Using a Sexualized Ritual Landscape to Ontographically Examine Hohokam Gender Stereotypes

Summary

Between approximately A.D. 800—1450, politically oriented religious movements flourished and withered throughout the Hohokam world of the Greater Southwest. The public architecture associated with these movements is some of the only remaining evidence that archaeologists have for their occurrence. While researchers have started to investigate how these movements were politically intertwined, in this paper we lay out an argument that their physical remains can also be used to ontographically examine gender stereotypes in the pre-textual past. To do this, we link sexual characteristics embodied by the public architecture of the Hohokam Ballcourt Society and the subsequent Platform Mound Society with the structure of each Society’s associated social and political organization to approach an ontographic understanding of gender stereotypes during those periods. An intersectional archaeology recognizes that multiple cultural dimensions and categories reflexively impact society at all scales, including at the individual scale. We argue that gender biases can be used to more effectively analyze archaeological data and interpret the experience of individuals who created the archaeological record.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Gender, Race, and Other Consequential Categories: Experiments in Intersectional Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16326