"Us the Hunters”: Evaluating Shifting Gender Dynamics of North American Paleolithic Researchers and Scholarship

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Gender in Archaeology over the Last 30+ Years" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The number of women in Paleolithic archaeology has increased over the last 30 years, following the trend in the field in general. In the United States and Canada, the number of men and women in tenure track positions is nearly equivalent, yet this equality masks considerable imbalance when considering the seniority of these professors. Male professors are more likely to be in positions of power in their institutions but are also more likely to be seen as leaders in the field and to be perceived as the voices of Paleolithic archaeology. This last point is starkly expressed when viewing the representation of human origins “experts” in the public media. As a result, the way that gender roles and dynamics are interpreted in the Paleolithic archaeological record is often perceived through an androcentric bias. In this paper, we evaluate the changing demographics of Paleolithic archaeology researchers, assessing whether these changes impact how Paleolithic gender is interpreted in scholarship and by the public.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Gender in Archaeology over the Last 30+ Years   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39909.0