Gender issues have become increasingly important in social sciences over the past two decades. In order to develop a clear understanding of gender-related behavior and attitudes, it is important to understand how this behavior varies cross-culturally, how it evolved, and what causes differences in behavior between genders.
As a prehistorian, my main interest is in documenting and explaining inferable gender differences in the past. As such, I am concerned with how gender-related behavior can be inferred from the material remains of past cultures. However, one of the main avenues that enables prehistorians to model past behavior passes via the comparative analysis of traditional ethnographic cultures. Confronted by a plethora of conflicting claims about gender relations and behavior in the popular and prehistoric literature, I would like to examine the types of evidence that are most useful in inferring prehistoric gender behavior. The target information concerns women's and men's behavior, the relative status of men and women, and their relative power in prehistory.
I have been preoccupied by the question of how gender-related activities might be identified in the prehistoric record for over two decades. While carrying out ethnoarchaeology among Australian Aboriginals, I attempted to determine if there were specific types of stone tools that might be associated with women (Hayden 1977, 1979). This concern was again raised in terms of bipolar flaking techniques (Hayden 1980). I also examined ethnographies in regard to the sexual division of labor and gender mobility patterns among hunter/gatherers (Hayden 1981); I attempted to determine if single-gender households could be identified in Highland Maya communities from material inventories during ethnoarchaeological work (Hayden and Cannon 1984); and I have examined women's status among ethnographic hunter/gatherers in relation to ecological variables, particularly in relation to resource stress (Hayden et al. 1986). It is hunter/gatherers that interest me most, and I will primarily focus on problems associated with gender interpretations at this level of cultural organization.
At the level of prehistoric hunter/gatherers, can past gender behavior, status, or attitudes be reliable inferred? If so, how? I believe they can, although considerable future research is required. The remainder of this article is a discussion of the ways in which such interpretations can be most reliably established.
Approaches to the Problem
There are two basic approaches that can be used in dealing with gender issues: nomothetic (theoretical generalizations) and particularistic. From the prehistoric perspective, particularistic explanations are not very useful because they tend to be highly subjective ad hoc formulations that do not lend themselves to testing or certification.
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As I have argued elsewhere (Hayden and Cannon 1982, 1984), particularistic explanations of behavior are frequently appropriate for understanding an individual's behavior. Like quantum-level particles, individual behavior is often variable or difficult to predict on the basis of laws or principles. In contrast, aggregate human behavior, like averaged atomic counterparts, conforms much more closely to general principles especially where there are issues of self-interest, economy of effort, material benefits, and short vs long term gain. When considered in aggregate, i.e., at the community level, human idiosyncratic behavior is not significant for our understanding of changes that affect the community.
Prehistory is primarily the study of changes in average behavior, or in community wide behavior. Group size, levels of violence, use of exotic vs. local stone materials, species of game used, and specific technologies are average types of behavior that prehistorians can monitor. We see the dominant trends in human behavior, the major concerns, themes and solutions adopted by the average person in groups as well as ranges of variability. Although we must assume that an individual made a particular stone tool, or sustained a particular injury, or killed a particular animal, specific individuals can rarely be identified, followed, or be assigned values for other parameters. The ideas, values and rules that motivate individuals are as elusive as they are idiosyncratically variable. Even in the case of individual burials, it is often not the character or life-attributes of the buried individual that are reflected in the grave goods and grave elaboration so much as the character of the group responsible for doing the burying. The community or the household, not the individual, is the most productive focus for prehistory. It is difficult to see how concentrating on the individual will advance our understanding of gender patterns in the past. There are simply too many possible explanations and motivations for individual material expressions; and no way has been suggested for testing such interpretations archaeologically.
The material products of berdechic male activities cannot be distinguished from real females if they act the same as females. Due to the many other randomizing factors that blur patterning in the archaeological record, occasional arrowheads made by females cannot be distinguished from those made, used, or abandoned by males; nor would a few female manufactured arrowheads significantly change any statistical inferences based on the much larger number of arrowheads made, used, and abandoned by males. Occasional hunting by women would be almost impossible to identify in communities, nor would it be significant or important for prehistorians unless it were a routine type of women's activity. Almost all communities tolerate low levels of many kinds of idiosyncratic behavior on the part of a few individuals. Given all these factors, it is not surprising that what prehistorians can see most clearly, and what is most important from an ecological viewpoint, are the general trends, the most common practices, and the overall changes in group behavior. Changes in the behavior of entire groups imply that strong forces are at work capable of influencing large numbers of people, whether in terms of their residence, hunting practices, submission to hierarchical control, trade, kinship reckoning, or gender relationships.
General patterns or principles are difficult enough to discern, substantiate, and explain. Particularistic events are far more difficult to deal with. Yet, appeals to particularistic and culture-determined gender roles tend to dominate much recent theoretical discussion of gender (cf. Conkey and Spector 1984). Unless there are good, causally sound theories to back up particularistic conclusions, they will always be suspect. What kinds of approaches have the most potential for generating sound theories and generalizations? I suggest that there are and will discuss six fundamental approaches that have been used: comparative ethnographies, skeletal and mortuary studies, early texts, art and mythology, physiological studies, comparative zoology and gross physiology.
Comparative Ethnographies
One major approach for inferring gender roles among Pleistocene as well as post-Pleistocene populations is the use of comparative ethnographies. Within the last 40,000 years of prehistory, it becomes increasingly pertinent to examine contemporary hunter/gatherer societies that can be argued to have had adaptational problems similar to fully sapient prehistoric communities. While such analyses must be carried out with caution due to the ecological variability and historical changes that may have affected ethnographic hunter/gatherer societies (as demonstrated by the debate about the Bushmen‹Solway and Lee 1990), there is a wide enough diversity of well documented ethnographic hunting/gathering and horticultural societies in the world to render the comparative ethnographic approach potentially one of the most rewarding for generating reliable conclusions about prehistoric gender-related behavior from the Upper Paleolithic to the present and perhaps even in earlier times.
Conkey and Spector (1984), like many others have argued that caution must be exercised in regard to "androcentric biases" in the extant ethnographies. While these criticisms contain a germ of truth, they
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overlook the facts 1) that most ethnographers have been specifically trained to minimize their own cultural biases, 2) that there are many entirely unambiguous accounts of general relationships (involving craft specialization, ritual or political participation, rape, and beatings‹see Begler 1978), 3) that cross-cultural tests of women's roles in societies show no significant differences when stratified by male versus female ethnographers (Levinson and Malone 1980:270), and 4) that strong coherent relationships between gender roles and environmental variables do emerge from the extant ethnographic data base. Strong patterning between ethnographically recorded gender behavior and independent variables such as environment cannot be explained if there are pervasive or systematic androcentric biases in the ethnographic data base (see Hayden et al. 1986). To try to totally vitiate the present ethnographic data base with nothing to fill the void other than vague programmatic plans for future ethnographic work is counterproductive.
The consistency of some observations on ethnographic generalized hunter/ gatherers in terms of sharing (Winterhalder 1986), mobility, alliances, dominance hierarchies (Tiger 1970:295), and sexual division of labor (Hayden 1981), irrespective of historical conditions, is a strong argument that such responses would also have characterized prehistoric groups of fully sapient human hunter/gatherers. Moreover, some plausible causal explanations for these types of behavior can be found in evolutionary ecology and cultural ecology. Few other paradigms can claim as much success in explaining these patterns.
Within the comparative ethnographic approach, one of the keys to making significant progress in gender studies may be to refine causal theories to account for the sexual division of labor and the relative intensity of its development. There are numerous suggestions as to precisely why the sexual division of labor has emerged among hunter/gatherers (see Hayden 1981, as well as Hurtado et al.'s 1985 discussion and statistical demonstration that the expression of the division of labor is a function of parental investment and child care requirements in at least one group).
The sexual division of labor in which hunter/gatherer males hunt, make war, and engage in other exclusively male activities (Frayser 1985:90-91), while women concentrate more on gathering and infant care is supported by a very large body of objective observations. This pattern may even imply that the cross-cultural preponderance of hunter/gatherer males in public forums and in dealings with non-local groups (Tiger 1970:30; Wilson 1978:128) may be an extension of the division of labor since in hunter/gatherer, and most other traditional societies, males are most involved in defense, they travel more extensively, and they are more likely to first encounter non-local groups (see Rodseth et al. 1991:238-9).1
Although some researchers have questioned the universality of the sexual division of labor among hunter/gatherers, (Conkey and Spector 1984; Goodman et al., n.d.; Leacock 1978) or tried to deny that a clear pattern exists, there is little general doubt that this patterning of gender behavior is the expression of a fundamental principle of organization of hunter/gatherer societies and even more complex traditional societies. In more complex traditional societies, sex exclusive tasks include: lumbering, boatbuilding, stoneworking, mining, metalworking, bonesetting, and shell, bone or horn crafts. These are exclusively performed by men in traditional societies the world over (Murdock and Provost 1973). Such patterns, together with the potential use of axes in combat, make it highly likely, for instance, that the fine axes which are featured so prominently in the high status Neolithic tumuli and ideology of Brittany (Patton 1990) were associated with males.
These strong cross-cultural patterns are among some of the best foundations that can be hoped for in modeling prehistoric gender behavior. It has never been clear why the notion that women, in the collective sense, did not generally hunt or make war in hunter/gatherer societies is anathema to some people involved in gender studies.
There are a number of other generalizations that have emerged from cross-cultural studies that have not as yet been attached to any theoretical foundation. These include the almost universal role of women in scraping and preparing hides in societies without specialists, in grinding foods, and in processing fish for storage. If substantiated and explained, these observations would make it possible to view small grinding stones, mortars, and hide-working tools as material manufacturing signatures of women's tasks, just as projectile points and bifaces are generally considered male signatures. Both observations may make sense as part of the general sexual division of labor mentioned above, but no one has explicitly made this link as yet or explained why these specific tasks should be performed by women rather than by men. In the case of bifaces, I would suggest that given the male orientation toward hunting which entails the highest mobility patterns (Hayden 1981), it can be argued that resharpening strategies and tools which are adapted to the highest mobility conditions (e.g., handaxes and bifaces) should be primarily and perhaps exclusively associated with male tasks since these are high investment tools and the risk
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of ruining or breaking these tools in resharpening them is also high. High investment tools that others can easily damage or break are unlikely to be liberally shared. Rather, such tools are more likely to be reserved as exclusively personal gear. The study of prehistoric tool and food remains in order to deal with gender issues constitutes a special branch of comparative ethnography since the interpretation of these remains relies ultimately on analogy although supplementary kinds of inference are sometimes used, such as archaeological grave goods or internal spatial associations between tool types or activity areas in archaeological sites (e.g., Stevenson 1984).
Perhaps the study of prehistoric cultural remains should be a separate category of gender inference, however, at this stage of development, I feel it is inextricably linked to comparative ethnographic analysis as exemplified by the preceding discussion of projectiles, bifaces, end scrapers, and grinding stones. These specific examples are strongly supported by empirical cross-cultural observations of hunter/gatherers. Some aspects of these patterns can be supported by causal theoretical models involving the adaptive values of specific activities (e.g., hunting and defense) as a part of a sexual division of labor. This does not mean that there are no exceptions, or that situations might not have been different in the past. However, in the face of an empirically grounded causal model, substantial arguments must be advanced for alternative interpretations to be considered seriously. Even at this relatively early phase of inquiry the working models and explanations for the sexual division of labor (with associated tool types such as projectile points) are more useful than anecdotal cases or summary rejections of gender-specific tool interpretations lacking concrete alternatives (per Conkey and Spector 1984). Prehistorians can currently point to only a few tool types that have the potential for directly monitoring prehistoric gender behavior. These tools constitute rare anchors in a chaotic prehistoric sea of material remains. To argue that we should cut ourselves loose from these anchors without better replacements would be very limiting and would subject gender issues to the whims and storms of political conviction rather than scientific inquiry. It is unfortunate that most stone tools remain unassigned to gender. Except for bifaces, and endscrapers, this leaves the vast majority of the Paleolithic period with no clear gender-specific tools.
Aside from the sexual division of labor and sex-specific tool uses, other important cultural regularities in women's status have been demonstrated by comparative ethnographic analyses. Some of these regularities are related to sex ratios. For instance, Divale and Harris (1976) have indicated that warfare has a major adverse effect on the ratio of males to females, as well as on the status of women, perhaps not dissimilar to conditions described by Smuts (1990). I (Hayden et al. 1986) have indicated that resource stress and famines are strongly associated with low female status among hunter/gatherers, and I have provided several suggestions as to why this might be so.
Perhaps one of the most promising topics that I see in comparative hunter/gatherer studies involves the relative value of women's labor. In some societies such as those of the Plains or of Interior British Columbia, women's labor constituted the major bottleneck in the production of food and wealth. At certain seasons on the plains, many more buffalo could be killed by men than could be processed by women for furs and dried meat. On the middle Fraser River, many more salmon could be caught by men than women could fillet and dry. In these societies, and I suspect in the rich reindeer based societies of the French Upper Paleolithic, women's status was not particularly high, and the wealth that was generated supported hierarchical polygynous social structures. These relationships may characterize many wealth-accumulative societies where women's labor is the limiting constraint. Such a tendency is hinted at in studies on women's labor status by Dahlberg (1980), Levinson and Malone (1980:275), Sanday (1973, 1974, 1981), Whyte (1982), and especially Heath (1958). I suspect that a narrowly focused study of female labor constraints to wealth accumulation in band and tribal societies will produce some very insightful results.
It might also be suggested that at much later periods, when full-time specialization appears, many tasks which are traditionally carried out by women may become appropriated by men when those tasks become the principal means of household support (e.g., pottery manufacturing, hide working, milling, weaving, tailoring, agriculture‹for the latter, see Burton and White 1984; Ember 1983). Specialization may be the only condition under which these activities are regularly performed by males for cultures in the ethnographic present. Even this conclusion, however, requires cross-cultural substantiation and may not be extended to periods before the Upper Paleolithic. Even if it can be demonstrated that males assume traditionally female tasks only when those tasks become the principal economic basis of family support, explaining why such shifts should occur on theoretical grounds is an unexplored issue.
In all of the above comparative ethnographic approaches, it is important to determine if a particular behavior is nearly universal. If so, what accounts for this universality? If the behavior is not universal, what factors are responsible for the variations that are
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observed. While there are a few near-universal types of behavior, there is also important variability in many facets of gender behavior. Far too often, people dealing with gender issues ignore this variability even when it is striking. That all band societies are gender egalitarian (Leacock 1978), and that hunter/gatherers are ignorant of the biological basis of conception (Rabuzzi 1988), are some of the most common, and unsupportable generalizations. In general, it is the variation in gender behavior which provides the most useful key to understanding the origin of differences.
Skeletal and Mortuary Studies
Skeletal remains and mortuary practices constitute a second approach to prehistoric gender. Skeletal remains represent the evolutionary history and life history of individuals. They are rich, largely untapped reservoirs of information on prehistoric gender behavior. Skeletal remains can frequently be accurately sexed. Once this is accomplished, prehistoric males and females can be compared in terms of nutritional status, diets, physically stressful activities, life tables, and final burial.
Nutritional status is indicated by a diverse series of measures, including dental hypoplasia, Harris lines, cortical thickness of longbones, overall stature, and relative frequency of disease (Martin et al. 1985). Differences in diet may be revealed by delta carbon-13 values in human bone, as well as other elements (Gilbert 1985).
The study of injuries, deformities, and diseases has been a traditional means of inferring past activities that were physically stressful. Skeletal modifications due to stressing activities include prolonged running (Dutour 1990), archery, carrying heavy loads with tumplines (Hedges 1984:190), intensive hide working that affects arm bones (Plisson 1990), chewing hides or performing other tasks with teeth (Merbs 1983:179), net or basketry manufacturing (Collier 1982:91, 116, 123-125), seed grinding (Molleson 1989), and fighting (parry fractures and similar battle injuries). It is interesting to note that the heavily worn teeth of Neanderthals characterize both females and males, and probably are partially responsible for their massive facial structures. It is unfortunate that the tasks responsible for this wear have not yet been identified with certainty (Brace et al. 1981; Trinkaus 1983:457).
Life tables may also be sensitive to differential risks incurred by gender specific activities (Hedges 1984:186). However, survival profiles derived from prehistoric burials can be influenced by many other factors such as preferential infanticide and differences in status-related burial treatment. Life tables are extremely important sources of inference about gender, but they must be carefully analyzed. It is interesting, for example that in both the Middle and the Upper Paleolithic in both western Europe and the Near East, males constitute about 65% of the burials while females constitute 35% (Defleur 1987:215). Given the temporal and geographic consistency of these results, sampling biases do not appear to be likely explanations for this pattern. In some areas of Australia and in some age classes of the Neolithic Orkneys, male burials outnumbered females by seven to one (Collier 1982:13; Hedges 1984:186). How can this be explained if not by differential risk?Are there other viable explanations aside from preferential infanticide or status differences?
Finally, differential placement and treatment of burials according to sex is a rich source of information about gender roles and social organization. Longacre (1968) noted separate burial areas in Pueblo sites within which grave goods associated with females seem similar. Longacre argued that this indicated prehistoric matrilocal residence. Pearson (1981) and Zhong-Pei (1985) have also used grave goods to argue for prominent roles for women in Neolithic Chinese society. Similar studies have been conducted for the Hungarian Plain and in the American Archaic (Skomal 1986; Winters 1969). Because of the strong symbolical content of grave goods and questions concerning the local vs. trade origin and meaning of grave goods, some of these studies have been severely criticized (Plog 1980; Stanislawski 1978). This issue will be more fully discussed in Section 4. For the present, it is sufficient to note that inferences drawn from grave goods about gender roles or behavior must be done carefully and cautiously. Other lines of evidence and general theoretical expectations must be consulted wherever appropriate.
Early Texts
A third approach to prehistoric gender involves early texts. To diverge from hunter/gatherers briefly, some of the clearest indicators of gender behavior, status, and power are to be found in written texts left by past civilizations. Unfortunately, these only begin to occur in the last 5,000 years. In Sumer (Kramer 1963), texts indicate the legal status of women and wives. Later texts can indicate the position of women in terms of political power (Rathje 1972) and other basic rights. There are always problems of author biases and motives in the analysis of such texts; however, some texts such as legal codes are relatively unambiguous in terms of the fundamental rights that society accorded to wives, husbands, mothers and fathers. Such texts are invaluable aids wherever they
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occur, and constitute relatively strong methods for inferring gender behavior or status in civilizations. Unfortunately, they rarely reveal anything about pre-state cultures, and even when they do, such statements must be treated with extreme caution.
Art and Mythology
The fourth approach to prehistoric gender involves art and mythology. Because stylized portrayals of humans can represent a wide diversity of meanings, and because of the difficulty in determining these meanings for the artisan, the patron, the users, or the viewers of such portrayals, it should come as little surprise that figurines and art motifs are among the least reliable means of determining prehistoric gender behavior, status, or power. There are no generally agreed upon principles for interpreting or testing the meaning or significance of such art. Most studies in this vein have lacked rigor and relied excessively on subjective impressions (see Hayden 1986). At present, no one has even proposed a method of testing competing interpretations using these types of data. Certainly, artistic representations and figurines appear to hold important information on gender related issues. However, comparative and other types of studies offer little support for the claims that are often made on the basis of art interpretation.
For example, in what is often presented as a relatively straight-forward case, it is assumed that representations of female deities demonstrate high status and power for women in the Balkan Neolithic. On the other hand, numerous examples of prominent female deities and artistic representations can be found in societies considered as classic examples of patriarchies. These examples include the emphasis of the Virgin Mary in many Medieval and Renaissance communities, the central role of Athena and the Eleusinian Mysteries in Classical Athens, and the omnipresent representation of Queen Victoria in Victorian England. Numerous authors have warned against the facile and apparently misleading assumption that prominent mythological deities represent actual behavior, concerns, or social circumstances (Werblowsky 1981). As one author overstates this idea:
There appears to be a universal law...which states that wherever you find a religious or mystical system that exalts the feminine, making of it a divine attribute through which salvation may be known, in the society where that view is furthered you will find a proportionate disregard of woman as social being (Poncé 1983:75).
To cast further doubt on claims for a Neolithic Balkan matriarchy, Fluehr-Lobban (1979) argues that there is no ethnographic evidence for matriarchies; and in all cross-cultural studies to date, feminine status and roles sometimes equal those of men, but are never recorded as surpassing them (Rosaldo 1974; Sanday 1981:165; Whyte 1978:167-168).
Discrepancies between economic-social realities and major ideological-mythological themes are relatively common. For instance, the major figures in Northwest coast totems, religion, and art are bears, frogs, ravens, beavers, otters, and coyotes rather than the salmon and halibut that supported the subsistence economy. Similarly, in the European Upper Paleolithic, it is clear that the animals of most importance in the ritual cave sanctuaries were not those of greatest importance in subsistence (Butzer 1986:212). Moreover, exactly why female figurines should be associated with domestic structures while male figurines, phalli, copulation scenes, and sexually complementary themes should characterize the cave sanctuaries has never been addressed. I suspect that a full understanding of these issues will not be achieved until we have a better understanding of women's involvement in producing subsistence, trade, and wealth items in rich Upper Paleolithic areas, as well as how subsistence value and labor were transformed into wealth and status value. As I previously suggested, women may have been limiting factors in the production of curried skins for trade and in the processing and drying of meat for storage. In this scenario, women may have been valued as producers of wealth and children (labor) in a hierarchical system in which women were not necessarily in control.
In other ideological domains there is also frequently a discrepancy with social reality. For instance, it is not true that matrilineal descent systems or even matrilocal residence implies female dominance in traditional societies (Balée 1984; Blackman 1982:50; Harris 1979:96-7). Prolonged absence of males for trading or warfare, and the prevention of male factional fighting within complex politics, appear to be more relevant to explaining matrilocality and by extension, matrilineality.
If we return to the Balkan Neolithic, there are other important indicators in art and other social domains that are inconsistent with a society dominated and run by women: notably the many indicators of warfare during the Neolithic (fortified settlements such as Nea Nikomedia, Dhimini, Sesklo, and evidence for Minoan long distance trading and territorial expansion‹Andel and Runnels 1988; Milisauskas 1978, 1986; Rodden 1965; Theocharis 1973). On the basis of comparative ethnography, military activity and long distance trading are strongly associated with male
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dominated cultures. Moreover, the emphasis on Neolithic female cult figurines all but ignores the prominent role of bucrania and horns of consecration, which most prehistorians view as symbols of masculine fertility (e.g. Mellaart 1965:94-95). Finally, none of the proponents of prehistoric matrifocal societies have explained how women might have achieved dominance when confronted with the substantially greater physical force, aggressive penchants, and weaponry of men. Appeals to cognitive respect for women's procreative faculties are difficult to take seriously given a lack of ethnographic examples and the more powerful constraints of subsistence, economy, defense, and dominance competition.
In sum, it is difficult to determine if myths and material representations of myths or ceremonies are meant to portray actual relationships in the real world, imagined rationalizations for why certain behaviors exist, overcompensations for inequalities that really exist in societies, idealizations of utopian but nonexistent states, or some other factors (Trigger 1989:351). To endorse approaches based primarily on symbolic or ritual behavior in material culture (e.g. Ardener 1975; Conkey and Spector 1984) without a means for establishing reliability or testing interpretations is to reduce the study of gender to subjective speculation.
Particularistic, or idiosyncratic, expressions are expectable when dealing with symbolic material culture. In symbolic material culture, there are no significant constraints on the meaning that a group can attach to a particular symbol or act. There are no serious consequences if one community attaches a bad connotation to the number four or the color red rather than a good connotation. On the other hand, particularist behavior is much more constrained when dealing with practical domains where consequences are real and can influence survival and well-being. Thus, it is important to know the domain in which objects were used in past cultures. For instance, in the case of the Archaic atlatls buried with women noted by Winters (1969) and criticized by Conkey and Spector (1984), the critical question is whether such occurrences represent symbolic or practical use of the atlatls. Winters' purported personal biases are not an issue and are even irrelevant since he listed numerous possible interpretations and concluded that the data were not strong enough to choose any one of them at the time of his analysis. The main issue is whether these atlatls represent genuine exceptions to a strong general model based on practical factors like the sexual division of labor, and if so, what circumstances are responsible for creating the exceptions. If not, then do these burials present misleading symbols of real behavior that are placed in the archaeological record due to particularist cultural practices and values. How can such issues be decided? There can be no doubt about the symbolic status of burial goods in general; there is a question about the actual use of goods and the individuals interred with them.
I suggest that reliance on general practical models with clear causality and abundant empirical ethnographic support is far preferable to particularistic speculations lacking causality and eschewing notions of underlying regularities in behavior. However, to settle such issues, innovative tests can frequently be devised on the basis of the other avenues of inference previously discussed. In the Archaic example, for instance, skeletal remains of men versus women could be examined for evidence of bone phenotypical deformations from repeated throwing.
In contrast to actual behavior with adaptive or survival consequences, the content and intent of many ideologies and their artistic representations are likely to be heavily influenced by specific culture histories and therefore are likely to require particularist kinds of explanations. Unfortunately, these are precisely the types of reconstructions that are most difficult for archaeologists to make with any reliability. No sound methodology has yet been developed. Until such a methodology is developed, it appears that the best basis for dealing with prehistoric gender issues comprises the comparative ethnographic approach, skeletal evidence, physiological differences, written texts, and comparative zoological/primatological inferences which I will turn to shortly.
Physiological Studies
A fifth approach to gender studies involves internal physiological differences. It has been established that sex hormones affect levels of aggression and secondary sexual traits (see Fisher 1990; Parker and Parker 1979). It has also been established that levels of sex hormones have clear effects on brain development in fetuses and there are important indications that female hormones have a positive effect on fine motor skills and an adverse effect on hunting related spatial tasks (Barnes 1988; Kimura 1987; Wittig and Petersen 1989). On the other hand, males perform better in gross motor tasks and women perform better in spatial tasks associated with gathering (Fisher 1990; Kimura 1987; Silverman and Eals 1990). Levy (1981) has shown that the female brain tends to be less asymmetrical than males', while Lacoste-Utamsing and Holloway (1982) have demonstrated sex differences in the corpus callosum in the brain, arguing that such differences may be related to different visuo-spatial functions. Durden-Smith and de Simone (1983) and Kimura (1987) have documented these and other
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gender differences in the organization of male and female brains, and they suggest that there may be some predisposition to different types of behavior because of this factor (see also Gibbons 1991). Different balances of hormones according to gender as well as differences in brain physiology may have considerable potential for explaining persistent sexual psychological differences relating to male aggression, competition, dominance, object orientation, spatial analysis, and mathematic dexterity (Benbow and Stanley 1983; Maccoby and Jacklin 1974; Tiger 1970:330; Wittig and Peterson 1979). Given the strong hormonal relation to sexual activity, it does not even seem unreasonable to suggest that hormones may also be responsible for the differences in male vs. female sexual fantasies documented in a cross-cultural study by Ellis (1990). Other physiological studies indicating that stress in women leads to lowered fertility (Anderson 1986) may provide potential causal mechanisms for the evolution of some of these differences. Similarly, selection for success in infant survival, care, and socialization may provide a causal scenario for women's somewhat higher sensitivity to nonverbal and verbal communication (Kimura 1987; Wittig and Peterson 1979).
If one assumes a sexual division of labor similar to that outlined in the section on comparative ethnography, then male success in hunting and in dealing with other groups, both as allies and enemies, could also have affected survival rates of offspring and could have selected for an enhanced genetic expression of psychological traits such as spatial and object orientation and lower thresholds for aggression (also expectable given competitive dominance and mating systems). Where congruences between independent types of data occur, as with comparative ethnography, comparative zoology/primatology, and physiological studies, then strong causal models can often be developed with powerful explanatory and predictive capabilities.
While the notion of biological differences in attitudes, values, or psychology are considered to be politically incorrect by some students of gender, where the existence is well established, as in the case of hormonally-related aggression, these differences can provide important sources of inference regarding past gender behavior. Such differences can be used to understand gender preferences for particular types of tasks (such as group defense) observed in comparative ethnographies and may even be linked to different mating and survival strategies. The explanation of such internal physiological differences in terms of evolutionary selective advantages should certainly provide an interesting topic for future research.
Comparative Zoology and Gross Physiology
A final approach that can help in the reconstruction of gender behavior is the study of gender differences in other primate species and in gross anatomical differences between the sexes. For much of the early Paleolithic, there is so little material culture and there are so few gender-specific remains that comparative zoology, particularly primatology, provides an important line of evidence for inferring gender differences among very early prehistoric populations (Rodseth et al. 1991). The hominid forms of these earlier periods differ significantly from fully sapient forms and primate comparisons can provide some useful considerations. To extend the scope of these comparisons even further, sociobiologists have suggested that arguments concerning the reasons for the evolution of gender differences in physiology and behavior among a wide variety of species can be developed (Wilson 1978).
In terms of comparative zoological approaches within the primates, (e.g., Emlen and Oring 1977), there are several types of observations that can be employed for inferring gender differences in behavior. The first of these is physical sexual dimorphism, a trait that tends to characterize most of the higher primates. The explanation of such physiological differences in evolutionary terms must entail consequences for differential general mating strategies, social roles, risks, behavior, status, and attitudes among Pleistocene hunter/gatherers. Clutton-Brock et al. (1977) and Wrangham (1980) have shown that sexual dimorphism in the primates is most likely to result from competition between males for females. This conclusion is further bolstered by research on sexual dimorphism in other animal species, including many ungulates. Wilson (1978:20) has argued that a number of behavioral traits appear to be common to all higher primates, including male competition for females.
More recently, Hooks and Green (1990) have stated that comparative studies show that primate females (including humans) compete for male support in child-rearing and protection. Therefore primate females try to form alliances with males and females compete most intensively for the highest ranking male. Tooke et al. (1990) argue that even in Industrial societies, the use of physical deception by women in mating strategies is part of a primate pattern, as is the use of deception by men, where the strategy is to appear of greater standing than warranted and to feign commitment.
The development of female breasts and male beards are other sexually dimorphic physical characteristics that are generally regarded as reflecting mating strategies and sexual selection as is the
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disappearance of estrus in humans (Campbell 1974; Fishir 1982; Gallup 1982; Montagna 1985).
Another approach in comparative zoology is to examine gender behavior in the primate species that are closest to humans both in genetic terms and in terms of environmental adaptations. Chimpanzees and bonobos are frequently considered the closest primate parallel to humans. Here, too, Smuts (1990) has documented dramatic differences in sexual behavior between males and females, largely centered on competition between males for females. She also documents distinctive female strategies for survival in this competitive environment and for the protection of offspring. Other researchers have argued that sex is used by chimpanzees and humans to reduce male aggression and the danger of injury or social breakup (Blount 1990).
While some of these interpretations are exploratory, it seems clear that distinctive behavior of female chimpanzees reflects dramatically different constraints and concerns from those of males. Fisher (1990) argues that human gender differences in spatial vs. verbal skills, aggression, and motor coordination are incipient in chimpanzees, while Wilson (1978:27) observes that both chimpanzee and human males hunt cooperatively, forage over larger areas than females, engage in territorial aggression, and occupy the highest positions of highly structured dominance hierarchies. Similar conclusions have been supported in Rodseth et al.'s (1991) exemplary analysis of primate and human behavior.
Other obvious types of possible sexually dimorphic behavior that can be modeled by using primate data include the stability and configuration of mating (Johanson and Shreeve 1989:273); greater propensity among females to retain close ties and form alliances with kin (Cheney et al. 1986); formation of dominance hierarchies (Eibesfeldt 1989; Tiger 1970; Waal 1982; ); planned male offensive actions against other groups and overall higher aggressiveness among males (Goodall 1986, 1989; Johanson and Shreeve 1989:277; Parker and Parker 1979); abuse versus protection of offspring (Hendry 1979); male versus female exogamy (Frayser 1985:114; Johanson and Shreeve 1989:277); and age differences in male-female partnerships. These issues entail expectations for differential gender behavior among both early and later hunter/gatherers. Where these behaviors characterize both primates and ethnographic hunter/gatherers, very plausible models can be formulated for prehistoric hunter/gatherers. In terms of causal explanations, it is reasonable to assume that differential sexual involvement in activities would have been affected by such factors as risk, mobility, physical strength, pregnancy and child protection, dominance, inter-group hostilities, or other factors that could affect performance, survival, and competitive advantages.
Further Considerations
One of the thorniest issues in studies of gender behavior involves the degree to which there may be innate differences between males and females. Sociobiologists have been the strongest proponents of genetic based gender differences in mating and reproductive strategies, and by extension, in activities and attitudinal differences (Barash 1977; Wilson 1978). In contrast, social scientists have been sceptical that any genetic gender differences exist at all, preferring to see all extant gender differences as resulting from cultural values. This question has considerable importance for the reconstruction of gender roles in prehistory.
Rather than adopt or reject either of these positions on a priori convictions, it would seem most reasonable to leave the question open to empirical investigation and testing. Even in the realm of established gross physiological differences between the sexes, there is a great deal of overlap in such fundamental properties as height and weight. If there are genetic influences on the psychology of the two sexes, similar overlap can probably be expected in most basic traits. How can it be determined whether inherent psychological tendencies do exist, especially given geneticists' insistence that genetic propensities are not immutable, but can always be somewhat modified by strong enough environmental or cultural pressures? For instance, there have certainly been some societies in which some women have been warriors.
The main question is: if women and men were raised and treated in exactly the same fashion and given exactly the same opportunities, would there be any tendency for them to react differently to the same situations, to choose different tasks, to adopt different strategies for acquiring mates and reproducing, to choose different types of recreation, to choose different roles, or to have different attitudes and values? For example, would women choose the profession of warrior, administrator, politician, or butcher as often as men? Are there compelling reasons why we should expect exactly equal representations in all fields if cultural values can be neutered? These are obviously extremely difficult questions to empirically test. However, there are some slightly less direct approaches to the question involving the use of comparative zoology, comparative ethnographies, and physiological studies.
When behavior or psychological traits consistently characterize an entire order, suborder, or genus of animals, including humans, this provides a basis for assuming some genetic component to that behavior.
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Similarly, when specific behavioral or psychological traits characterize the vast majority of cultures irrespective of history, environment, and other cultural values, then there are also grounds for assuming that these traits stem from something more basic in human nature than cultural malleability. When physiological differences can be demonstrated to affect attitudes and behavior, as with sex hormones and aggression, these differences ought to be taken into account. Finally, if gender differences in behavior and reactions can be observed in infancy, prior to the absorption of cultural values, these too can be inferred to depend on innate tendencies.
The strongest arguments of all are based on consistent or compatible results in all four approaches to the problem. A few pioneering studies (Parker and Parker 1979) have attempted just such a synthesis and proposed significant innate gender differences in aggressiveness and individual competition. Such conclusions constitute important building blocks for the interpretation of past gender behavior. They provide clear causal models for why some behaviors differ between the sexes, and they provide strong empirically based general expectations for interpreting past behavior. They can be the anchors that give stability to more exploratory studies. It is difficult to imagine how particularist cognitive explanations can ever achieve an equal degree of power or certainty.
Although prehistorians are frequently admonished for not presenting full causal models of prehistoric gender behavior (Conkey and Spector 1984), it should be apparent from the above discussions that such models do exist, although they are sometimes presented in fragmentary or implicit forms. Prehistorians' models center on the basic adaptiveness of such things as: different strategies for mating and protecting offspring; the development of inter-group alliances; and competition and cooperation in dominance over mates, resources, and influence. From these basic conditions, a second level of outcomes can be derived, including: the sexual division of labor (hunting/warfare/politics vs. gathering/child rearing), differential adaptations for mobility, aggression and defense, effective emotional and analytical communication, and possibly even spatial aptitudes. A third, more specific, level of inferences may be formulated from these domains concerning precise tasks and tool types likely to be associated with each sex under specific conditions. These tasks may include processing different types of food, grease production (Stevenson 1984), hunting, hide working, fish butchering, garment manufacturing, and political-ritual performances. Unfortunately, even where clear patterns exist in comparative ethnographies, causal explanations for why many of these tasks tend to be gender specific have often been neglected.
The entire question of what differences in gender-specific behavior existed in the past, how such differences are to be demonstrated, how they may have changed, and how they are to be explained, is an extremely difficult and complex topic. Far too often, it has been approached in an overly simplistic fashion by both male and female archaeologists. If women have frequently been neglected in prehistory, it has largely been because of the difficulty of distinguishing their activities from males on the basis of stone tools or because of the difficulty in interpreting symbolic representations. One of the ways out of this conundrum is to develop and test much more powerful general theories that can in turn be used as building blocks for refining our understanding of women's and men's tool manufacture and use. In this quest, it is important to remember that prehistory is primarily a record of averaged group behavior with specifiable ranges of variation. Before the advent of writing, individuals are almost impossible to deal with as discrete entities that can be related to other variables. Ideas, values, and rules are elusive and ambiguous. Behavior is the aspect of humans and culture that is most easily perceived in the archaeological record, and perhaps it is ultimately the only aspect that really matters. Even with written records there is often little relation between actual behavior and the ideas, rationalizations, and self-images portrayed in writing.
There are many underutilized avenues of investigating prehistoric gender behavior, including the study of skeletal evidence and the integration of comparative and physiological studies in gender theories. Prehistorians in conjunction with ecologists, physiologists, and comparative ethnologists have made significant progress in identifying the types of major forces that affect past cultural adaptations. Proponents of particularistic cognitive models of past gender behavior seem to have a different agenda that ignores or attempts to diminish the strongest indicators of patterning and causality in past gender behavior. They supplant strong models with weak ones, reliable inferences with subjective speculative ones. I suggest that the time is overdue for such counterproductive approaches to be recognized for what they are. There is more than enough work to keep future generations of prehistorians occupied in the more grounded aspects of gender studies.
Notes
1. As it turns out, there may be no society in which women dominate the top 10 per cent of political positions (Tiger 1970:30; Wilson 1978:128). To the extent that rituals are used for political ends (Paige and Paige 1981), this may pertain to ritual life as well.
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