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Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, VoL 5, No. L 1998

Gender-Informed Archaeology: The Priority of Definition, the Use of Analog and the Multivariate Approach Eriea HilP

Despite recent efforts to construct gender theory in archaeology, I assert that no methodological or theoretical breakthroughs have occurrecL This lack of progress is due to several factors. First, fundamental terms such as "theory, '" "gender," and "sex" have been used inconsistently; I suggest some working definitions for these terms. Second, researchers have resorted to the use of analogical arguments that implicitly deny the role of gender in the organization of human relations. Third, feminist political agendas have been conflated with research questions. In order to address some of these issues, I suggest that the application of a multivariate approach to the study of gender can avoid the problems inherent in any one line of evidence. Finally, ! argue that a consideration of the scale of gender questions is essential to the application of existing theoretical frameworks to gender archaeologically. KEY WORDS: analogy in archaeology;gender relations; Bernardino de Sahagdn; archaeological method and theory; multivariate approach.

INTRODUCTION The gender question in archaeology--essentially how to address the presence of women and men in the past and the multiple ways in which their relations were structured--has received increasing attention during the past two decades. However, the study of gender archaeologically has been plagued by numerous problems. The lack of progress in the archaeological study of gender is due to (1) the inconsistent use of fundamental terms, (2) a fundamental flaw in how gender has been situated within existing theo1Department of Anthropology, Universityof New Mexico,Albuquerque, New Mexico87131. 99 1072.-5369/98/0300-0099515.00/0O 1998 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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retical frameworks that organize archaeological inquiry, (3) the adherence to analogy-based arguments that reify gender categories, (4) the conflation of feminist politics and engendered archaeology; and finally, (5) the overreliance upon a single line of evidence. This paper illustrates each of these flaws and suggests ways in which these issues may be addressed. First, I suggest that the terms employed in "engendered" archaeology frequently are used inconsistently or simply not defined. These terms include such fundamentals as "theory,.... gender," and "sex." I indicate possible working definitions that may be used to alleviate this problem. Second, I demonstrate that existing theoretical frameworks have the potential to incorporate gender issues into their research questions (contra Brumfiel, 1992, pp. 551-553) and that an entirely new theoretical framework--what has been loosely termed "feminist" or "gender" theory--is at best an intellectual exercise. At worst, attempts to construct "feminist" theory are a means of further isolating gender issues from mainstream research by locating them beyond the purview of those who do not identify themselves as "feminists" but who may have an interest in gender nevertheless (Moore, 1988, p. 11). Third, I demonstrate some of the problems involved in the use of analogical arguments for gender-informed archaeology. Specifically, these problems are the neglect of source context and uniformitarian assumptions. Fourth, I illustrate the problems of linking political and scholarly pursuits, contra the perspective, held by some postprocessualists, that the conflation of politics and research is not only unavoidable, but even desirable (Shanks and Tilley, 1987; Tilley, 1993, pp. 21-22). I am not suggesting here that totally objective archaeological work is either possible or particularly desirable, only that overtly politicized archaeology is problematic. Finally, I demonstrate the utility of a multivariate approach to gender questions in which extant theoretical and methodological frameworks are employed and argue that the scale of gender questions is an essential consideration in engendered research.

THE PRIORITY OF DEFINITION: THEOR'~ GENDER, AND SEX

Gender is relevant to the most fundamental concerns of archaeology-for example, questions of household organization, status, division of labor (Conkey and Gero, 1991, p. 17), and production and ideology (Gilchrist, 1994; Scrensen, 1992). Although embedded in the fundamental structures of human organization, gender categories have been reified and the study of gender has been marginalized in the discipline (Gilchrist, 1991; Rosaldo,

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1980, p. 393; Spencer-Wood, 1991, p. 236). Much of the literature on gender-informed archaeology has followed the lead of Conkey and Spector (1984) in decrying the lack of progress in the study of gender archaeologically (e.g., Whelan, 1991a; Wylie, 1992a) but has not contributed to either theory construction or methodological advances. A major problem lies in the inconsistent use of basic terms, including "theory," "gender," and "sex." Theory. One of the primary problems in applying feminist conceptual frameworks to archaeology is that no programmatic statement of what actually constitutes "feminist theory" and its role in prehistoric archaeology has emerged (Maynard, 1995). The words "theory" and "theoretical" are often used in the archaeological literature to refer to sets of ideas, rather than to a unified conceptual framework. Conkey and Tringham (1995, p. 230), for example, suggest that "feminist theory is about the dialogics of interpretation; a n d . . , feminist theory provides a wealth of ideas and information about gender and social lives" (my italics). Note here that "theory" is employed in descriptive rather than definitional terms. I would suggest that what Conkey and Tringham (1995) describe is not theory at all. Rather, what they term "theory" is actually a component of the feminist-inspired critique of archaeological practice. I restrict the use of the term "theory" here to refer to a conceptual framework that provides the foundation for explanation. Gender. The feminist-inspired critique of archaeological practice has increased awareness of the androcentric abuses of earlier research (Gilchrist, 1991, p. 499), contributed to a critical appraisal of how knowledge about the past is generated (Conkey and Tringham, 1995, p. 231; Nelson, 1990), expanded and clarified our conceptions of gender as an organizing principle (Gilchrist, 1991; Stanton and Stewart, 1995), and contributed to an ongoing discussion of how to conceptualize gender and sex. "Gender" is a complex term; its manifestation in the archaeological record is the product of cultural constructions that are highly variable both temporally and spatially (Silverblatt, 1995). The terms "sex" and "gender" are no longer considered to be interchangeable (Lerner, 1986; Nicholson, 1994; Rubin, 1975; Seifert, 1991). Cross-cultural research, for example, has convincingly demonstrated the expansiveness of the concept of gender through fieldwork in societies that do not adhere to a male-female dichotomy but, rather, include a third or even a fourth gender category (e.g., Blackwood, 1984; CaUender and Kochems, 1983; Herdt, 1994; Hollimon, 1997; Meigs, 1990). Fieldwork of this sort challenges the habitual reduction of the concept of gender to the pervasive male-female dichotomy (Gilchrist, 1994; Whelan, 1991a). Sex. The complexity of the term "sex" has contributed to the emergence of a new perspective that argues that the concept of biological "sex"

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is essentialist, a product of supposed scientific "objectivity" (Sorensen 1992). This perspective rejects the sex/gender dichotomy on the basis that it promotes a form of biological determinism that denies humans the ability to transform themselves (Butler, 1990, pp. 6--9; Nicholson, 1994, pp. 81-82). Furthermore, this perspective rejects the assumption that biological sex is the basis for the cultural categories of "male" and "female" in all societies (Moore, 1993, p. 197, 1994). This reworking of the concepts of sex and gender supports the view that sex is a social construct formed by discursive practices (Butler, 1993, p. 1). Few North American archaeologists have delved into this arena of research yet, despite its implications for engendering prehistory. Rather, these new perspectives on sex have been, in general, proposed by feminist philosophers such as Butler and Nicholson and are only now beginning to reach archaeology (e.g., Meskell, 1996, 1997). Implicit in this philosophical critique is that the scientific determination of biological sex--so important in the Western tradition of biological anthropology--may have been less meaningful prehistorically. That is, those physical characteristics we use to designate one sex or the other may not be components of sexual identity cross-culturally. There is thus no one-toone correspondence between biological sex and personal sexual identity (Claassen, 1992; Moore, 1993; Yates, 1993). This approach treats sexual identity as fluid, not subject to the normative male-female dichotomy (Meskell, 1996). Accompanying this change in the conceptualization of sex and gender is a move away from the idea of universals in women's experience (Dobres, 1988; Lamphere, 1987, p. 21; Maynard, 1995; Moore, 1993)--shared oppression, resistance, and negotiation, for example--toward an interest in difference, a recognition that a diversity of human experiences of sex, ethnicity, race, class, and kinship structures exists (Joyce and Claassen, 1997, pp. 7-8; Meskell, 1997; Moore, 1988, p. 11, 1994, Chap. 1; Silverblatt, 1995; Webb and Frankel, 1995, p. 106; Wylie, 1992a). Some Definitions. For the purposes of this discussion, the term "gender" refers here to one of several culturally constructed categories of difference that cross-cut human groups on the basis of perceived biological, racial, class, and ethnic characteristics. Given the plasticity of gender and sex and the ambiguity accompanying the use of these concepts in academic discourse, I suggest that scholars attempt to specify whether the reference is to biological sex (in the Western scientific sense of biological sex, i.e., primary and secondary sexual characteristics) or to socially constructed and inherently ambiguous cultural categories. Despite those who have called for theoretical guidance in formulating questions and structuring approaches to gender archaeologically (e.g., Sr 1992), feminist theory-as-conceptual-framework has proved to be

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elusive. Significant methodological advances have likewise proved to be problematic. Only one methodology with specific applications to gender has been developed. This is the task differentiation approach, which uses ethnohistoric and native informant accounts to address gender-specific tasks and their material/spatial dimensions in the past (Spector, 1983, 1991; see also Brumbach and Jarvenpa, 1997, p. 415). Spector (1991, p. 393) later discarded this approach, in part because of the biases inherent in documentary sources. The lack of a specifically feminist methodology has not hindered attempts to address gender archaeologically. Conkey and Gero (1991, p. 11) state categorically that they "do not see that a feminist approach to archaeology is dependent upon some sort of methodological breakthrough." Additionally, Gilchrist (1991, p. 498) notes that "[g]ender is no longer considered a problem of methodology. . . . " As an example, not one article in an entire issue of the Journal of Anthropological Research (1995) devoted to the archaeology of gender employed a new methodology. Rather, the sources of data and the means of analysis were those that have traditionally formed the basis for archaeological analysis: ceramic compositional data, groundstone morphology, mortuary goods, and skeletal analysis (Spielmann, 1995, p. 92). Existing theoretical frameworks provide both the conceptual basis and the methodologies to deal with questions of gender (Skibo and Schiffer, 1995, p. 81; cf. S0rensen, 1992, p. 34). A "feminist theory" that will supposedly provide new methodologies has proved to be unnecessary to the study of gender archaeologically. In fact, attempts to work beyond existing theoretical structures, within a feminist sphere, have resulted in an unfortunate politicization of archaeological research (e.g., Gimbutas, 1982, 1989, 1991) or in the use of flawed analogies. In order to avoid these problems, one possible approach, which uses multiple lines of evidence and can be employed within any theoretical framework, is presented below. First, however, I discuss how existing conceptual frameworks may be used to structure research on gender.

GENDER-INFORMED ARCHAEOLOGY AND EXISTING THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS

As discussed above, the primary objectives of gender-informed archaeology can be addressed by theoretical frameworks that have already been productively applied to other archaeological questions (Skibo and Schiffer, 1995, p. 81). The first objective is the construction of a more holistic record in which gender relations are a focus of study. A concentration on women,

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as gendered archaeological research is often conceptualized, falls victim to the same bias that feminist anthropologists have criticized for decades (Meskell, 1995). That bias is the concentration on the interests and the past of only half of the human population (Conkey and Spector, 1984). Therefore, the focus here is on gender relations, not genderper se. Gender relations encompass social interactions between women and men as well as the exertion of political power or social influence and the ways in which gender roles structure or determine adaptations to social or ecological factors (Conkey and Spector, 1984, pp. 19-20). The second objective of an archaeology of gender is the continued critical assessment of assumptions, inferences and research questions. The questions asked, the samples chosen, and the conclusions reached by previous androcentric archaeological research have been the targets of intense criticism (Conkey and Spector, 1984; Engelstad, 1991; Wylie, 1991, 1992b). Critical reassessments within any theoretical perspective are invaluable to archaeology; nothing within existing theoretical frameworks--whether evolutionary, Marxist, processual, or postprocessual--prevents a reexamination of these issues. It is the practitioners and their applications of theory that are inherently biased, not the frameworks themselves. For example, frameworks that address system-level variables "selectively [direct] attention to certain categories.., that exclude women or gender" (Wylie, 1991, p. 37; my italics). The variables are selected by archaeological practitioners, who, in light of feminist critiques, have begun selecting gender as a variable. Thus, we cannot reject the frameworks of Darwinian evolutionary, Marxist, and processual archaeological theory as inherently flawed--i.e., androcentric--unless we also dismiss their potential contributions to work on questions of gender relations. Let us take evolutionary theory as an example. Virtually every introductory archaeology book includes a discussion of human evolution. It is almost a given that these discussions will include an illustration of the "progression" from short, furry Australopithecines to upright, nearly hairless Homo sapiens sapiens carrying that ubiquitous weapon of destruction, the spear. The Australopithecine, Homo sapiens sapiens, and every evolutionary stage in between are invariably represented as male (Conkey with Williams, 1991, p. 117; Lamphere, 1987, p. 25). This representation is incorrect not only from an evolutionary perspective-i.e., human evolution did not occur along a linear trajectory--but also from a gendered one. It represents the male as the standard unit of evolution and portrays him with artifacts "assigned" to males. Fedigan (1986, pp. 59-60) has suggested that evolutionary narratives are casting the male as hero in the tradition of Western storytelling. Thus, males in an evolutionary context tend to be characterized as strong and active (often hunting)


(Lamphere, 1987, p. 25), while women are generally portrayed as limited by the responsibilities of gathering and child-rearing. This problem does not stem directly from evolutionary theory; rather, the problem lies in how this theory has been applied to the archaeological or paleontological evidence. The point of contention lies within the realm of practice. Nothing about the evidence for human evolution or evolutionary theory suggests that males are or should be the unit of analysis (Hurcombe, 1995, pp. 8889). Scholarly interpretation, however, has given the evidence a neat little sexist twist so that it appears that way. This is interpretation, not theory. Wylie (1991) has outlined ways in which the application of archaeological theories has contributed to the neglect of gender issues. While these theories do not explicitly deny the usefulness of gender for addressing substantive issues, their application has produced that result. I suggest here that the concentration upon large-scale variables has been used to justify the neglect of gender questions on the basis that gender is a small-scale internal variable. Gender questions are thus avoided through the study of variables or issues to which gender is perceived as irrelevant (Wylie, 1991, p. 37), such as climatic change and settlement patterns. The frameworks of processual archaeology and systems analysis "endorse a preoccupation with large-scale (system-level) processes of development at the expense of any consideration of internal, local structuring principles like gender" (Wylie, 1991, p. 34). Indeed, the preoccupation with large-scale systems can perpetuate the omission of women from the record when women are subsumed under generic theoretical and methodological assumptions that take the male as the standard unit of analysis. However, if we conceptualize gender as an organizing principle in social reproduction and economic organization, and if gender relations are viewed as the product of broad spectrum social relations as well as microlevel interactions, then perhaps processual or systems level approaches can be used to study gender (Wylie, 1992a). Wylie (1991, p. 35) notes that "it cannot be determined a priori that gender lies outside the scope of systemic analysis." In order to incorporate gender into these theoretical frameworks, then, gender must be reconceptualized in terms of scale, i.e., as a large-scale organizing principle, as opposed to a small-scale internal variable. While the conceptualization of gender in large-scale terms may be productive within a processual or systems framework, there is also significant potential for the study of gender at a smaller scale. For example, the roles of individuals or specific groups of individuals may be more accessible at a microlevel. For some questions, the scale in the systems approach becomes particularly problematic because of the specificity of the archaeological record itself and the potential loss of relevant explanatory detail (Conkey and Spector, 1984, p. 23; Wylie, 1991, p. 47). For questions that

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address intrasite spatial organization (as opposed to settlement patterns) or the social relations of food production (as opposed to a more general characterization of subsistence practices), it may be more appropriate to conceptualize gender as a small-scale variable. One of the great potentials of gender as a variable in archaeological inquiry is its flexibility in terms of scale. Depending on whether the approach employed is processual or contextual, for example, the scale at which gender is conceptualized can be manipulated in order to address a given research question. This question of scale is discussed in greater detail below. As I have suggested above, no unified gender theory has emerged. As a result, researchers have been employing existing theoretical and methodological frameworks to address gender questions (Spielmarm, 1995). So while resources do exist for productively exploring gender issues [Hodder's (1990) contextual analysis of Neolithic space, for example], methodologically these resources have been employed somewhat perfunctorily. Analogical arguments, in particular, have proven to be problematic. ANALOGIES: CONTEXTUAL CONSIDERATIONS AND UNIFORMITARIAN ASSUMPTIONS To date, a central problem in archaeological approaches to gender has been an overreliance upon ethnographic or ethnohistoric analogy (e.g., Guenther, 1991; Hastorf, 1991; Hughes, 1991; McCafferty and McCafferty, 1994; O'Brien, 1990) or cross-cultural generalizations (e.g., Skibo and Schiller, 1995). Conkey and Gero (1991, p. 18) acknowledge that these forms of argument have been the basis for most work on gender in prehistory; however, the neglect of analogical context and the flaws inherent in uniforrnitarian assumptions have made these approaches to gender in prehistory problematic. The problems inherent in analogy have been discussed at length (Ascher, 1961; Birrford, 1967; Chaflton, 1981; Dunnell, 1978, 1992; Gould and Watson, 1982; Salmon, 1982; Wobst, 1978; Wylie, 1982, 1985, 1989). Yet gender analogies are frequently used without appropriate consideration for the cultural context from which they are derived. This is not a problem with the application of analogy to gender questions alone but, rather, with the use of analogies in general. An appropriate analysis of context imposes considerable restrictions upon the use of analogy by highlighting problems of relevance (Dunnell, 1978; Hodder, 1986, pp. 148-149; Salmon, 1982, pp. 59-61). Analogical arguments also tend to reify categories, gender categories in particular, through implicit uniformitarian assumptions (Gould, 1978). This tendency leads to conceptualizations of gender that deny


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change through time, supporting the assumption that the condition of women is diachronically consistent. Indirectly, this uniformitarian conception of gender undermines explorations of cultural dynamics (Wylie, 1991, p. 34). Take, for example, Brumfiel's (1991) paper in the volume Engendering Archaeology. Brurrffiel argues for women's contributions to production in Aztec Mexico on the basis of ethnohistoric documents. She does make the standard disclaimers in applying ethnohistoric documents to the prehistoric record: "[D]ocuments provide a helpful initial definition of women's production in Aztec society, but their value is limited" (1991, p. 224) and "[a] particularistic and ahistorical record is especially regrettable because it plays to our own cultural prejudices . . . Thus, the ethnohistoric record conspires with Western culture to encourage us to treat women's production as a nondynamic element in Aztec history, a constant to be acknowledged and then ignored in reconstructing the process of social change" (1991, pp. 224-226). Having made these statements, Brumfiel (1991) relies entirely upon two pictorial codices for evidence that women wove and cooked prior to European contact. In this case, the source and subject contexts for the analogy are historically linked and subject to the same ecological factors. However, the analogue and the archaeological subject cannot be assumed to be similarly structured in terms of social organization. The following critique of Brunffiel's work illustrates two points: first, that the neglect of the historical context of ethnohistoric or ethnographic sources dramatically impacts their use (Fratt, 1991; Trigger, 1982) and, second, that analogical arguments deny the basic premise that gender relations are part of a historical process that cannot be apprehended using arguments founded in uniformitarian assumptions. Analogical Context. Brurnfiel (1991) focuses on evidence from the Florentine Codex, a document assembled by a Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagfin, in 16th-century colonial Mexico. Sahagtin is credited with relying heavily upon native informants for his information and is generally perceived as having a relatively enlightened perspective on those he was charged with converting to the Catholic Church (D'Olwer, 1952). Nevertheless, Sahagfin was working within a framework established by the Church in New Spain. Sahagfm himself states categorically that the Spanish mandate in the Americas was the salvation of the inhabitants. Specifically, the friars were charged with converting the inhabitants of New Spain to the Catholic Church and instructing them in the Christian religion so that they might "escape the hands of the devils, and . . . attain the Kingdom of Heaven" [Sahagtin [1569] (1950-1982), Appendix to Book 1, Prologue]. This commitment undoubtedly influenced the content of Sahagfin's corn-

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mentary (Calnek, 1974) as well as the format of pictorial representations, which are notably within the European tradition (Keber, 1988, p. 208; Peterson, 1988; Robertson, 1974). Irene Silverblatt (1991, p. 161) noted, in her discussion of ethnohistory, that traditional sources, including missionary accounts, "were written with a purpose and sometimes with a vengeance." Thus, it is essential to address not only authorial intent in ethnohistoric sources, but also the "unconscious prejudices of culture and class, of society and gender [that] permeate documents just as they permeate our analytical apparatus" (Silverblatt, 1991, p. 161; see also Fratt, 1991). In particular, Sahagfin's association with the Catholic Church, his mission to replace the religion of the Aztecs with Christianity (Klor de Alva et al., 1988, p. 5), and his "millenarian ideals" undoubtedly influenced his representations of the Indians of New Spain (Calnek, 1974, p. 189), just as such commitments did elsewhere in the colonial world (Silverblatt, 1987). Furthermore, the information for the Codex was recorded using informants who were apparently prominent elders (principales ancianos) (D'Olwer, 1952, p. 54; Klor de Alva, 1988b, p. 87; Lockhart, 1993, p. 27). It is unclear whether women acted as informants; thus it is possible that all of the information collected by Sahagtin was provided by older men. This is problematic given the application of Sahagtln's research to gender questions, specifically the productive activities of women in Aztec society. In addition, Calnek (1974) has suggested that the informants Sahagtin employed in writing the Historia were native elites and has effectively challenged the accuracy of their descriptions of the conditions of nonelites. While it is inappropriate to criticize Sahagtin on the basis of modern anthropological fieldwork techniques, the real possibility that his informants were exclusively male members of an elite class indicates that depictions of at least certain groups of women (nonelites, for example) may not have been either accurate or complete. Immediately apparent in the text of the Codex is the tendency to idealize and generalize. For example, a good cook is "honest, discreet . . . . She is clean, one who bathes herself; prudent; one who washes her hands, who washes herself," whereas a bad cook is "dishonest, detestable, nauseating, offensive to others--sweaty, crude, gluttonous, stuffed, distended with food . . . acquisitive. . . . She is a field h a n d . . , very much a commoner" [Sahagfin [1569] (1950-1982), Book 10, Chap. 14]. Dichotomies such as these persist throughout the text of the Codex; women, men, and activities are depicted and described as either "good" or "evil" and accounts of men are placed in opposition to those of women. Intended for a European audience, the Historia was constructed to represent Western cognitive categories for sociocultural phenomena. Thus,


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good and evil, men and women, are represented as polar opposites, disregarding both the definition of "good" in Nahuatl cosmology as a balance between order and chaos (Klor de Alva, 1988a, pp. 48-50) and the absence of strictly segregated spheres of activity for men and women prior to Spanish entrenchment (Kellogg, 1995). Thus, the basic assumptions of Sahagtin's Historia regarding the roles of men and women--their appearance, behavior, political and social structure, and ideologies--are reflections and constructions of 16th-century Spanish Catholicism. Native women and their activities, in particular, appear as colonial versions of Western stereotypes (Silverblatt, 1978, 1991, p. 162). So, despite the relativety enlightened perspective Sahagfin may have brought to his work, one cannot view him as an idealized protoanthropologist who was unwittingly setting the standard for professional ethnography (Lockhart, 1993, pp. 28-29). Furthermore, the use of Sahagaan's Historia as a source of analogies is insupportable. When analogies are made on the basis of such information, the biases inherent in the ethnohistoric record are directly inherited by the archaeologist. For this reason, I suggest that the proper role of analogy and ethnohistoric sources in prehistoric archaeological research on gender should be the generation of hypotheses, which are then tested independently (Binford, 1967, 1968; Hill, 1970, p. 51). An example of an analogy used to generate testable hypotheses is presented below. Uniformitarian Assumptions. An approach that considers the dynamism inherent in prehistory must avoid analogical arguments that are basically uniformitarian in construction and thus antithetical to any theoretical structure that purports to study change (Dunnell, 1978, 1992). For example, Brumfiel (1992, p. 554), suggests that one primary method of addressing gender relations in archaeology is through the "assignment" of activities to male or female actors, an approach that Conkey and Gero (1991, p. 11) have explicitly rejected. This plan of action has several problems. First, it assumes that an absolute sexual division of labor exists; and second, it implies that gender roles are immutable rather than adaptive. In arguing for this approach to gender, Brumfiel subverts the concept of gender as a process--a concept for which Conkey and Gero (1991) have eloquently lobbied. Furthermore, approaching gender from the perspective of activities and their associated artifacts alone is reductionist, denying the embeddedhess of gender in social institutions and ideologies (Conkey and Gero, 1991, p. 9). Conkey with Williams (1991, p. 123) argues that "[i]t is not enough to make women visible by elucidating 'women's roles' in some normalizing way; this merely frames in, encloses, and positions women (and men) in expectable, normativized, homogenized ways" (following Handsman, 1991, pp. 339-341, 351). The archaeological record, in contrast, is a record of change through time, i.e., change in a historic sense, both temporally and

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spatially specific (DunneU, 1992, pp. 212-213; O'Brien and Holland, 1995, p. 145). So by applying the records of a 16th century Spanish friar to the protohistoric Aztec record, Brumfiel is implying that the role of women remained the same during that period. In dealing with the issue of uniformitarianism, Gould (1978, p. 255) has noted that it is essential to demonstrate conservatism and continuity between the ethnographically known and the prehistoric societies under study. Yet in Brumfiel's examination of Aztec production, the potential effects of the conquest on gender roles are largely ignored, despite the impacts of epidemic disease and social upheaval. Measles (1530-1535) and typhus or plague (1545-1548) epidemics swept through central Mexico in the first half of the 16th century (Gibson 1964, pp. 136-139; Liss, 1975, p. 119; Lockhart, 1992, pp. 111-113; Reff, 1992), immediately prior to Sahagfin's recording of the Historia. The demographic collapse that followed and the accompanying social reorganization impacted gender relations, social roles, and ideologies (Hassig, 1994, Chap. 11; Klor de Alva, 1982, 1988, pp. 40--41; Liss, 1975; S~inchez-Albornoz, 1984), altering them significantly from their precontact forms. For example, pre-Hispanic forms of polygamy were no longer tolerated once the Spanish established themselves in New Spain (Lockhart, 1992, p. 110). Instead, Indians were required to conform to monogamous, Christian marriage (Gibson, 1964, p. 151; Liss, 1975). Deagan (1985, pp. 305-306) and McEwan (1991, p. 39) have further demonstrated how native cultural forms could be altered through exposure to Spanish norms when Indian women, in particular, intermarried, underwent language training, religious indoctrination, and instruction in European moral codes. Additionally, entire social groupings ceased to exist due to the combined effects of depopulation and the reorganization of land tenure (Lockhart, 1992, pp. 111-112). Thus, Gould's key elements of conservatism and continuity in analogical comparisons do not apply to the situation of Aztec Mexico between the period of Brumfiel's study and the composition of Sahagfin's ethnohistory from which her analogy is drawn. Therefore, I disagree with Wylie (1992b, p. 27) that "[Brumfiel's] identification of spindle whorls, and pots and griddles, with cloth and food production by women is unproblematic for any she might engage in debate . . . . " In fact, in a footnote to her own article, Brumfiel (1991, p. 247) notes that "[t]he archaeological context of some spindle whorls suggests that men may have participated in cloth production under different circumstances." In concluding this section, I wish to reiterate two points. First, numerous problems result from the failure to address biased ethnohistoric sources through contextual analysis (Costin, 1996, pp. 117-118). Second, the ahistorical application of analogy denies change (Dunnell, 1978, 1992, p. 213) in


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gender roles as a potential adaptive consequence (in this case) to the Spanish presence. These assumptions contribute to a tendency in archaeology to view women and their roles as stable. For example, Hughes (1991, p. 27) prefaces her use of ethnographic analogy this way: "To use historic Plains Indian groups as analogues to interpret the archaeological record, it is assumed that male and female roles have remained constant for 2000 years." As a result, the potential role of prehistoric women in explanations of culture change is omitted. Such formulations contribute to a lack of progress in refining conceptual frameworks to include gender as an organizing principle (Wylie, 1991, p. 34). Unfortunately, even when studies employ gender as a structural principle, political motivations may undermine the potential of this work to constructively contribute to gender questions in archaeology.

SEPARATING POLITICAL AGENDAS FROM RESEARCH QUESTIONS Feminism, and its epistemological objective of "feminist theory," essentially revolves around a political agenda (Conkey and Tringham, 1995, p. 230; Little, 1994; McDermott, 1995; Moore, 1988, pp. 10-11; Wylie, 1992b). In some quarters at least, the conflation of feminist political comrnitments and gender studies has hindered the more widespread acceptance of the concept of gender as an organizing principle in archaeological research (Gilchrist, 1991, p. 495). Gender studies do not require a political commitment to feminism, only an interest in viewing the archaeological record holistically (Gilchrist, 1991, p. 499). Concern for a holistic record logically subsumes issues of gender in the interest of human issues (Bolen, 1992, p. 51; Gilchrist, 1994, p. 2), encompassing male, female, and all the ambiguous variants on those themes. Gender cannot be isolated as a variable or separate category of analysis (Gilchrist, 1994, p. 8). Nor can the concept of gender be neatly excised from the fundamental questions with which archaeology is concerned--stratification, state formation, specialization, origins of agriculture, to name just a few (Conkey and Gero, 1991, p. 17; Meskell, 1995, p. 84). Indeed, these issues and gender questions are not mutually exclusive; to treat them as though they were ignores the fundamental linkages between gender and the social context of human behavior (Conkey and Spector, 1984; Hurcombe, 1995, p. 98; Silverblatt, 1995), which may encompass issues of age, class, and ethnicity, as well as gender (Joyce and Claassen, 1997; Meskell, 1997; Wright, 1996). Politics a r e a stated component of some feminist research (Conkey and Tringham, 1995, p. 230; Wylie, 1992a, p. 58). Wylie's (1992b) recent article and the comments that it has engendered (Little, 1994; Fotiadis, 1994) ad-

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dress the question of what role explicitly feminist research has in enhancing the objectivity and rehabilitating the structure of "historically and politically constituted science" (Little, 1994, p. 539). Wylie (1992b, p. 30) concludes that feminist research is not "political" in any especially troublesome sense; rather, political issues provide a source of inspiration in academic research. Undeniably, the feminist political agenda has stimulated gender-informed research and led to greater scrutiny of the processes through which knowledge is generated (Little, 1994; Wylie, 1992b). Archaeology, to which gendered research came late, has benefitted especially from feminist work (Conkey and Tringham, 1995, p. 199; Fagan, 1992; Whelan, 1991a). But there is a difference between politicized feminist research and feminist-inspired research. Politicized feminist research aims to promote a political agenda through scholarly work (S0rensen 1992, p. 47; Talalay, 1997). Meskell (1995), Conkey and Tringham (1995), and Talalay (1994) present excellent studies of how archaeological work can contribute to a political agenda. These articles examine how work on matriarchy and goddesses--particularly that of Marija Gimbutas--has been appropriated by those searching for a "scientific historical reality [that] will facilitate the restoration of women's power" (Meskell, 1995, p. 82). Despite evidence to the contrary, Gimbutas interpreted the archaeological record of Neolithic Europe in gynocentric terms, where women were not subordinate to men and virtually every symbol and artifact was an incarnation of the Mother Goddess (Fagan, 1992; Meskell, 1995, pp. 80-81). Sets of artifacts, such as female figurines, were given single interpretations in order to promote this political ideology (Conkey and Tringham, 1995, p. 217). Gimbutas described the archaeological record in terms of binary oppositions, with the peaceful, Goddess-dominated civilization of Old Europe arrayed against violent, patriarchal invaders. The modern world has an interesting role in these formulations for Gimbutas. She conceptualizes Europe, and the West in general, as the inheritor of bits and pieces of Old European culture, primarily those cultural characteristics that she interpreted as enriching and transformative (Gimbutas, 1982, 1989, 1991). Gimbutas thus validates those aspects of the modern world that she values by linking them to the Goddess-based world of the past. Her work has been appropriated by the popular press, which has used it to validate its own view of prehistory (e.g., Eisler, 1987, 1989). In contrast to feminist-inspired research, this kind of politicization of archaeological practice is problematic. The "propagandistic" use of archaeology (Watson, 1991, p. 280) wastes the non-renewable resources of the archaeological record in order to achieve potentially short-term political gains.


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Feminist-inspired research employs scholarly work as a means of exploring issues and questions aroused by political awareness. Such research requires the critical evaluation of assumptions about gender roles, relations, and ideology while at the same time, viewing both women and men as potentially dynamic actors in the past (Seifert, 1991). In this sense, feminism as a political commitment is kept separate from scholarly pursuits through constant examination of research questions and the resulting interpretations (Talalay, 1997). This is the kind of research advocated by Little (1994) and Wylie (1992b, p. 16); Wylie (1992b, p. 30), in particular, notes that research inspired by feminist commitments "questions entrenched assumptions about women and gender and directs attention to them as subjects of inquiry . . . . " and "politically engaged science is often much more rigorous [and] self-critical." The distinction between political commitments and archaeological research ought to be maintained. We may want to believe that the past was populated by incipient feminists worshipping a peaceful Mother Goddess. However, we must not confuse idealized images of the past with responsible interpretation, since "[e]motional narratives.., conflated data and pure fant a s y . . , will only draw attention away from the positive contribution offered by gender and feminist archaeologies" (MeskeU, 1995, p. 83). We are now in a position to benefit from the critical perspective that feminist interests bring to archaeology; yet, at the same time, it is critical that the past not be used to validate the political present (Conkey and Tringham, 1995, p. 211; Hurcombe, 1995; Meskell, 1995) or serve as a form of psychotherapy at the expense of the archaeological record (e.g., Gimbutas, 1982, 1989, 1991). A constant reappraisal of both personal and institutional(ized) biases is the foundation for conscientious research in any discipline (Hurcombe, 1995), and thus it need not be feminist. As Leone et al. (1987, p. 283) have argued, a sense of the role of politics in archaeology can aid archaeologists in achieving a less contingent sense of the past; that is, a reflective sense of how the past is constructed and utilized.

RESEARCH PROSPECTS Some avenues of inquiry readily lend themselves to gender-informed archaeology. These are outlined below; some have been enumerated elsewhere (e.g., Costin, 1996; Hayden, 1992; Hurcombe, 1995). Osteological Evidence and Mortuary Context. Skeletal remains and mortuary context can substantially advance work on gender issues for several reasons. First, the study of mortuary context (including the formal attributes of mortuary treatment), artifacts accompanying the individual (Binford,

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1971), and the spatial relationships both within the mortuary context (e.g., Simon and Ravesloot, 1995) and between the mortuary site and the surrounding landscape have the potential to enhance and refine our interpretations (Hodder, 1982, pp. 195-201) of men, women, and gender relations in the past, especially when combined with osteological data. An analysis of skeletal remains per se can inform on diet (Hastorf, 1991), pathologies, nutritional differences and trauma (Hurcombe, 1995, p. 93) as well as physical stressors, rates of infection, childhood stress episodes, the occurrence of accidental injury versus interpersonal violence, and relative mortality rates (Cohen and Bennett, 1993; Hayden, 1992; Hollimon, 1992). Several studies have already examined the potential of both osteological (e.g., Bridges, 1989; Whelan, 1991b; Bumsted et aL, 1990) and contextual data (Hodder, 1984) for exploring gender questions. Some work has explored the relationship between activity patterns and skeletal pathologies, (e.g., Boyd, 1996, pp. 222-226). These studies illustrate how division of labor can be related empirically to biological sex using both skeletal and contextual evidence. Such research can confirm that biological males and females engaged in different activities (e.g., Molleson, 1994), suggest that males and females were involved in the same kinds of activities, or produce ambiguous results, indicating that there was overlap in activity patterns. Work with Mississippian evidence, for example, has revealed a differential occurrence of osteoarthritis and greater humeral robusticity in females versus males as well as greater diaphyseal robusticity in females (Bridges, 1989, pp. 387, 389-392). Bridges (1989, p. 390) discusses these changes within the context of the transition from Archaic lifeways to the Mississippian agricultural economy; she notes that the patterning of changes in biological males is distinct from that of females, and thus it is unlikely that the changes were caused by the same activities. Notably, Bridges compares not only the osteological evidence between sexes, but also the Mississippian evidence with the Archaic materials. Thus, she deals with the data both synchronically and diachronicaUy. A second advantage of these types of studies relative to gender questions is that skeletal remains allow the epistemological problem of gender attribution (sensu Conkey and Gero, 1991) to be overcome due to the capability to determine empirically relationships between material goods and particular individuals (and/or classes of individuals) (Whelan, 1991a, p. 25). Implicit in this approach is the idea that artifacts do not have an immutable association with only biological males or females. Gender attribution is both a conceptual and a methodological problem in which activities and features of the archaeological record are arbitrarily assigned to men or women based upon either culturally biased assumptions about how social organization was structured in the past (Conkey and Gero,


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1991, p. 11; cf. Costin, 1996) or uniformitarian assumptions. At the very least, functional definitions of artifacts ought to be expanded to include the possibility of their use by both males and females [(O'Brien, 1990); see also Gero (1991) for a discussion of the traditional association of men with lithics]. Representational Imagery. Imagery can illustrate certain aspects of social organization and behavior not accessible though other material remains (Hayden, 1992). Iconography does not necessarily depict men and women realistically (Hodder, 1991, p. 13; McDermott, 1996); rather, it is the medium through which to view the construction of ideology and the constitution of social identities. Even ambiguous representations can at least indicate additional questions to be asked (e.g., Hegmon and Trevathan, 1996) or suggest that inconsistencies existed (Pollock, 1991, p. 366) between gender ideologies and the "real" (i.e., nonrepresentational) dynamics of social relations (Hays-Gilpin, 1997). For example, a recent study of two ambiguous representations of human birth on Mimbres pottery led the authors to explore the division of labor in Mimbres society (Hegmon and Trevathan, 1996). Unfortunately, this study suffers from several significant problems, including a small database and the inappropriate use of some ethnographic sources (Shaffer et al., 1997). The authors also attempt to assign activities--in this case painti n g - t o men. However, this study, and the critiques that it has inspired, does suggest that focusing on ambiguities in representational art can reveal new avenues of research on gender relations in prehistory, as well as contributing to more in-depth discussions of sex, gender, and representation (Brian Shaffer, personal communication). Another recent study of iconography (McDermott, 1996; McCoid and McDermott, 1996) uses an innovative approach to address the physical viewpoint represented by Upper Paleolithic female figurines. The authors compared photographs taken by an individual of herself with similar perspectives taken of the figurines. They concluded that the viewpoint represented was that of the female artist's perspective of her own body. The authors go far beyond any attempt to "assign" the activity of producing sculptured images to either women or men. Rather, they attempt to address the question of personal representation--how an artist perceives his or her own body. Their approach represents an innovative way of dealing with gender in the prehistoric record and has the potential to revolutionize perspectives on art in the Upper Paleolithic. Studies such as this have exciting implications for the study of gender relations. Ethnohistoric and Ethnographic Sources. Perhaps one of the most promising avenues of gendered archaeological research employs ethnohistoric and ethnographic evidence to generate hypotheses to test. In her 1994 study

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of ethnicity, Brumfiel uses ethnohistoric sources that list culture traits of some pre-Hispanic groups in order to develop archaeological correlates. She then tests these hypothesized correlates using the archaeological record. For example, based on ethnohistoric reports that the Otoml were gaudy dressers, Brumfiel hypothesized that she would recover high frequencies of ground-stone earrings and labrets. She then analyzed the materials from the site of Xaltocan, which contained an extensive Otomi community. Her results indicated an absence at Xaltocan of many of the traits considered characteristic of Otomi culture by ethnohistoric informants; however, the recovery of numerous labrets suggested additional possibilities regarding the community structure at the site (Brumfiel, 1994, pp. 98-102). Brumfiel thus uses two lines of evidence--ethnohistoric and archaeological--to propose hypotheses and then to test them. Her lines of evidence are wholly independent, and she examines both critically. She locates the ethnohistoric sources within the cultural context in which they were written and maintains the independence of this line from her archaeological correlates. Ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources thus form essential lines of evidence that can be employed to formulate testable models and hypotheses (Charlton, 1981, pp. 130-132, 156-157). In conjunction with the archaeological record, such sources need not result in static depictions of gender roles when they are used to hypothesize (as opposed to generalize) about the archaeological record. Rather, they have the potential to generate test implications regarding the changing activities of men and women through time (Wilson and Rogers, 1993). Micro-Scale Spatial and Contextual Analyses. "Space" may be defined as the medium through which social relationships (and gender relations) are negotiated (Gilchrist, 1994, p. 150; Gosden, 1994). As such, space cannot be neatly divided into sets of binary oppositions in which certain areas are designated for use by males (traditionally "public"), while others, termed "private" or "domestic," are used by females (e.g., Rapp, 1978; Reiter, 1975). These dichotomies have been discussed at length in the anthropological literature (e.g., Moore, 1988) and have been shown to be reductionist in their representation of gender relations (Wylie, 1992a). The use of space is critical to the construction of divisions and hierarchies among both individuals and groups; it reflects and reinforces the underlying conceptual structures of society (Bourdieu, 1977, pp. 89-90; Spain, 1992, Chap. 1). By extension to the archaeological realm, space is the arena in which gender relations are constructed and negotiated. Of equal importance is the role of materials--the artifacts--within a given space (Donley-Reid, 1990, p. 115; Hodder, 1990, pp. 54--68). Microscale analyses have the potential to examine several types of spatial relationships: (1) between artifacts, (2) those between artifacts and their spatial context

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(i.e., the relationship between an artifact and a feature, architectural element, etc.), and (3) the relative proximity and orientation of spaces [(Mobley-Tanaka, 1997, pp. 441--442); see Hodder (1982, pp. 195-201) for a discussion of spatial relationships in mortuary contexts]. In analyzing these spatial relationships, it is essential to recognize that they do not require the "assignment" of activities or spaces to males or females. This is one of the strengths of gender-informed research on a microscale. A s has been argued above, it is inadvisable to make generalizations about what women (or men) did in the past; as an alternative, based on the use of microscale spatial analyses, one can discuss in relative terms the spatial relationships of artifact assemblages and their contexts. This approach is much more amenable to the study of social relations than to the study of women per se. For example, Hodder (1984) and Small (1991) have both discussed the spatial seclusion of women using a contextual framework. Hodder relates the linear spatial organization and single entrances of longhouses to the seclusion of women in the European Neolithic. He supports his argument with evidence for the "elaboration of the domestic world" (i.e., amount of decoration on pottery and the elaboration of residential structures). Such elaboration, according to Hodder (1984, p. 62), in conjunction with spatial evidence, suggests that women were secluded due to their increasingly important reproductive role in an agricultural economy. Hodder (1990, p. 68; 1991) has also explored the spatial relationships between artifacts within Neolithic houses as a means of apprehending the symbolic role of women as "domesticators." Similarly, Small (1991) employs house plans as a means of tracking social negotiation between men and women within Islamic societies. Several lines of evidence have been discussed above: osteological analysis and mortuary context, representational imagery, ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources, and microscale spatial and contextual analyses. Each has the potential to be of great use to researchers studying gender. However, in order to avoid the pitfalls inherent in the use of any single line of evidence to generalize about the past, I suggest the use of a multivariate approach. Below, the formal structure of this approach to the evidence for gender in prehistory is discussed. This approach permits several lines of evidence, such as those discussed above, to be integrated while still providing the means for testing hypotheses. Additionally, I discuss how theoretical frameworks implicitly structure the scale of archaeological questions. A consideration of scale in the study of gender can greatly contribute to more effective use of exisiting theoretical and methodological frameworks.

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THE MULTIVARIATE APPROACH AND THE SCALE OF GENDER QUESTIONS The exclusive use of a single line of evidence--skeletal, iconographic, or ethnohistodc--can potentially misrepresent the complexity and adaptability of human social organization, of which gender is a component. The multivariate approach, which has been promoted elsewhere to address different questions (e.g., Bolen, 1992; Costin, 1996), focuses on the use of multiple lines of evidence. The formal structure of this approach is to use two or more mutually exclusive lines of evidence to formulate a hypothesis and then to test it. By employing more than one line of evidence to address a single issue, such as gender, researchers can gain a more complete perspective on the past than if only a single line of evidence was used. For example, one could hypothesize on the basis of spatial analysis that the productive activities of females were restricted to a certain area, as Hastorf (1991) has done. She combines an analysis of the spatial distribution of food remains with isotopic evidence in order to suggest that, under the Inca, activities of females became increasingly circumscribed while, at the same time, their processing labor increased in support of political activities in which males participated. Her argument is an interesting one. However, an examination of osteological evidence or representational art, for example, could be used to test her conclusions. The skeletal remains of females could be compared diachronicaUy, for example, both before and after Inca contact. One could hypothesize that certain skeletal elements would show increased incidence of osteoarthritis or evidence for mechanical loading in females relative to males with Inca contact, representing their increased labor input to food processing. If skeletal materials do not display any significant changes, then the hypothesis can be rejected and an alternative explanation for the spatial and isotopic evidence formulated. Conversely, if the materials do display significant levels of osteoarthritis or mechanical loading in the later period relative to males, the hypothesis cannot be rejected. The multivariate approach thus provides the basis for disconfirmation. And, rather than having several lines of evidence suggesting certain changes in the organization of gender relations, these hypothesized changes can actuaUy be tested using the archaeological evidence. Another strength of this approach is that it creates a social context, on the basis of artifacts, in which to situate gender relations. If researchers do intend to treat gender as an organizing principle and a fluid social category, we must deal with our limited evidence in innovative, yet testable ways. A multivariate approach to formulating and testing hypotheses, combined with a sense of


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the scale of gender questions, can provide the means with which to do this, and it can be applied within any theoretical framework. A critical point, implicit in the study of gender, is that scale determines the types of questions researchers ask. While gender can be conceptualized at either a micro- or a macroscale, it has been neglected in dominant archaeological theories by what Wylie (1991) terms the Binfordian ecosystem paradigm. Wylie (1991, p. 37) identifies two ways that this has occurred: (1) directly, by incorporating assumptions about gender that deny its relevance for understanding the subject under investigation; and (2) indirectly, by directing attention to interpretive categories or variables that implicitly exclude gender. The latter form of exclusion is essentially a question of scale. Conceptualizing gender in terms of either a micro- or a macroscale approach to the evidence has the potential to generate questions that crosscut definitions of gender as either an organizing principle or a small-scale internal variable. Often, the theoretical framework employed by researchers structures the questions they pose and thus predetermines scale (Wylie, 1991). For example, systemic approaches tend to focus on large-scale variables rather than internal "ethnographic" variables such as gender (Wylie, 1991, p. 35). However, while gender can be conceived of as a small-scale or "ethnographic" variable, it may also be conceptualized as an organizing principle that underlies social relations (Conkey and Spector, 1984, p, 20; Conkey and Gero, 1991, p. 9; Gilchrist, 1991, 1994, p. 8, Moore, 1988; Wylie, 1991). This definition is useful in posing questions regarding the organization of labor and production (and, by extension, subsistence practices such as resource procurement), stratification (how gender relations are reflected in relative access to resources and political power), and ideology (how belief systems structure or reflect gender relations). The concept of gender at a macroscale can accommodate these kinds of questions. By extension, theoretical frameworks that deal with macrolevel economic and social systems--rather than the microscale social units of which they are composed--are already structured to ask these questions. For example, Marxist theory can also deal with gender on a macroscale, as a component of the economic structuring of society (Scott, 1986); however, the premise of differential access to resources can also be employed on a microscale. Evolutionary, systems, and processual theories all have the potential to deal with gender (Wylie, 1991, 1992a, p. 53), as long as the definition they employ functions at the appropriate scale. Gender can also be defined on a microscale as a component of individual or group identity, structuring roles and relations at the household or group level. At this level, gender ideology, the meaning ascribed to con-

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cepts of male, female, sex, and reproduction can be addressed. In this sense, gender ideology is a symbolic system (Conkey and Spector, 1984, p. 15). A Marxist approach, for example, may examine ideology on a microscale in terms of how certain individuals or groups incorporate, resist, or generate belief systems. Representational art supplies a rich corpus of materials for the study of symbols related to gender ideologies at either a micro- or a macroscale. For example, Moche iconography is populated by figures that have been identified as either male or female (Hocquenghem and Lyon, 1980). These figures are depicted and interact in standardized ways. Macrolevel analyses can address questions of how this standardization reflects or structures actual social relationships within a broader social context. Microscale analyses, however, can examine the ambiguous figures that cannot be identified as either male or female. This ambiguity may suggest flexibility in gender identity, for example, which can be correlated with burial evidence. Individual mortuary contexts can be used to examine not only gender identity, but also how individuals (or those who constructed the mortuary context) located themselves relative to culturally determined gender categories (assuming that mortuary context reflects status and role in life). Whelan (1991a), for example, examines patterns of grave goods in association with either biological males or biological females in order to address the material correlates of gender categories on a microscale. She devotes particular attention to an ambiguous case in which a female was recovered with ritual paraphernalia otherwise associated with biological males (Whalen, 1991a, p. 26; see also Hollimon, 1997). Whalen concludes that females were not barred from the utilization of ritual items on the basis of biological sex. Microlevel analyses thus offer qualitatively different kinds of information than do macroscale studies. Some mortuary data, as in the example above, are better suited to questions of individual life history than to processual issues. These data, however, must be linked back to the social context; to do otherwise is to deny the embeddedness of gender in social relations. The solution is the utilization of multiple lines of evidence. While mortuary data can furnish lines of evidence for inferring the roles of individual men and women, iconographic studies can locate them within an ideological context. These lines of evidence, when combined, create a much stronger empirical foundation (Wylie, 1993, p. 14) than analogy. The interpretive layers between the data and the researcher are minimized. In contrast, the use of ethnohistories places the interpretations of several individuals between the data and the researcher. Further alienation of the original data from its source occurs in the multiple translations, as in the case of Sahagfin's


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Historia. This is the intrinsic problem of analogies (although not with ethnohistoric evidence per se). The use of multiple lines of evidence permits archaeologists to remain close to the original context of the data "on the ground" and provides the basis for hypothesis testing (Wylie, 1989), while a consideration of scale allows researchers to structure their research questions more closely to address the available data.

CONCLUSIONS This discussion has explored several issues, including the significance of defining fundamental terms and the potential of existing theoretical frameworks to deal with gender questions. I have concluded that the highly visible criticisms of materialist paradigms as inappropriate or unable to address some aspects of gender are somewhat misguided. I have suggested that questions of scale are essential to applying existing conceptual frameworks to gender questions. Additionally, I have discussed the problems inherent in reliance solely upon analogies in engendered research and the politicization of feminist research in archaeology. The potential problems of relying upon a single line of evidence have also been addressed. In addition, several avenues of research have been outlined, which emphasize the use of multiple lines of evidence to formulate and test hypotheses and illustrate the prehistoric context of gender relations. In conclusion, I agree with Wylie (1991, p. 48) that "some degree of tolerance of methodological and theoretical pluralism will be essential" to future research on gender relations in archaeology. Such pluralism will ideally use extant theoretical and methodological resources to their utmost potential while avoiding the pitfalls presented by analogy-based arguments and feminist politics.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Garth Bawden, Lynn MeskeU, Brian Shaffer, Mike Schiffer, Todd Van Pool, and Ryan Wheeler, as well as numerous anonymous reviewers, for their insightful comments on early versions of this paper. Bob Leonard gave generously of both time and constructive criticism; his suggestions have enriched this paper immeasurably. I would also like to acknowledge the generous support of the Latin American Institute, University of New Mexico.

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