Review of \u3ci\u3e Women in Ancient America\u3c/i\u3e by Karen Olsen Bruhns and Karen E. Stothert

It is well known that the role and contribution of women to prehistory has long been ignored or undervalued. Because women represent approximately one half of humanity, have done so in the past, and make a contribution by sheer numbers alone, this book is a necessary attempt to remedy the shortcomings in the writing of American prehistory as it pertains to women and gender. The authors state in its preface that their book is an introduction to the study of women in the American past. The first chapter lays out the method for the study of women and gender in archeology, the authors stressing the diversity of women\u27s roles and values in non-western societies, a theme often repeated. The next three chapters look at women from the first Americans (Paleoindians), through the Archaic, to women in food-producing societies and their contribution to the evolution of food production. The next five chapters evaluate women\u27s participation in various social institutions: households, production and specialization, religion, power, war and conquest. These chapters rely heavily on women in state societies, but provide a glimpse of women\u27s participation in a temporal cross-section of societies. Although this organization works, it creates repetition, the same societies and specific women being used as examples in several chapters (such as the two Denzante women discussed in chapters on both power and war)