This first comprehensive work on women in precolumbian American cultures describes gender roles and relationships in North, Central, and South America from 12,000 B.C. to the 1500s A.D. Utilizing many key archaeological works, Karen Olsen Bruhns and Karen E. Stothert redress some of the long-standing male bias in writing about ancient Native American lifeways.

Bruhns and Stothert focus on several of the most thought-provoking areas of study in the Americas: the origins of agriculture, the development of complex societies, the evolution of religious systems, and the interpretation of art and mortuary materials. The authors pay particular attention to the problems of interpreting archaeological remains and the uses of historic and ethnographic evidence in reconstructing the past.