Contact Jacalyn C. Spoon
A critique of ‘Gender in African prehistory’
by Jacalyn C. Spoon
April 17, 1998
Gender in African prehistory edited by Susan Kent Published by Altimira press in 1998 is the first book created to exclusively examine gender using the African archaeological record. This, an introduction for students of archaeology, introduces the many aspects of gendered archaeology as they relate to different time periods, and theoretical orientations not necessarily related exclusively to the content of Africa. Divided into three parts, the introduction written by Susan Kent serves as chapter one the first part of the book. Part two titled “perspectives of gender from the African archaeological” consists of chapters 2 through 13. Part three chapters 14 through 16 is titled “commentaries and perspectives”. Also provided is an extensive bibliography, information about the authors and an index.
The introduction points out problems with past and present archaeological concentration being primarily on the environment in prehistory. Contrasting study in sharing, gender, stratification and other facets of culture are lacking from many studies and Ms. Kent laments that “if we had spent as much time, money and effort on studying gender and sociopolitical organization we would probably have as much info about it” as we do environments (9). She further points out that environments may be modified by us, but only culture is created by humans. This statement in the introduction is most likely aiming to focus the readers attention on the humanistic nature of the study of anthropology, and the relationships between anthropology and archaeology. Under the sub topic ’Why Gender?‘ we are given the easiest to understand definition of gender in all the readings of our class. Gender is explained as a concept in basic terms that are easy to understand and comprehend.
The substance of the book appears in part two, ‘perspectives of gender from the African archaeological record’. I will examine part two in three subsections, Stone age, Iron age and pastoralist’s.
Stone age
In chapter two by John Parkington titled ‘resolving the past: Gender in the stone age archaeological record of the western cape’ Parkington investigates male female social relationships. He examines ethnography, rock art, burials, stone tools and faunal remains and relates them to the archeological record. Chapter three: Invisible gender - invisible foragers: Southern African hunter-gatherer spatial patterning and the archaeological record by Susan Kent.
I found chapter four ’the invisible meat providers: Women in the stone age of South Africa’ by Lyn Wadley fascinating. Ms. Wadley helped me to understand the idea of the hunt in relation to a real life search for food. She explains the specifics of hunting in a way that I had not previously considered, the dynamics of small group hunting and large group hunting are discussed. Introduced is the idea that large groups of people hunting together could be using nets to trap an animal rather then just spears alone. She explains that a small group would not have the numbers needed for the spear and net operations but would need to use bow and arrow, trapping or snaring of small game to procure meat. She points out that eating shellfish is another food source that completely reduces intergroup dependency and could be seen also as a gender segregating.
Ms. Wadley in a move to show lithics creations by women points to lithics wear analysis associated with plant fibers as well as meat to show that the same people processing plants are also processing meats thus creating an idea that lithics could have been made by anyone needing a blade. Ms. Wadley sets out to show gender diversity in stone age in food procurement and accomplishes this task.
Chapter five by Joanna Casey ‘just a formality: The presence of fancy projectile points in a basic tool assemblage’ Is devoted to understanding the connection between sedentism (or mobility changes) and stone tool styles as they relate to new social relationships. She asks, why would people devote time and labor to making elaborately worked tools that may not function more efficiently than less ostentatious ones. She provides examples of past scholarly thought on the many functions of stone tools and the relationship to procurement of raw materials for their manufacture. Provided are archaeological examples relating to the topic primarily revolving around the Kintampo peoples of Northern Ghana.
Pastoralist’s
Chapters six, seven and twelve could easily be placed under one category of pastoralist’s. Regardless of time periods represented all three of these chapters deals with the topic of the relationship of cattle herding and social relationships among people. Chapter six by Barbara Barich ‘Social viability among Holocene Saharan groups: How to recognize gender’ introduces the idea that herding reduced the female role among the cattle herders. Investigation is made into the transition from a gathering economy, integrated with herd tending to a pastoral-based economy and how this change relates to the changes in the womans role and status. Her work is based primarily upon interpretation of rock art examples from the Central Sahara between approximately 10,000 to 6,000 BP. Closely related to this work is the following chapter seven: Gender and early pastoralist’s in East Africa by Diane Gifford-Gonzalez. She seeks to answer the questions: What can we realistically hope to recover of the social or ideological context in which prehistoric pastoralist’s lived? And how? Africans pastoralists pictures (on rock art and ceramics) define sex and gender roles as producers and consumers known archaeology evidence w/in more socially and gender- conscious context. The potential pitfalls of direct historical approach (122) are discussed.
Iron age
Chapters eight, nine, ten, eleven and thirteen are all relative to the iron age and genderd practices and spaces. They are not centered in one area or even one true time period but all deal with the association between iron smelting and gender roles. Variations of genderd roles in the life of individual are also explored. Although often difficult to follow chapter eight: Reading gender in the ancient iron technology of Africa by Peter Schnidt gives a good overview of the links between iron smelting and fertility rituals. The structure of the smelting furnace as it relates to the structure of the female body and birth as it relates to the production of iron.
Chapter ten: Engendered spaces bodily practices in the iron age of Southern Africa by Paul Lane
shows relationships between male and female genderd spaces in and around the household and their relationship to the cattle, the Central Cattle Pattern model and the Zimbabwe patterns are introduced. Discussion of gynecomorphic symbolism of settlement patterns and individual houses at several sites and the use of the inside of houses in relation to genderd roles are discussed. This chapter could easily have been used as a transition from the articles dealing strictly with pastoralism into those dealing with iron smelting.
Men and women in a market economy: Gender and craft production in West Central Ghana c.1775-1995 by Ann B. Stahl and Maria das Dores Cruz appearing as Chapter eleven deals with analysis of changes through time between production and the gender of the producer. Many ethnographic examples are given focusing mainly on the Banda of West central Ghana in contemporary times and the gender / role changes they have made to stay competitive in their economy, with the production of pottery being the main economic focus. An overview of changes in African historical times due to conflicts between native peoples and between native peoples and the British was useful but often seemed to be too far removed from the original goal of examining the prehistory of the African continent.
Part three ‘commentaries and perspectives’ provides us with the opinions of respected archaeologists although not always specialists in African prehistory they provide their critique of the articles based often on their contributions to the engendering prehistory and presentation.
This book is geared toward persons with some background in archaeology especially African archaeology and ethnography. Kent sets up the book by stating that it will provide “methods and theories for delineating and discussing prehistoric gender relations”(9) while understanding change through time, and remaining relevant to all geographic areas and time periods. Yet in part three chapter fifteen we read Bar-Yosef and Anna Belfer-Cohen disagreeing with this premace, or preface, saying that not in all societies can genderd activities be determined. Yet, they agree that studying the role of the individual male or female is an exciting challenge for archaeologists.
They agree that environmental, ecological and social factors explain changes observed in the
archaeological record (284). In the introduction Ms. Kent admits to readers that not all authors will agree with each other, she points to this as a positive studying tool, adding variety. It appears that Ms. Kent is suggesting a new field speciality, one that will rewrite standard archaeological texts with an eye for the whole community not just the men? She has included the work of men and women in this text seeing genderd work in archaeology being done by not only the feminists.
A reorganization would be a wonderful investment into an already very useful book. It would have been better organized if divided into more appropriate parts, with the introduction serving as simply that an introduction void of chapter designation. If the designations of stone age and iron age had been used to further define part 2 I believe that those of us less knowledgeable about archaeology and / or Africa could have understood the flow of the book more easily.
While overall Gender in African Prehistory presents many well written articles by knowledgeable authors, many of the articles left me scratching my head, wondering what I had just read. Many of the articles should have provided more introductory background to be a fully useful as an undergraduate text.