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Title: Fierce, pink-clad, warrior-hunter females of the early Americas? Archaeology, gender, and the media
Speaker: Dr. Randy Haas, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, UC Davis, with Panelists Dr. Meg Conkey, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, UC Berkeley; Dr. Ruth Tringham, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, UC Berkeley
About: Dominant thinking in archaeology has tended to envision a pronounced sexual division of labor in our species' evolutionary past with males as hunters and females as gatherers. In contrast, feminist theory and evolutionary ecology models suggest that sexual division of labor in the past would have been fundamentally different. The recent discovery of a 9000 year-old female burial in association with a big-game hunting toolkit in the Andes Mountains supports the latter model. A meta-analysis of early burial practices throughout the Americas also supports a model of female big-game hunting and further exposes systematic gender bias in previous archaeological interpretations. After presenting these findings, the talk will explore the surprising media response including articulation with gender equity efforts, conservative backlash, and hyperbolic depictions.