Ambiguous Images: Gender and Rock Art(6 Gender and Archaeology)

What does rock art say about gender and how can our understanding of gender shape the way that we view rock art? A significant contribution to the relatively unexplored field of gender in rock art, this volume contains a wealth of information for archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians interested in past gender systems. Hays-Gilpin argues that art is at once a product of its physical and social environment and at the same time a tool of influence in shaping behavior and ideas within a society. Taking this stance, rock art is shown to be very often one of the strongest lines of evidence avaliable to scholars in understanding ritual practices, gender roles, and ideologicial constructs of prehistoric peoples. Subsequently issues of representation and the people who made these forms of art are also discussed.

About the Author :
Kelley Hays-Gilpin teaches archaeology, ceramic analysis, and a rock art course at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, just hours from Petrified Forest National Park and her favorite rock art. She received her PhD in anthropology at the University of Arizona in 1992, then worked for the Navajo Nation Archaeology Department for several years. She has co-authored books on prehistoric sandals of northern Arizona and pottery of Arizona's Puerco Valley, and co-edited the Reader in Gender Archaeology with David S. Whitley. Current projects include collaboration with the Museum of Northern Arizon, Harvard Peabody Museum, and the Hopi Tribe on the Southwest Mural Project, a multidisciplinary study of 15th-17th century dry fresco painting from the Puebloan region.

Review :
Ambiguous Images is a welcome addition to gender, aterial, visual and even 'science' culture studies, and a text I will eagerly recommend and use in the classroom..... Ambiguous Images is a timely volume in which Kelley Hays-Gilpin covers a wide range of issues as she challenges popular and past stereotypes about rock art and gender--topics she describes as often marginal to the archaeological community. Yet perceptions of sex and gender affect social processes, life cycles, politics, economics, religion, and world views. Drawing on rock art throughout the world, Hays-Gilpin points the way and lays out routes for the dynamic use of rock art imagery as a creativeavenue of discovery into richly gendered worlds of the past. This is an exciting addition to the fast-growing literature on gender in archaeology...--Polly Schaafsma With this book American rock art research comes of age. Far from a rock art-book-about-rock art, this instead is a book on how rock art informs us about prehistoric gender and social life. It is essential reading for anyone interested in symbolism, prehistoric art, feminist theory or western North American prehistory....--David S. Whitley, author, The Art of the Shaman; editor, Archaeology of Religion series ...presents new avenues for research. Her writing style is clear, and the bibliography is valuable for students of archaeology and rock art. Recommended.....--T. A. Foor Like the other books in this series, this one creates new paths for others to follow. Kelley Hays-Gilpin doesn't cut the path with a machete, however, but with a scalpel and a fine sensibility for detail. She dispassionately probes the explanations that have been put forward about gender and rock art, and without posturing shows better ways to think about both topics and to discriminate between more and less likely interpretations...The reader has in hand a wise guide, a thoughtful analysis, and a good read...--From the Foreword, Sarah Milledge Nelson