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.

Product Description: This volume records the archaeological investigations of the author in the Quindio region, west of Bogota. The work (extensive survey, test pit excavation and documentary/museum researches) was carried out in the 1970s and is presented unchanged here, although the preface updates some of the references...read more

Product Description: South America is still the least known continent in the world. Ancient South America encompasses ten millennia of cultural development and diversity on this great continent. From the first hunters to the magnificent empire of the Incas it covers the immense variety of cultures, their unique arts and industries and the important contributions these little known peoples have made to the modern world...read more