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Archaeology and The Goddess: Exploring the Contours of Feminist Archaeology (1995)
... Whatever the shortcomings of Gimbutas´ work, she did address the important issue of male-centred narratives created by a male-dominated (western) academic establishment. Unfortunately, her methodological and analytic weaknesses have negatively impacted more current attempts of feminist archaeologists trying to employ new approaches in considering gender within archaeological context (Conkey and Tringham 1995;Talalay 1994, 172). ...
For the Neolithic in the Near East figurines are our primary, at times only, source of visual representations of humans and animals at many sites. More than purely utilitarian objects, figurines are thought to provide insight into the more intangible aspects of past life such as ritual, cosmology, identity and social processes. In most approaches, there has often been a focus on figurines as static images. However, placing prime importance on representation ignores the importance of interactions between people and materials. In this thesis it is argued that through an artefact and life biography approach we can more productively analyse figurines as a process; from production, use, to final deposition. Better insight into these aspects will allow us to more fully comprehend how figurines operated in their respective social contexts. Any statement on figurine practices needs to incorporate all types of figurines and furthermore a nuanced view on differences in figurine practices needs to be substantiated by analysis of different sites. Therefore, this thesis features the corpora of two Neolithic sites: Tell Sabi Abyad (Syria) and Çatalhöyük (Turkey) both inhabited through the 8th to 6th millennia. The different social settings at these sites make them an interesting case study to analyse differences in figurine practices. The result is a comprehensive overview of the complete life biographies of all clay figurines found at both sites, looking at material properties, production, use-wear traces and depositional contexts which are then compared between figurine types and analysed through time. Synthesising these findings yielded a detailed insight into figurine practices at the two case study sites, showing some common practices but also marked differences potentially linked to more household practices at Çatalhöyük and community practices at Tell Sabi Abyad. Furthermore, life biographies of figurines at the two sites are variable and changes through time are observed at both sites. This thesis not only offers a detailed and nuanced picture of figurine practices at these two sites, but it also exemplifies that generalised statements about figurine practices in the Near East need to be reassessed through intra-site, artefact approach studies.
... También se centra en la cuantificación y la estadística a través de la formalización y cuantificación en arqueología, y en el desarrollo de excavaciones y análisis espaciales en las investigaciones que formaron la base de su trayectoria arqueológica y de los grupos de investigación con los que trabajó, como son los estudios de Son Ferragut (Castro-Martínez et al., 2003a) o el Proyecto contra la falsificación del pasado prehistórico (Castro-Martínez et al., 2006). Asimismo, son fundamentales sus propuestas enmarcadas en la arqueología feminista referidas al estudio de las representaciones figurativas, con los análisis y las ideas para las mal llamadas "Venus paleolíticas", un tema que, por otra parte, tam bién se venía debatiendo en el mundo anglosajón desde hacía una década (Conkey y Tringham, 1995;McDermott, 1996;, y la defensa de la "sexuación del pasado" que siempre consideró fundamental para cual quier estudio coherente de arqueología feminista (Escoriza-Mateu y Sanahuja Yll, 2001). Reivindica así durante los años noventa la necesidad de solventar la caren cia de estudios osteológicos que explicasen en mayor medida las diferencias y las relaciones entre los sexos en las sociedades ágrafas y que evitase el continuo uso de lo masculino como lo neutro (Castro-Martínez et al., 1996: 42;: 13 y 62). ...
La mayoría de nosotras ya conocemos la forma en la que la Academia y la arqueología se ha desarrollado en contextos patriarcales, y la influencia que todo este recorrido ha tenido y tiene en la actualidad. Pero es gracias a una incansable lucha feminista, tanto dentro como fuera de la disciplina arqueológica, que actualmente podemos identificar esas dinámicas machistas y enfrentarnos a ellas. Uno de los mayores referentes de estas luchas lo encontramos en la figura de María Encarna Sanahuja Yll, cuyo trabajo supone un referente en la arqueología feminista actual. Si bien sus investigaciones son ampliamente conocidas, consideramos que sus aportaciones debían ocupar un lugar en el congreso “Voces in Crescendo: del mutismo a la afonía en la historia de las mujeres en la arqueología española” del que deriva la presente publicación.
... These relations can only be reconstituted through inference and exercising considerable caution. Thus the notion that the many female statuettes of Palaeolithic and Neolithic Europe were incontrovertible testimony of a cult of the Great Goddess, a cult that characterizes societies that are intrinsically matriarchal or "matristic" (Gimbutas 1991), has been convincingly refuted (Ucko 1962;Conkey and Tringham 1995;Testart 2010). ...
Of all the themes that Friedrich Engels addressed 130 years ago in “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”, the question of the oppression of women is one that remains particularly salient today. Serious feminists have always considered that they should base their struggle on a clear understanding of the causes and mechanisms of what they were opposing. However, since Engels’s book was written, our knowledge of primitive societies and prehistory has advanced by leaps and bounds, and has rendered many previously held positions obsolete. This article is an expression of the author’s original view on the problem of the source of the phenomenon of sexual division of labor. The aim of this essay is to suggest a framework for the updating of Marxist arguments on the subject in the light of the findings that have accumulated since then. This article summarises the ideas put forward in my book « Le communisme primitif n’est plus ce qu’il était » (2012). Key-words: Marxism, social classes, social communities, social groups, gender philosophy, feminism
Despite Late Bronze Age Aegean art containing a number of depictions of armed women, unacknowledged preconceptions about gender continue to divert thoughts away from past women exercising violent or coercive power, and thus affecting significantly our understanding of Late Bronze Age Aegean societies in general. This paper examines the depiction of armed women in the art of the Late Bronze Age Aegean and considers how previous generations of researchers have chosen to interpret it. The author then uses recent developments in gender theory and political theory to suggest that the connection of women to power needs to be reassessed.
Archaeological theory is a fluid and fractured field that is an arena of lively debate. This Handbook will guide students and practitioners through this field in a novel way, connecting ideas in different schools of thought through the key problems upon which they focus. Major themes are tackled in review papers by experts in those areas, while the schools of thought that archaeologists frequently draw upon are also given extended treatment by specialists in neighbouring fields. Another innovative aspect of this Handbook is the attention given to archaeological theory outside of the Anglo-American debate which has tended to dominate publications on the subject.
Prehistoric anthropomorphic figurines are probably one of the most widely discussed and possibly the most poorly understood archaeological objects of all. The engendering of Anatolian prehistory using figurines and visual representations of people has not progressed much beyond defining which figure is male or female or, in most cases, which figure represents a god or goddess. This article aims to take apart the Mother Goddess theory and discuss how it was created and why it is problematic for feminist scholarship. Many interpretations of figurines have been proposed in previous decades; they incorporate such concepts as embodiment, materiality, and gender. As a case study, this paper concentrates on Köşk Höyük, a central Anatolian Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic site, with the aim to have a broader look at the visual imagery. The anthropomorphic representations on relief-decorated pottery and the figurines found at Köşk Höyük have typically been interpreted as representations of gods and goddesses, despite ongoing critiques of the Mother Goddess theory. This paper analyses representations of gendered identities, based on visual media, in order to gain a better understanding of the function and use of such representations.
Keywords: Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Anatolia, figurines, Mother Goddess, performativity, gender
Marija Gimbutas (Gimbutienė) is a renowned archaeologist who specialised in European prehistory. This paper explores her life and work, including her personal biography, showing how her upbringing in Lithuania shaped her academic interests and orientations. This paper also reviews her professional achievements and contributions via the lenses of seven aspects of her academic life, namely her time in higher education, her work on Lithuanian folklore and symbolism, her explorations of Old Europe during the Neolithic, her Kurgan Hypothesis and engagement with Baltic studies, her excavations in southeast Europe, her work on the Goddess, and her symbolism work. It also examines academic and popular reactions to her writing and her influence on scholars and public discourse. Keywords: Gimbutas, Neolithic, history of archaeology, Goddess, figurines.
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