.

The reliable website JSOR supported the article “Archaeology and the Study of Gender” written by Margaret W. Conkey and Janet D. Spector. Their report focused on the advances in the archaeological method and theory. Also, they wrote about how through the study of gender archaeology, people show has a more unobstructed view and understanding of culture-beliefs, meaning of masculine and feminine and about each gender’s capabilities. I used this article in my theory section, to support the fact that gender archaeology strives to be and pushes for theories that are gender inclusive, unbiased, and factual.

Annotated Bibliography

Joyce, Rosemary A. (2017). The past is a foreign country. 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. pp. 59–66. ISBN 978-0-415-78386-6.

Rosemary Joyce is a renowned author and Professor of Anthropology at USC. Her article “The past is a foreign country” was published in the book “Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspectives”, which is a very reputable compilation of credible articles. In her article, she explained when and how and why young mostly female archeologists began asking more questions about women and their roles. The questions focused on the division of labor between the genders and especially how past societies viewed sexual diversity and desires. I used her article to support statements in my theory section about why prior archaeologists were not equipped to differentiate between the sex and gender of our ancestors, and how students were dissatisfied with the assumptions.