Collecting, Caching, and Cooking: The Agency of Women in Hunting-Gathering Societies

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Decades of ethnographic and archaeological research has shown that women manage and perform many activities associated with food preparation and the manufacture of food processing implements in hunting-gathering societies around the world. This paper argues that dramatic shifts in Terminal Late Woodland (A.D. 1000-1600) subsistence strategies in the Northern Great Lakes region of North America were driven by the decision-making of women. Analysis of subterranean food storage containers (their construction and location), ceramic cookware (its construction and use), and evidence of associated foodstuffs supports the argument for a shift in focus to select abundant fall resources that could be collected in surplus, with minimal labor costs. The tasks of food collection, processing, and cooking, along with the manufacture of associated technologies, are traditionally accomplished by women, leading to the conclusion that these primary markers of subsistence change were controlled by women. The traditional division of labor, evidenced in ethnographic and ethnohistoric accounts, places women as agents of socioeconomic change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38088.0