Invisible Gender:
1. What do you think Susan Kent would say about Lovejoy's thesis on bipedalism and monogamy?
2. Explain how Kent utilizes the archaeological record to gather ethnographic data.
3. How does Kent argue against Wilmsen and Denbrow? In what ways does she use space to help her make her arguments?
4. Describe some differences in the archaeological record between Stone Age and Iron Age sites.
5. What are Kent's main conclusions?
East African Pastoralists:
1. What does Diane Gifford-Gonzalez find especially challenging when studying the ethnographic record of East African Pastorialists?
2. Describe where Gifford-Gonzalez finds exceptions to androcentrism. Whose work is she supporting?
3. How does Gifford-Gonzalez utilize ceramics to help her argument?
4.What are Gifford-Gonzalez's two concluding observations about East African archaeology?
Invisible Gender
ReplyDelete1. I think Susan Kent would disagree with Lovejoy’s thesis on bipedalism and monogamy. Kent explains that she believes we can’t make assumptions about past culture’s gender relations based on our current relationships. Kent believes that past cultures didn’t have the same gender divisions and roles as we do today, therefore she would reject the theory that monogamy caused mammals to begin walking.
2. Kent looks at different cross culture relationships and what influences those relationships. Kent doesn’t use an analogy. Analogies are inappropriate in terms of archaeologically because they ignore variability and history. She instead uses archaeological records to look at the full diversity of the different cultures. Specially she studies relationships among culture, behavior and material cultures.
3. To argue against Wilmsen and Denbow, Kent includes a study by Sadr. Sadr and Kent question Wilmsen and Denbow’s view of captured hunter gatherers deprived of their culture and forced into relationships with Bantu speakers. Kent states that there is minimal evidence for a degraded relationship with Bantu speakers. Wilmsen and Denbow also argue that there should be sites that demonstrates that foragers were not immediately affected by The Iron Age. If this were true then sites should be absent of objects in pastoralists origin, but Kent points out that these sites don’t exists.
Ethnographic: customs of individual people and cultures
4. One difference is that Late Stone Age sites suggest that the aggregation phase occurred during the dry season. During this season forager were stationary for several months at a time. While Early Iron Age sites suggest that farmers where more dependent on water their crops and stock. Therefore, foragers lived in small dispersed camps during the winter dry season. The Iron Age sites also suggest that foragers didn’t give up their own culture or hunted meats.
5. One main conclusions of Kent’s argument is that history cannot be studied using analogies, because change has occurred. Cross cultural models that detail particular relationships or behaviors that influenced gender relations must be used when looking at history. Another conclusion is that late Iron Age sites give evidence that of segregated space by both gender and activity functions. There is evidence of patriarchy with increasing male control over females in different aspects of their lives. Kent also points out that she believes that must be enough data to identify a gendered division of labor before its defined.
East African Pastoralists
1. One challenge when studying he ethnographic record of East African Pastorialists is that women’s roles are generally ignored. Most older studies focus on what men do and why what men do is important. The issues regarding gender divisions of labor is frustrating to Gifford-Gonzalez, because those who study the everyday life lack specific details and information.
2. Androcentrism: placing males at point of view at the center of one's world view and its culture and history
Exceptions are fond in the work of human ecologists and economics. Research on livestock and household production shows that women has a large role in this area. Women had manipulation and even ownership of major resources. Women also have a role in local and regional economic systems.
3. Lithic: re pieces of other rocks that have been eroded down to sand size
Gifford-Gonzalez utilize ceramics to help her argument by showing evidence that ceramic traditions cross boundaries between different regions suggests a complex social situation. Ceramic traditions shows the outward spread of many different people groups.
4. Her first concluding argument is that the loss of methodological rigor shouldn’t be lost by including gender in archaeological research. Her second concluding argument is that as the archeological study of human social interactions advances there should be more complex theories were no single theory from earlier levels is solely used.
Invisible Gender
ReplyDelete1. I think that Susan Kent would completely disagree with LoveJoy's thesis. One of her tenets, "Behavior is not biologically determined", contrasts sharply with LoveJoy's theory. Furthermore, Kent would say that "ethnographic analogies" are not suitable to use when analyzing archaeological sites.
2. Kent uses the archaeological record by using what she calls, ethnoarchaeology, to identify consistent relationships within the archaeological record. The use of consistent relationships over analogies is paramount to having an objective view of non-western diversity and culture.
3. Kent begins her argument by stating that many anthropologists, including herself, "have exposed numerous and serious mistakes, misinterpretations, and inaccuracies in their claims".
The best argument, she claims, is found in a study by a man named Sadr. Sadr claims in his research that there is "little evidence" in the archaeological record for Wilmsen and Denbow's theory.
Kent uses space in her arguments to point out that men and women shared and were buried in the same "spaces" or locations in the archaeological record, indicating the invisibility of gender in these sites.
4. An easily identifiable difference between Stone and Iron Age sites is that Iron Age sites are larger in size and contain a greater amount of objects excavated within them. Another difference in the archaeological sites is the durability of materials. The Iron Age saw the introduction of clay and stone in tools, while the Stone Age saw more usage of grass and mud huts.
5. A main point of Kent's argument was in how cultural history should be interpreted using only facts, instead of analogies to cultures that we are familiar with. Another point is the invisibility of gender in archaeological sites, where men and women can be found in the same relative "space", indicating that they shared similar roles.
East African Pastoralists
1. Diane Gifford-Gonzalez finds the study of female roles can be quite challenging as little research has been done considering the female role in society. Many anthropologists in the region are men, and therefore believe that many of the essential activities were dominated by men. In East Africa today, women play a very active role in social life as well as handling the production of many goods for the family and home. Her point is that if gender division of labor is present today, then why is this information ignored in the record.
2. Gifford-Gonzalez finds exceptions to "androcentric norms" in the work of a variety of ecologists and economists. These include Wienpahl's research on livestock management and household production as well as Arhem's analysis of the division of labor.
She supports Hakansson's theory that Gussi men would barterand trade with women, who were in control of grain and labor. This goes against the "androcentrist norm" by claiming that women had substantial economic and social power.
3. Gifford-Gonzalez utilizes ceramics by identifying pastes used,locations, and well different ways of making ceramics to identify movement of people. Food production techniques shed light on cultural interactions as well as migration movements based on the archaeological record.
4. One concluding observation is that including gender as a factor in archaeological research will not skew results or make the research any less methodical. Second, single bodies of theories have grown to be unsuitable explanations. Instead, we must be open-minded enough to build onto old theories, instead of being restricted by them.
Susan Kent
ReplyDelete1. Lovejoy's thesis did not go hand-in-hand with Susan Kent's ideologies in my opinion. Lovejoy focused on how monogamy and changing biologies led to humans walking on two feet, but Kent is more focused on how past human behaviors are independent from past human biology.
2. Kent uses archaeological data to take a closer look at how the rigidity of a culture's labor impacts each gender's roles and actions, as well as how complex that culture turns out to be. This was a unique approach for Kent to take, and she even coined it ethnoarchaeology.
3. Kent, along with another researcher Sadr, is very clear in her opinion that there is little to no evidence supporting Wilmsen and Denbrow's claims that African foragers were affected by early Iron Age pastoralists. Kent states that if their theory were true then there would be more archaeological sites to back it up. Also, Sampson acquired documents that directly reflect forager cultures in Africa at the same time.
4. In Stone Age sites the foraging communities did not have enough spatial gender relations to really differentiate societal gender roles. In Iron Age communities there were more disparities but still the artifacts were not detailed enough to show defined gender roles.
5. Basically Kent's research came down to two major ideas. One of which revolved around how genders shared the same space in early Africa and therefore could have had similar societal values. the other conclusion she made lashed out at how historians and researchers have used analogies to make assumptions about early life. Kent rather insists upon only using hard facts to make assumptions about what life was like back then for the different genders.
Diane Gifford-Gonzalez
1. Diane is frustrated with the lack of attention women have received in a historical context. She believes that the major focus within historical studies have always revolved around men while women have been equally as deserving and important.
2. Those who largely refute the androcentrism ideology are commonly affiliated with the environment such as ecologists and local economies such as economists. Major studies have been done on livestock and household activities that highlight just how important women have been in the history of mankind. This research correlates with the mindsets of McCabes, Dyson-Hudson, and Wienpahl.
3. Diane uses ceramics to argue the social complexity of the early Iron Age Africans. She almost uses ceramics as a metaphor, for just how ceramics spread and differed from place to place, humans did too. As ceramics became increasingly complex, so did the different cultures.
4. Her first concluding point is that the research method should not be restricted or altered by the involvement of gender. Second, both old and new theories can become more complex without having a negative impact on future research. Theories should be built upon and not torn apart.
Invisible Gender
ReplyDelete1. Susan Kent would have most definitely disagreed with Lovejoy’s thesis regarding bipedalism and monogamy. The entire theme of Kent’s essay is that we cannot apply the standards and relationships regarding gender of today, to the past. Kent understands that gender was invisible in early societies.
2. Kent utilizes archaeological records to analyze gender relationships from these early societies. She uses archaeological records, rather than modern gender roles, because the records provide objective evidence for her argument that gender relationships of ancient Africa were not nearly as compartmentalized as modern society.
3. Kent argues against Wilmsen and Denbrow by stating that their findings lack too much solid evidence to make the assumptions that they did about defined gender roles. Kent employs space in her argument by examining the proximity of burial sites, for both men and women. She observed that they were buried in close proximity. The significance in her finding lies in the fact that if men and women were designated to different burial sites, it would be indicative of a separation of gender.
4. It takes no stretch of the imagination that evidence of iron smelting was found at the iron age sites, where that would not be found at the stone age sites. Additionally, there is evidence of gender segregated space in the early iron age sites, where it is not evident among the stone age sites. This obviously indicates that gender roles began to develop during the early iron age.
5. Kent ultimately concludes that it is bad scholarship to analyze history without objective facts, rather than modern standards. Kent strictly relies on archaeological records and her inferences from those records, rather than modern gender roles, to determine relationships from the past.
East African Pastoralists
1. Gifford-Gonzalez finds the study of ethnographic records particularly challenging because of the lack of focus on women’s role in ancient African society. An obvious bias can be found in previous anthropological studies because they are conducted by men, about men. Without evidence of women’s role in society, it becomes difficult very quickly to study gender roles.
2. Androcentric is defined as: “focused or centered on men.” Gonzalez finds exceptions in androcentric norm in the realm of livestock. Women controlled a large amount of livestock development in these societies. Which is incredibly significant because it shows that women had control over an incredibly valued commodity.
3. Gonzalez makes use of ceramics to further her argument by conveying that the dynamic of gender in early African societies was more intricate than androcentric anthropologists have given them credit for. She also uses ceramics to analyze migration patterns of early cultures.
4. Gonzalez first conclusion states that including gender in the anthropological studies actually requires historians to discard “sloppy thinking about relations of ecology, technology, and production…” Second, Gonzalez concludes that our assumptions and inferences about the development of society has been skewed by androcentric biases.
Invisible Gender
ReplyDelete1. I think Susan Kent would go completely against Lovejoy's thesis. Kent believes that a lot of the time we project our own Western ideals onto societies of the past, and this is incorrect. We can't assume that "how one society defines gender is appropriate for how all societies define it."
2. Kent uses cross-cultural relationships and the factors that influence the relationships opposed to analogies. She uses these "Ethnographically consistent relationships" to better understand archaeology without the influence of Western cultures.
3. Kent undermines Wilsen and Denbow by providing multiple examples that find mistakes, misinterpretations, and flaws in their claims. The best study in Kent's opinion is by Sadr in 1997. Sadr provides a systematic approach that goes against the view of hunter-gatherers having a degraded relationship with Bantu speakers, and references documents that describe hunter-gatherers in South Africa. Spatial patterns would give evidence towards segregation of any kind.
4. Iron Age sites had a greater size and number of objects than Stone Age sites. This could be due to the increased engagement of trade during the Iron Age. Farmers/Pastoralists that migrated south had good relationships with the hunter-gatherers. Worked bone, stone tools, and beads historically associated with hunter-gatherers were found on farming community sites and vice versa.
5. One of Kent's main conclusions is that we cannot use analogies to study gender relations because we cannot assume there has been no change. The only true way to study gender in a historical context without analogies is to use spatial distributional patterning, site features, and architectural partitioning. Another main conclusion by Kent is the fact that excavation techniques cause gendered space invisibility.
East African Pastoralists
1. Archaeological accounts are gendered and Male agency is assumed for any significant breakthrough in technology or social organization. It seems that everything from art to the use of stone tools is implicitly referred to as Men's creation and this is one of the major challenges Diane Gifford-Gonzalez comes across when studying the ethnographic record of East Africa.
2. Gifford-Gonzalez finds exceptions to androcentric norms is works such as McCabes and Wienpahl's research on livestock management and household production. This research documents women's influence on major resources, as well as their role in local and regional economic systems.
3. She uses Nderit ceramics and their location to reflect an alliance and trade between peoples. This gives an opportunity to look at East Africa from a social approach.
4. Gifford-Gonzalez believes that there is no reason not to include gender in archaeological research, as it would not affect methods or accuracy. She also believes that we cannot use previous "well-worn" paths to inference, assuming the same theory every time will yield poor results. We have to collaborate and continue archaeology as evidence-based and systematic to get the desired results.
Invisible Gender:
ReplyDelete1.) Susan Kent would strongly disagree with Lovejoy’s thesis because she believes gender is “invisible” in prehistoric sites. She thinks work was based more on an individual’s physical ability and age rather than gender. We can not assume prehistoric gender culture is the same as ours today.
2.) Kent uses what she calls ethnoarchaeology that uses consistent relationships to understand the full diversity of non-western cultures. This does not assume the groups are similar, but instead looks at cross-cultural ethnographies to understand how they organized themselves within their own cultures and how it varies across different types of societies. It examines relationships among culture, behavior, and material culture.
3.) Wilmsen and Denbow say the hunter and gatherers were forced into a serflike relationship with Bantu-speakers as far back as the Early Iron Age. The best study is by Sadr who concludes that there is little evidence for the degraded relationship. Kent argues that hunter/gatherer sites do no exist because they are very mobile. More sedentary sites are better preserved which allows them to be more visible.
4.) Iron Age sites are archaeologically more visible because they are constructed of more durable materials and its architecture is more identifiable than grass windbreaks and huts of hunter/gatherer stone age sites. They are also much larger and socially complex than stone age sites.
5.) Archaeologist can not assume that modern gender relationships remained static throughout time. Artifact spatial distributional patterning and densities are necessary to study gender. Most forager sites are invisible due to poor preservation, but those found do not indicate the use of gendered space.She argues that Late Stone Age foragers did not gendered segregated space.
East African Pastoralist:
1.) Women’s roles in East African Pastoralist societies are often downplayed. The centrality of male actors is stressed more than the importance of what women do. The gender division of labor is ignored.
2.) Exceptions are found in work of human ecologist and development economist. She supports Homewood and Rogers Maasia divisions of subsistence strategies, and Hakansson who also documented women’s roles in local and regional agropastoral and pastoral economies.
3.) Ceramic traditions of different cultures spread to cross boundaries, suggesting a complex social situation. This is reasonable archaeological evidence for the coexistence of groups.
4.) First, including gender in archaeological research can unite various strands of archaeological theory into a complex but well-grounded enterprise. Ignore androcentric ideology. Second, no single theory or method that has served us well at earlier may suffice. We must build a more complex theory on top of what is already known instead of restricting an old theory to just itself.
Invisible Gender
ReplyDelete1. I think that Susan Kent would disagree with Lovejoy’s thesis on bipedalism and monogamy. She is very adamant in her article that hunter gatherer societies did not have gender differentiated roles and the basis of the monogamy theory is that women became subservient to men because the men began to provide food and other resources for them. However, in a hunter gatherer society it is very possible the women could be doing just as much hunting as the men. This provides a problem for his theory.
2. Ethnography = field work in a particular cultural setting
Kent has spent a lot of time doing ethnographic work within many cultures and she uses the archaeological record to compare and contrast her data in regards to culture. She prefers this way instead of relying on the “analogy” because she feels it makes us biased and predestined to impose our view of gender roles onto other cultures
3. Kent argues that it is hard to specifically say that there was gendered space. She uses studies and sites found by numerous people such as Sadr. She states that it is hard to assume the cultures of the hunter gathers because of the lack of artifacts but this is due to their mobile life style. More sedentary sites always have better artifacts because of the better accumulation of materials. She uses the information about the space around the hearths and the fact that a man and a women were buried in a corral side by side to also help disprove them.
4. Iron age sites are more abundant than stone age sites because of the durability and strength of the tools and architecture of the time period. Because the iron age societies are more sociopolitical we see a greater stratification of gender evident by the tools and where they are located.
5. Her main conclusions are that most hunter gatherer societies were not gender differentiated. Gender roles became a large part of agrarian societies due to these societies developing hierarchies and sociopolitical systems. She also states that just because there are more artifacts from agrarian societies does not mean they out numbered hunter gatherers, their artifacts were just better preserved because of their lifestyle.
East Africa Pastoralists
Epizootiology = 1 : the sum of the factors controlling the occurrence of a disease or pathogen of animals. 2 : a science that deals with the character, ecology, and causes of outbreaks of animal diseases.
Androcentric = focused or centered on men
1. She finds it especially challenging to study women. Most early anthropology was very androcentric with little regards to the roles of women due to the fact majority of anthropologists were men and so they only valued men’s roles.
2. They are found In the work of human economist and development economists, these include McCabes and Dyson-Hudson’s and Wienpahl’s research. Also it supports Arhem’s work and Homewood and Roger’s
3. She uses the location of “Nderit” ceramics to shop the trade and intermingling of the individuals. From this we can analyze movement and the intricacy of early African societies that anthropologists with a very androcentric approach overlooked.
4. first “ including gender in archaeological research need not entail loss of methodical rigor”, second “ as we move toward archaeological study of human social relation, we move to another, more complex level of inference. In which no single body or method that has served us well at earlier levels will suffice”. Meaning that we can not focus from a androcentric perspective and that we must constantly look from new perspectives even if old ones are still providing great evidence
1. Susan Kent would disagree with the Lovejoy thesis about bipedalism and monogamy. She believes that you cannot make scientific inferences about past people and their development in regards to the social standings that we have today.
ReplyDelete2. Kent explains that the only way to cross the ethnographic data with archaeological data is to use ethnoarchaeology. She uses her data from the archaeological record to compare and contrast her data with culture. She doesn’t think that you can make assumptions about people in terms of western civilization.
3. Kent argues that a gendered space is hard to identify. Sedentary sites have better artifacts than mobile cultures. She uses studies by people like Sadr. She uses the space around the hearth and the man and women that were buried side by side to disprove him.
4. Iron age evidence lasts longer than stone age evidence so it is easier to identify how spread out all the tools were you can make better assumptions about their technology and their society.
5. She concludes that hunter gatherer societies are not gender differentiated. Gender roles become more prominent as societies developed and became more sedentary. She also states that the number of artifacts does not mean that more recent societies outnumbered older societies.
Epizootiology- Study of animal diseases
1. Gifford-Gonzalez finds it difficult to study the ethnographic record of East African Pastoralists from a female perspective because the female perspective is almost entirely ignored in early anthropology.
2. Exceptions are found in the work of human ecologists and development economists. These include McCabe, Dyson-Hudson, Wienpahl’s, Arhem, and Homewood and Rogers.
3. She uses ceramics to prove that there were complex social institutions in place that involved trading and traveling to other regions and across boundaries.
4. She observes that the Nderit example suggests how more socially oriented approach to the East African archeological materials might develop and that as we move toward archaeological study of human relations, we will have to have a more intricate level of inference because no earlier theory or evidence may suffice.
Invisible Gender
ReplyDelete1. I think that Kent would completely disagree with the theory of monogamy on the grounds that she believes present day gender roles haven't been steadfast throughout history. In class we discussed how in hunter-Gatherer tribes the able bodied people would take up the work. I think the Kent probably would be a stronger proponent of a this ideal and a more scientific reasoning for the adaptation of bipedalism such as the energy saving Idea.
2. Ethnographic Research, from what I've looked up at its simplest form, seem to be the study relating to past culture and "day to day life". She looks into the archeological record to observe patterns in past civilizations and people to attempt to gleam a view into what culture was like back then. By comparing things she's found in the ground to theories she's made she is able to confirm and disprove certain ideas.
3. She begins to talk about this topic with the self-criticism that many archaeological theories have holes, missing pieces, and falsehoods. This probably has to do with not everything from the past being preserved perfectly. She refutes the claims made by the aforementioned men with the use of research by a man, Sahr. The argued that hunter-gatherers culture was steamrolled by the culture of the peoples who developed in the iron aged era. However, the evidence found in the ground doesn't support this claim, because no iron age material was found within some of these cultures.
In terms of Space, I'm not entirely sure what this question is asking.
4. One major difference, as one would expect, is that Iron aged sites tended to be must more vast in size and population density than the stone aged sites. This is most likely due to the efficiency of the iron tools allowing more food to be produced in an efficient manner. More food means more people able to survive throughout the seasons.
5. The main thing that I took from reading this passage is that Kent thinks that we can't put assumptions on a society of the past. Due to many lingering unanswered questions and incomplete records of some peoples history, we cannot make claims that aren't directly backed by science. This is shown through Kents refutal of the superimposition of our gender norms onto the hunter-gatherers.
East African Pastoralists:
1. Similarly to the first article, this article has some major roots in the issue of Gender roles in the societies in the past. One major point in this article is that the gender roles of the pastoralists is virtually unknown. She alludes to the fact that man of the other researchers in this field are men. This leads to to the assumption that the society is male dominated. She argues the point that it is unclear who dominated the society.
2. Androcentrism is basically a statement that men are the end all be all. The author finds points against this, one major one is in the division of labor among this society. The way that labor was divided, it seemed that men did the physical tasks and women held the more "political" roles.
3. The use of the ceramic "metaphor" is set up by saying that similar techniques of making ceramics were found all over Africa. She uses this observation to say that ceramic making practices traveled around the continent. The techniques all had slight variances however, and she alluded this to the fact that intricacies in the ceramics could related to intricacies in the cultures of the people. Not all of the people were the same and you can make a blanket assumption on them.
Invisible Gender:
ReplyDelete1.) Susan Kent would disagree completely with Lovejoy's thesis on how biology advancements determines how the past humans act like the humans in the stone and iron age. Kent's thesis states that the behavior styles of humans in the iron and stone age is not reflected off the monogamy theory due to the fact that the differences between males and females are not the same as back when hominins' first came about.
2.) Well Kent uses archaeological records to look into cross-cultural ethnographs to be able to get a greater look into how socities organized themselves to fit their cultural categories and how each society differed. Yet she does not use ethnographic analogy because it categories everyone into the same category, which is inaccurate to Kent.
3.) Kent, as well as other researchers, have made it clear that Wilmsen and Denbrows theory that early settlers were impacted by the Iron Age pastoralists. Yet there seems to be no evidence behind it and there for can not be proven to be true. Also she uses "space" during her archaeological research to show that the location and space needed for burials of women and men showed the job they did during the early periods.
4.) Well in some of the archaeological records of the Stone Age hunter-hunter gather group showed that women status among the society was very high. While in the Iron Age women's status was lower.
5.) First Kent states that studies in change must be through facts and not analogies about evidence that could be false or inaccurate. The second was how records started showing just how roles of men and women started showing up in the early iron age, where women did more domestic house hold duties and men took on the more agricultural roles.
East African Pastoralists:
1.To Diane a big issue with studying East African Pastoralists is that men was the central ideas behind it all and women's role seemed to play no roles like the men did. Everything important was attached to men and it drove Diane crazy with the fact women's role seemed so unimportant.
2.) Diane finds expectations to androcentric norms in the work of human ecologists and development economists, which included research from Wienpahl's and others on livestock management/household productions.
3.) Ceramic usage from Diane helped analysis the usage of material in certain places, what movements were involved between groups and who the potters were.
4.) First Diane points out that in archaeological research gender should not be loss methodology, meaning that we use things such as production, distribution, and consumption as huge things that play into the archaeological theories behind gender. Second Diane points out understanding the relations between people socially is a very complex situation that there is no simple way to describe or perceive social relations in humans.
Invisible Gender
ReplyDelete1. As I am not entirely caught up with readings from the past few classes, I am not able to make this specific conjecture. But, I was certainly able to finish the rest of this assignment for this post, as it was less relative to work I have missed and so far not gotten a chance to do retroactively.
2. Kent asserts that from archeological evidence, an ethnographic survey can be formed as to the division of labor of the society of the particular group, but only in certain cases. This is because sedentary peoples left more in the record; other nomadic peoples would not have been fairly represented herein, making any conclusions ill-informed.
3. With the approach as explained above, Kent approaches the Wilmsen-Denbrow conclusions about hunter-gatherer peoples with much speculation. She concludes it cannot be definitively said that such peoples were less prevalent than their sedentary counterparts for this reason as well as her conclusions based on evidence from hunter-gatherer sites. She determines from the spatial orientation of structures to deposits of different bones and artifacts at the Dunefield Midden Site that no gender nor function specific societal structures can be ascertained.
4. The first difference between stone age hunter-gatherers and iron age argopastoralists is that the societal need for a leader and therefore stratification of that society is more apparent in the latter group’s sedentary persuasion. This in turn leads gender to be more defined. Additionally, she postulates that even with spatial analysis of sites from either period, it is almost certainly too difficult to pair gender role with activity site accurately. Kent also formulates that initial archeological examination theory might be flawed, specifically the Central Cattle Pattern theory.
5. Generally, Kent’s ideas express a denunciation for the use of analogies as an ethnographical tool. They instead call for the use of a realistic, cross-contextual approach which even then leads conclusions of gender roles in a given society to seem based on insufficient evidence. She concludes punctually that gender roles/space were in fact probably not as defined as they are popularly conceived to be.
Early African Pastoralists
1. The first issue the author takes with studying this record is with those interpretations which are more inclined to make social and gender-related conclusions from it. In short, she believes that women are intrinsically less considered for certain roles in such interpretations.
2. The author identifies the work of ecologists as well as development economists to be a notable exception to the androcentric trend of archeological survey. Such approaches to the study of East African records tend to provide a more holistic and evidence-based understanding, leading to a more complete picture of gender function and position in these societies.
3. Through the study of ceramics in the record, Gifford-Gonzalez extrapolates the possible suggestion that gender roles were either more fluid or simply less certain as regularly conceived. It is through the trade of ceramics between hunter-gatherer and pastoral groups that she posits such relationship (and foreseeably intermarriage) suggest the need for both genders to perhaps occupy the same tasks. Through this evaluation Gifford-Gonzalez demonstrates how the hasty conclusions about gender in this study could prove entirely false.
4. The author in conclusion first reiterates that involving gender in ethnographical study should be done with far more caution. Much more must be considered in evaluating such a specific and profound aspect of societal existence. Secondly, she observes the imperative of approaching East African archaeology with stringent, evidence-based methodologies. Gifford-Gonzalez reminds all historians and archeologists to really and truly search not for conjecture, but for a highly definitive and deeply enlightening fixation on these peoples who came before us.
1. Kent would not agree with Lovejoys assessment because it is clear from the readings that Kent believes that all findings should be backed up with viable evidence. While some archeologists try to make assessments based on other findings, Kent believes that not all findings are gender specific.
ReplyDelete2. Kent uses ethnoarchaeology in order to use archaeology to gather ethnographic data. Ethnoarchaeology looks at cross- cultural ethnographies to gain insights into how people organize themselves through culture, behavior and several other aspects.
3. Kent argues against Wilmsen and Denbrow by backing up her rebuttal with other findings that included Blurton- Jones, O’Connell, and Hawkes. Kent centers her thoughts based on Sadrs findings. Sadrs findings indicate that based on the Late Stone Age/Early Iron Age archaeological record, there is little evidence to support their thoughts that degraded relationships with Bantu speakers occurred. Kent used space to further back up her claim by pointing out that a mobile hunter-gatherer habitation camp would not be visible archaeologically.
4. The archaeological records from that Iron Age seem quite varied and misinterpreted due to the scarcity of visible hunter- gatherer sites in the Kalahari, while sites in the Late Stone Age sites show several patterns and sites of aggregation. These aggregation phases are thought to have occurred during the dry season.
5. One of Kent’s main conclusions was that in order to produce a reliable historical dating/finding, it is pivotal that all findings should be based off of viable facts through cross cultural finding, behavioral patterns, interactions, etc. To Kent, all of these sources of information are better than analogical assumptions.
1. The challenge that she faces is the fact that the study of gender in Pre historic East Africa does not discuss the roles of both males and females (separately).
2. In discussing exceptions to androcentric norms, she discusses the research of livestock management and household production in Turkana homesteads, which she cited from McCabes, Dyson-Hudson, and Wienpahls.
3. She uses ceramic traditions to research how many social networks around East Africa could be closely connected. Through this discovery, it is likely that many groups cross boundaries and intermingled with one another.
4. Her first observation is that including gender in archaeological research need not entail loss of methodological thought. Her second observation was that as we begin to study human social relations, there will be a need for more complex methods and theories in research.
Invisible Gender
ReplyDelete1) Susan Kent would disagree about Lovejoy’s thesis, in my opinion. Kent believes that there is not gender separation in the prehistoric sites. Kent tries not to bring Western ideas into archeological sites .
2) Susan Kent uses a unique approach to gather ethnographic data called Ethnoarchaeology. Rather than using analogies that assumes how societies define gender, Kent looks at the cross-cultural ethnographies in order to gain insights into how people organize themselves and how it varies across different types of societies.
3) Kent, along with other anthropologists, has exposed multiple mistakes, misinterpretations, and inaccuracies in the claims of Wilmsen and Denbow. Wilmsen and Denbow say that there should be sites if foragers were not immediately and profoundly affected by Iron Age Pastoralists. Kent states that is Wilmsen and Denbow’s theory were to be true; there should be evidence to back it up, but there is no evidence to support their theory.
4) A couple of the differences between Stone Age sites and Iron Age sites are:
1) Iron Age sites are potentially greater in size and the number of objects located in the sites.
2) Iron Age sites typically contain more durable materials.
5) Some of Kent’s main conclusions are analogies cannot be used in order to study change in gender relations through time. Second, the only way to study gender in prehistory is to investigate spacial distributional patterning and densities at the excavation sites.
East African Pastoralists
1) Gifford-Gonzalez finds the lack of a female role in historical African society. This irritates her because it clearly shows the gender division of labor.
2) The exceptions are found in the work of human ecologists and development economists. Gifford-Gonzalez is supporting the work of McCabes, Dyson-Hudson, and Wienpahl’s research.
3) Gifford-Gonzalez uses ceramics in her argument to show the migration of groups of people and their cultures. It also shows that there possibly could have been trading going on between civilizations.
4) The two concluding observations about East African archeology are 1) including gender in archeological research need not entail loss of methodological rigor and 2) as our understanding of human social relations increases we must be open to all different types of theories instead of shutting them out.
Invisible Gender
ReplyDelete1. Susan Kent would dispute Lovejoy’s thesis that describes bipedalism beginning when monogamy became more prevalent in past societies. She argues that to have true understanding of the archaeological record, cultural diversity across past civilizations needs to be recognized and acknowledged. Therefore, gender will not be defined the same way in different societies throughout history.
2. Kent uses the archaeological record to study the people and cultures of the many different societies of the past, which is called ethnography. She avoids using analogies of western civilization when studying past societies and cultures. She also argues that more socio-politically complex societies do have stratification between genders in terms of space, material culture, activities, politics, and status.
3. Kent argues against Wilmsen and Denbrow, first, by explaining how many other anthropologists studying the Kalahari have found mistakes, misinterpretations, and overall inaccuracies within their claims. She writes that in this type of analysis it is important to look at the spatial patterning of objects within a site. Studying the use-wear of artifacts to understand if the tools are multipurpose or not.
4. One of the differences in the archaeological record between Stone Age and Iron age site that Kent discusses is how the sites are excavated. Following this, she states that in the Late Iron Age, stone walls were used to enclose women and their activities. This is evidence that men were “manipulating space to indicate their differences from and superiority to women”.
5. Kent’s main conclusions involve her argument that not all societies separate space by gender. She instead likes to view data with a blank slate without expecting to find evidence of a gender separated society. She believes that foragers in the Late Stone Age did not segregate space based on gender, unlike many other archaeologists. She also argues that Stone Age foragers did not segregate space based on gender, even if societies in the later Iron Age did.
East African Pastoralists:
1. Diane Gifford-Gonzalez argues that the main issue in the archaeology of East African pastoralists in that all accounts have been implicitly gendered. This is an issue because, within the archaeological context, women have never been accredited for a significant change in the culture. There is an overwhelming view that men were the “brains” behind the operation without giving a second thought to the idea that women could have actually been contributing members to a society.
2. Gifford-Gonzalez finds exceptions to androcentrism, the practice of placing male human beings and masculine points-of-view at the center of one’s world view and its culture and history, in the work of human ecologists and development economist. Her claims support the work of: McCabes and Dyson-Hudson, Wienpahl, Arhem, and Homewood and Rogers. These studies resulted in the documentation of both pastoral and agro-pastoral women’s actions and manipulation of major resources.
3. Gifford-Gonzalez uses ceramics to help her argument in terms of understanding the complex social interactions between different societies while also using them to analyze migration patterns. She uses the ceramics that crossed boundaries as an example that societies somehow coexisted.
4. She has two concluding observations about East African archaeology. The first being that the methodological accuracy should not be lost when including gender in archaeological research. Her second observation is that the methods and theories of the past need to be left there in order for us to move toward a more complex level of studying the social relations of past societies.
1. Kent would most likely strongly disagree with Lovejoy. A continuing theme in the article is that we cannot accurately understand how things worked in the era being discussed when we view them through the prism of how things are today. She disagrees with this way of understanding the past, and goes into great detail about how the Navajo set up their hogans and how due to the configuration of them future archaeologists could easily make mistakes in how duties were divided and what each gender did.
ReplyDelete2. Kent uses archaeological data to gather her ethnographic records by looking at how spaces were divided. She looks at "ethnographically consistent relationships," are more in line with how she believes we should attempt to understand the early cultures in Africa. She contrasts this with the currently prevailing model of "ethnographic analogy," which essentially takes the values of Western society and attempts to use them to understand the culture at question. Kent disagrees with doing this, as she argues that the early African cultures were not organized in a way that can be accurately understood via usage of Western cultural/gender norms.
3. Kent argues that the lack of hunter-gatherer sites is simply the result of most (all) of them being short-term settlements, as opposed to the comparatively much more sturdy and as a result more visible today pastoralist sites. She uses the fact that the areas around hearths indicate that there is a very high likelihood that both sexes used the spaces interchangeably, as well as the burial of the man and woman side by side along with a child to counter the argument.
4. Stone age sites are "easier" to excavate because of the relatively low(er) artifact count. This means that it is both easier and cheaper to excavate them, as they can be completely excavated over a fairly short period. Iron age sites on the other hand, require much more of an investment of time and money to completely excavate, due to the high numbers of artifacts present.
5. Kent presents the conclusion that the societies in question did not gender differentiate, mainly because the evidence is insufficient. She questions the diligence shown towards environmental recreations, but the asks why gender related questions/arguments are not treated in the same way. She also points out that late stone age sites are much more heavily controlled than equivalent early iron age sites, and points to this as a reason for the lack of conclusive evidence about gender.
1. Gifford-Gonzalez finds the fact that most research concentrates on what men did to be a challenge, as most histories have focused on that fact. Her interest is in how gender determined roles in early pastoralism, and it is hard to find information on what women did, mainly because very few have ever asked that question.
2. She has found exceptions to androcentrism in the work of human ecologists and developmental economists, as well as economic historians and anthropologists. She lists McCabe, Dyson-Hudson, Wienphal, Arhem, Homewood and Rogers, Kjekshus and Hakansson.
3. She utilizes the presence of the ceramics to demonstrate that there was in fact a way for trade to occur with far away peoples, as a way to demonstrate the mixing of cultures. She then uses this to show that there are/were aspects to the culture(s) in question that have been ignored by androcentrists.
4. She suggests that a social aspect needs to be considered when conducting archaeological studies, as the addition of this aspect will help to strengthen some arguments and weaken others, while overall increasing our understanding of the subject at hand. She also advocates for a "more complex level of inference." Due to the fact that this new approach would/will likely invalidate most earlier understanding of the facts presented
1. Susan Kent would disagree with Lovejoy's theory of monogamy and bipedalism because she argues that in less complex societies, certain tasks would not be gender-specific. If that is the case then there would be no need for women to be monogamous in order to have help raising children. Perhaps there was no division of labor and women could handle everything they needed to for themselves.
ReplyDelete2. Most archaeologists assume that most cultures have gender relations similar to their own. Kent realizes that culture is diverse and that gender and Behavior are influenced by a society's culture. Instead of using analogies to her own culture, she looks at cross-cultural ethnographies to gain insights into how people organize themselves (page 48 of the packet).
3. Kent uses a study by Sadr to help argue against the Wilsem-Denbow findings. Sadr concludes that there is little physical evidence to support the claim that hunter-gatherers were profoundly affected by a relationship with the Bantu-speakers. The fact that men and women are buried at the same sites leads Kent to the conclusion that gender stratification does not automatically occur in all societies.
4. There is a greater size and number of objects located at Iron Age sites (page 57 of the packet). Because of the popularity of the Central Cattle Pattern model, many archaeologists assume that gender stratification occurred during this stage.
5. Kent's first main conclusion is that it is not appropriate to use analogies to to study gender relations over time (page 60 of the packet) because if we use analogies, we imply that there was no change in societies over time. The only way to properly study gender in prehistory, which leads to an understanding of gender relations through time, is to investigate artifacts, spatial densities, site features and etc. The second main conclusion is that the reason for gender-segregated space in any society is based on how that culture is organized. Most forager sites that are not archaeologically visible, which Kent believes is because of poor excavation techniques, do not indicate the use of gendered space.
1. The author finds it challenging that "male agency is assumed for nearly any significant technological breakthrough or directional change in an organization" (page 64 of the packet). All accomplishments and creations are implicitly assumed the products of men, women are largely thought to be incapable of creating or using elaborate technology or art.
2. The author finds exceptions to Andoventrism is East Africa pastoral encampments, women are found tending adult livestock, nurturing children and young livestock, butchering and cooking animals, carrying water and firewood, making and cleaning houses and so much more. Her work supports McCabes and Dyson-Hudson's research on livestock management and household production, and it also supports Arhem's study of Massai divisions of labor and output amount households in the Serengeti Conservation area.
3. The phenomenon of Nderit ceramics allows us to explore a social approach to East African archaeological materials.
4. The first conclusion is that we must dispense sloppy thinking about the relations of ecology, technology, and production when dealing with archaeological research. The second conclusion is that we must innovate on what we know, while remaining committed to archaeology as an evidence-based and evidence-monitored practice, in order to get to where we want to go with our understanding of prehistoric people.
Invisible Gender:
ReplyDelete1. Susan Kent would say that Lovejoy’s thesis on bipedalism was inaccurate and sexist in a form. Ms. Kent would rebuttal that archaeologists should search for data and findings with an unbiased mindset of their westernized ways. When archaeologists are searching for artifacts, they should not always assume that gender roles played a big part in their findings. Ms. Kent would also say that we need more egalitarian archaeologists.
2. Susan Kent is all about researching relationships and not making inaccurate assumptions and analogies. She looks at cross-cultural relationships and what factors influence those relationships. She also states that hunter-gatherers have different concepts of gender that other archaeologists assumed where based on gender roles and patriarchy, but Susan Kent said their concepts were based on sociopolitical organization. Ms. Kent uses ethnoarchaeology, because it looks at different types of people and societies and does not try to cluster people into a similar category, as people usually do when talking about Africa.
3. Kent starts off with an argument against Wilmsen and Dendrow with a thorough study by Sadr, who concludes that there is little evidence for the degraded relationship between the hunter-gatherers and the bantu-speakers. Kent is saying that hunter-gatherers were a nomadic people, so there spatial sites were not preserved and therefore, “invisible.”
4. Late Stone Age foragers had aggregation/dispersal mobility patterns similar to Kalahari. Iron Age farmers and pastoralists were more dependent on water for their crops.
5. In conclusion, Kent is saying that archaeologists should not base gender roles and relations on analogies. She’s also saying that we should not assume that the gender roles in prehistoric times are the same as now. Instead of making analogies and inferring, scientists and archaeologists should perform cross-culturally valid ethnographic or ethno-archaeological models. Research relationships and behavior, which “cannot be accomplished with merely a few test pits or by evacuating a few trenches.” (Susan Kent).
East African Pastoralists
1. Diane finds challenging that male ethnographers seem to be blinded to women’s role because men dominated in most African pastoral societies. She finds challenging that recent accounts of pastoralism are androcentric, focused or centered on men. Once again, women are overlooked. Diane states that women are everywhere in East Africa pastoral encampments. Women prepare and cook the food, tend to livestock, raise and care after the children, carry water, clean and participate in other important function to keep the society running.
2. Diane finds exceptions to androcentrism in the work of human ecologists and development economists. She is supporting the work of McCabes, Dyson-Hudson’s and Wienpahl’s research on livestock management and household productions.
3. In her argument, Diane states that ceramics helped in advancing technology and social interactions. Ceramics helped to cross boundaries, which is a catalyst for trade and other factors.
4. Diane’s two concluding observations about East African archaeology are: Including gender in research should not interfere with the methodology, a system of methods used in a particular area of study or activity. So, it’s okay to include facts about gender, but do not be androcentric and biased. Secondly, scientists must remain committed to archaeology as an evidence-based and monitored practice. Stay true to the data!
Invisible Gender:
ReplyDelete1：I think Susan Kent disagree with Lovejoy's thesis on bipedalism and monogamy. She point out the previous human society is different than today society. Also she thought human activities are not depending on the gender which drives people to walk on two feet and monogamy. She prefers to use archeological records to approve early human behaviors.
2: ethnography is a branch of anthropology dealing with the scientific description of individual cultures.(dictionary.com) Kent gather around archeological records to study early human behaviors and its relationship with gender. She didn’t like ethnographical analogy because it will cause various results.
3: Kent argues against Wilmsen and Denbrow and start her argument by using others study. In Sadr’s study, it indicated that there are only a little archeological evidence shows the relationship between Bantu-speakers and hunter-gatherers as Wilmsen and Denbrow said. Also she used Sampson’s study which also provides numerous historic evidences to prove her point.
4: In the Stone Age, women have more receipt than Iron Age by comparing group of Basarwa. In the other way, people in Iron Age period need large amount of natural resources to make agriculture tools and weapons.
5: In the conclusion, she thought early human activities didn’t depend on gender and there are archeological records show men and women share the same space. Also she thought we shouldn’t be affected by modern idea of gender role and gets more accurate result by using archeological records.
East African Pastoralists:
1: Diane Gifford-Gonzalez found that is difficult for male ethnographers to work with female informants. Also it is difficult for her to infinite the gender role when she studied the ethnographic record of East African Pastorialists.
2: Gifford-Gonzalez finds exceptions to androcentrism from the research by McCabes and Dyson-Hudson. She thought pastoralists are not a men’s society. Women also play a major role in its culture like tending livestock, milking, and nurturing.
3: Gifford-Gonzalez utilizes ceramics to show the spreading of culture through trading. Also it shows the boundaries in east Africa are declining when people accept other countries’ culture.
4: The first concluding observation is gender need to have methodological rigor. We can consider gender as a factor in the production, distribution, and consumption in archaeological theory. Second, there is no single method or theory can suffice us as well as the earlier in the archaeological study of human social relation.
Part One:
ReplyDelete1. Susan Kent would suggest first that the monogamy theory is another example of theorists imposing their modern patriarchal cultural outlook onto a people of a different time period, similar to the kinds of analogous ethnographic study that Kent spends a decent amount of her paper arguing against. Kent would admit the monogamy theory sounds credible, especially to males whose dominance it seemingly affirms, but would dispel it by simply stating it has no firm evidence, similar to how this notion of separate gender-areas and male dominance in the late stone age falsely developed thanks to said analogous study.
2. Kent delves into the archaeological record to find ethnographic data by analyzing how spaces play a role in archaeology. Kent will review the excavation data of an archeological site and gather what she can on the social conditions of the site’s people by reviewing the placement of remains around the site, the traces of tools used at certain portions of the site, and piecing this together by drawing conclusions about the likely social tendencies of the people who once occupied the area.
3. Kent argues against Wilmsen and Densbrow mostly by considering Densbrow’s assertion that no archeological evidence of a purely independent foraging society essentially means there was not such a society. Kent first considers what remains would be expected of such a society, concluding that the answer is: very little. Hunter-gatherer societies boast a mobile nature, never having significant material possessions, never staying in one place long enough to create significant wear detectable on the archeological spectrum, and really rarely building structures durable enough to make an impression on the archaeological record (unlike the clay or dung structures of sedentary societies). Kent also notes that to assert that hunter-gatherer societies became entirely subservient to pastoralist societies or agricultural societies that dominated a significant water supply has little evidence. While a water source may have been shared, to suggest this means there is a dominance of the sedentary over the mobile society is unwarranted.
4. Some differences in the archaeological record between the Stone Age and the Iron Age sites include that excavation of Iron Age requires more time, money, and resources due to the more complex nature of the sites- being riddled with more objects and remains than their Stone Age counterparts. Another difference arises due to the popularity of Huffman’s Central Cattle Pattern model which is used to determine gender-specific areas in Iron Age sites.
5. Kent’s main conclusions of the argument are that both analogy and excavation influenced by the faulty assuming Central Cattle Pattern model are inadequate for accurately determining the possibility of significant gender separation in spaces of archaeological sites. And because of this, there is no reason to believe that late Stone Age societies utilized gendered space.
Part Two:
Delete1. Diane Gifford-Gonzalez finds studying the ethnographic past of East African pastoralists especially difficult for a handful of reasons: one being that most analyses (and excavations, for these are undoubtedly similarly influenced) of archaeological data assume a gender divide. And further, they make the mistake of applying their patriarchal viewpoint to potentially more egalitarian societies, suggesting males are responsible for all beautiful ceramic art or technological progress, for instance. The subsequent effect of this is an androcentric view of what is deemed important in ethnographic data. The supposed menial jobs of women such as childcare, care of livestock, care of home, are disregarded as insignificant in the archaeological record and are thrown by the waist-side.
2. Gifford-Gonzalez cites a significant number of researchers she supports that consider women’s role in the socioeconomic status of a society under study. For instance, Gifford-Gonzalez describes studies of economic systems and ecological systems based on the actions of those who control significant resources: women. Because of this, the ethnographic study of pastoralist societies in East Africa may be enhanced as there is now a clear need to identify the significance of women in distribution systems and economies of said societies.
3. Gifford-Gonzalez discusses at length the spread of particular styles of ceramics across Africa. Using this spread, she then goes into the reasoning for this spread, noting two prior theories on the possibility that the goods were traded-for by foraging societies or that these groups are “evidence of immigrating groups practicing a flexible mix of herding, foraging, and farming.” But she describes next what a social perspective of study would look like in this area: considering maybe that the ceramic trade was learned by bands of hunter-gatherers meeting and learning from other allied hunter-gatherers throughout their existence.
4. To conclude her argument, Gifford-Gonzalez notes two observations about the state of East African Pastoralist ethnographic research: one being that the use of gender in the study of the ethnography of these people is needed to tie together the loose ends of a far too androcentric study and the other being that a new method for archaeological research need be derived due to this changing nature of ethnographic study.
1. Kent would probably take issue with Lovejoy’s theory, stating that it retroactively projects today’s culture and patriarchy onto the fossil record. In this way, she would emphasize that Lovejoy’s theory follows the traditional archaeological pattern by explicitly placing gender into a time period where it may not have existed and assuming that gender is biologically implicit, rather than societally constructed.
ReplyDelete2. Kent place herself outside of the androcentric focus of archaeology and looks at the evidence, not with a modern bias, but from the point of view of the time period itself. She explains that today’s culture is irrelevant in terms of ethnography because of the change that has occurred in over the thousands of years since the period being studied.
3. Kent looks at the sites of fossils and artifacts, and by examining the faunal evidence, such as animal bones or ostrich eggshell beads, recreates the site and its functional areas as it would have been originally. She points to the use of certain areas, such as the cooking of food around the hearths, to show that some areas had specific, communal uses for example. Her point is that the culture of the humans being studied can be inferred from where spatially the fossils are found in relation to each other, which provides evidence as to how that space was used, and by whom.
4. Late Iron Age sites are more abundant and better preserved than sites from the Stone Age, creating a bias towards the Iron Age in the fossil record and therefore in archaeological study. Because of this, Kent argues that Stone Age sites had forager sites, but that they have been degraded by time, and are therefore now invisible.
5. Her main conclusions are that Stone Age sites, such as the Dunefield Midden, while showing evidence of function-specific sites, do not show evidence of gender-specific space. She argues against many previous archaeologists by saying that while Iron Age sites may be gendered, Stone Age sites were, backing her earlier claim that gender is not biologically inherent
1. Gifford-Gonzalez finds the traditionally androcentric archaeology to be troubling, especially the tendency to give male agency in places where it may not have actually existed.
2. She cites human ecologists and development economists such as McCabes and Dyson-Hudson, as well as Wienpahl’s research in the 80s.
3. She suggests that climate changes in Kenya saw the development of Nderit ceramics which forced local foraging populations to incorporate domesticated animals and pottery. This led to Elmenteitan ceramic traditions, which merged with and overlapped Nderit traditions while maintaining its inclusion of domesticated animals.
4. Her fist conclusion is that including gender does not suggest less stringent methods of archaeology, but rather more strict methods, due to the need for careful analysis to avoid incorrect interpretations. Her second conclusion is that as archaeology moves towards the study of human social relations, it must not leave behind it empirical, fact-based foundation in favor of inference.
Invisible Gender
ReplyDelete1. I believe Susan Kent would disagree with Lovejoy’s proposition on bipedalism and monogamy. Because she examines what influences the relationships when doing archaeological work rather than looking at things through a certain culture’s lens and projecting their current values on her study, she will come to disagree with the monogamy theory has it has biased reasoning behind it stemming from Lovey’s society. The difference between ethnoarchaeology and ethnographic analogy that Kent described helps separate why she would disagree with Lovejoy due to the different approach to examining cultures each one uses.
2. Kent utilizes archaeological records by not assuming when she finds things such as lithic tools that they were used by men because that is our contemporary view of men’s gender. Instead Kent looks at what conditions were they under that made up the gender of a society. She looks at the artifacts to determine if they had multiple uses and where the items were found near to help her conclude which activities each sex might have contributed to.
3. To argue against Wilmsen and Denbow, Kent uses a study by Sadr which she believes best contest the claim that “all modern Basarwa are only “degraded” pastoralists occupying the lowest niche in the Bantu-speaking Batswana hierarchy” (Kent 42). Sadr also concluded that there is little evidence for the degraded relationship with Bantu speakers. Kent also makes an argument using space when she says that “Aggregation sites, which also were occupied longer, are more archaeologically visible than are dispersed sites,” (Kent 43).
4. The lack of evident Hunter-gatherer sites in the Kalahari gave the Iron Age sites in the Northern part of the Kalahari an importance in the cultural history of the area. Whereas there is no evidence to how many “Late Stone-Age open-air, autonomous forager, single occupation sites remain visible,” (Kent 43). Bantu-speakers camps with longer occupations are more visible and prevalent in the Iron Age archaeological records. Also the Hunter-Gatherers of Iron Age and the foragers of the Stone Age lived two discernible lives.
5. One of Kent’s main conclusions is that because of the poor preservation of forger sites, the ones that are usable do not indicate the use of gendered space. Another conclusion she comes about is that gender segregation was more typical in more advanced societies in which hierarchy’s existed. She also states in her conclusion that gender relations didn’t just vary from time period but in different types of cultures also.
East African Pastoralists
1. What Diane Gifford-Gonzalez finds challenging about ethnographic record of East African Pastoralists is how agropastoralists stress the importance of “male actors” role in society. Because such a centrality is placed on men, the role that women played into society is often forgotten or not thought about also providing another challenge to studying ethnographic records of the East African Pastoralists.
2. The Massai women who often traveled in groups and far distances to trade is one exception to androcentrism. She is supporting Homewood and Rogers study of Massai subsistence strategies, Wienphal’s research on livestock management, and also Kjekshus and Hakansson on women’s roles locally and regionally.
3. Gifford-Gonzalez states that ceramic traditions “crossed boundaries between some lithic industries, suggesting a complex social situation “meaning that because these traditions appeared in many cultures for many different uses that there was intermingling of sorts and sharing between early East African cultures.
4. Gifford-Gonzalez first concluding observation about East African archaeology is thatwe shouldn’t lose our methodical ways in studying the artifacts but instead lose the weak understandings of our archaeological evidence through our biased thinking. Secondly, she concludes that we shouldn’t be complacent with the archaeological research methods already developed but rather improve upon and create new more complex methods to use.