Genderlithics: women's roles in stone tool production

6 Genderlithics: Women's Roles in Stone Tool Production Joan M. Gero The most traditional technology of all, in every society, is the social technology of the dfuision of labor uthicb leaaes won an utith tbe most labor-intensiae responsibilities of child and food. prodwction, and which defines her role as one tbat does not require tools. . .. \(/hat is most urgently needed is to begin to define women as tool-makers and tool-users - which they have always been. E. Boulding, "Women, Peripheries and Food Production" (1978) Introduction: Did Vomen Make Stone Tools? Stone tool production, the bashing of rock against rock, is a male province by all accounts. "The most visible activity in the archaeological record is stone tool fabrication. an exclusivelv male endeavor" (Thomas 1983t 439). Or from a National Science Foundation reviewer, I would hardly have the temerity, in these enlighrened rimes, ro deny that there has been androcentrism in the reconstruction of the past (and in the recruitment of those chosen to do that reconstruction). Yet I remain unconvinced that there is any significant misunderstanding as to the fact that most prehistoric lithic production (unarguably the marerial with which we must work for the 6rst million years or so) was produced by males. No doubt women made bags and baskets and cloths of numerous sorts for just as long . . . [and] in most cuhures, past and presenr, ceramics were and are made by women. No doubt also there are some historically documented reversals of these tradirional sex roles, but . . . certainly there is no indication of a technological breakthrough that would require a seriously revisionist archaeology . , . (Anonymous, 1988) This paper challenges the assumption that males alone are responsible for producing the stone tools that comprise so much of the archaeological 163  t64 J. M. Grno Gn^roERr-rtHrcs 165 record for extended periods of prehistory.My critique, involving no up in how Man-the-Toolmaker demonstrates his human-ness. Tools are technological breakrhrough that allows sex to be assigned ro artif"acts, the standard by which Mankind can be measured. "Tools provide a attempts a seriously revisionist archaeology with another kind of thermometer for measuring intellectual heat" (Laughlin 1968: 318), as breakthrough: a theoretical perspectiue thii recognizes gender as a though making tools is what man does and, once made, these tools have dynamic and critical consrruct in social life and onelhrt provides entry completed their function: to bear testimony to man's abilities. Today's into studying thc organization of prehistoric social labor. It will be a lithii analysis has not completely outgrown these beginnings but still signrficant ourcome of this study to show that engendering tool focuses on the production and final forms of elaborately finished tools, production does more than map femaies onto the prehistoric rec"ord; it with only secondary regard to the range of economic and cultural goals also.provides a framework for reconstructing gendei relations as they are accomplished by tools. The most primary distinctions in lithic analysis mediated by material culture. are still made between the end-products of the manufacturing sequence' The logic of this paper proceeds as follows. I begin by examining the "tools", and the by-products of manufacture' cores and debitage, so that current use and loading of the rerm "stone tool", rurning then to the production sequence rather than use-applications still predominates question why males are so widely assumed to be the producirs of this in tool analysis. These distinctions are underscored by further classifactory broad category of material culture and offering, finally, arguments for groupings: artifacts that were obviously used but that had not been women's participation in srone tool production. In the second half of the iubfected in the productive stages to being made into a standardized piq... I inspect a sequence of changes in stone tool technology from the shape are referred to not as "tools" but as 'utilized flakes", or even more hrshlands of Peru to identify women's roles in tool production and to emphatically as "unretouched flakes", with the emphasis retained on the intcrpret thcir significance. amount of production - or lack of it. Tools, it is clear, is a term retained for categories of elaborated retouched artifacts with formal structure, \What is a Stone Tool? Vhere Did This Definition Come although the question is clearly begged: when does one "use a tool" and From? when does one "utilize a flake"? In fact, of course, "utilized flakes" are tools, although in the literature, The study of stone tools, the material remains most closely associated "tools" are still frequently comprised of only standardized, classifiable, with evolving hominids, speaks directly to the validation of being reproduced forms of worked stone. Thus, Hayden writes that among the human. It is not coincidental that the eirly studies of srone tool, anj Australian aborigines he was surprised to confront "the unbelievable tooi-makers (Holmes 1897; wilson 1899) occurred in the heady flush of lack, or rarity, of what the archaeologist calls 'tools'. At first I saw newly accepted evolutionary theory (Kehoe 1987); while ethnologists Aborigines usiqg only unretouched primary flakes for shaving and analyzed conremporary savages and barbarians for evidence of"the scraping wood, and unmodified blocks of stone for chopping wood. succcssive ages and srages through which humanity had evolved and None of these would have been recognized archaeologically as 'tools"' progressed, archaeologists unearthed direct evidence of brutish early (Hayden 1977: 179). Or again, Binford and Binford carcgorize Middle man from the material record (Kehoe (1,987:3), Spearheads and axei, Paleolithic artifacts in five general classes: Levallois flakes, non-Levallois weapons and implements fashioned out of stone, were identified as the flakes, cores, waste flakes, and utilized flakes, and then they exclwde the essence of man's rude beginnings, savage, indeed, as beginnings must be, final category of utilized flakes from their graphed results "because they but also full of the clever p.omiie that makes rhem appr"opriatJ hallmarks are not diagnostic and because their quantity is such that they tend to of human ability. Accompanying this early artention io rhe forms of distort the graph" (Binford and Binford 1,966:263-4). stone tools were the related arrempts ro undersrand their technology of As Hayden suggests, part of the conventional loading of the term manufacture, and different tool lorms were frequently replicatJi in "tool" towards elaborated and retouched forms derives from the real expcrimental undertakings during the late nineteenth and'early twentieth difficulty that archaeologists have had in recognizing unretouched flakes cen.tury (Hester and Heizer 1923; Johnson 1978), to identify rhe narure that may have been used as tools. In lithic studies expressly designed to and capacity of early man. (And note please: "man" is noi a semanric detect artifact use, the term "tool" (or tool-edge) is applied much more gencralization - such tools were scen, without doubt, as the products of generally to any stone that exhibits evidence of having been used, and a malc labor.) much broader, more inclusive range of artifact forms is coyered by the The definition of whar constirures a tool, then, is intimately wrapped "tool" term. In functional analvsis. and especiallv in use-wear studies  166 J. M. GEno GnNoBnutrucs 167 where microscopic analysis of an artifact's edge may reveal evidence of virtually no published literature by women as flint knappers: knapping is how tt was used, the identifying criteria are rurned around and wse publicly male territory. defi-nes tool-ness, clarifying the Jistinction between unused flakes and Not only do only male archaeologists make stone tools, but the tools tools. experimentally reproduced by modern (male) flint knappers duplicate But micro.scopic use-wear evidence is the exception and is relatively the narrow definition of tools as highly formalized, elaborately recent, 1n{ il general the flake vs. tool distinctibn upholds the larger retouched and morphologically standardized. As noted by Johnson archaeological paradigm; lithic studies are most frequenily undertakerito (1978:355), the single most frequently replicated artifact is the projectile erect a simple classification system that can be used as an adjunct to other point, especially the fluted point. After the point come other technically spatio-temporal approaches, another tool, as it were, to sort culture demanding tool forms such as Egyptian predynastic flint knives, groups on the basis of material culture correlates, to ..measure prismatic blades, Levallois cores, polished celts and axes, all technologic- intellectual heat", to erect a culture history of ,,man,,. Tools are ally difficult and requiring a long sequence of manufacturing steps and, identified on the basis of their typological 'characteristics and their usually, a high quality raw material. The male gender-loading on tool redundant features in order to partiti,cn prehistoric time inro knowable, production is maintained by modern males reproducing only the comprehensible units. In so doing, lithic analysis has ignored large conventionally circumscribed range of tools by which Man-the-Tool- bodies of data consisting of ad boc or expediently producel flake toois, maker is evaluated. and measured. the non-classifiable, noi formally redunda.,t tooli that lack elaborate It is also exclusively male archaeologists who experimentally use retouch' Adopting a broader definition of "rools" not only refines one of replicated, standardized tools in modern, analogical activities (in contrast archaeology's central tenets but proves fundamental 'to a feminist to research such as Tringham et a\.1.974, orJuel Jensen 1982, which test analysis of tool use in prehisrory. fresh flake edges for micro-wear). Note too that the modern man-made tools are used in highly selected activities to recreate ancient man/"real man". Fastened into reconstructed haftings, attached to spears, arrows, Vhy is Making Stone Tools Perceived as a Male Activity? darts, and shafts, these experimental testing programs have in common an overwhelming emphasis on tool use in exaggeratedly "male" activities, especially hunting (Flenniken and Raymond 1986), butchering If males, making elaborated tools have been linked to the progress of (Elliott and Anderson 1974; Hester et al. 1976; Odell 1980), spear mankind, other biases in modern lithic analysis also reinfoice the throwing (Odell and Cowan 1986; Spencer 1.974), and the particularly equation of tools with male makers and users. Lithic studies have served popular combined."research" endeavor of throwing projectiles into, and as a venue for male and female archaeologists alike, and indeed, a carving up, modern analogs to big game (Butler 1980; Frison 1989; relatively large number of women archaeolog"ists have built reputations Huckell 1982; Park 1978; Rippercau 1979; Stanford 1979), as well as on, and made significant contribudons to, ih. study of ancient lithic felling trees (Coutts 1.977; White t977) and making bows or arrows techno,logres (e.g Juel Jensen 1982, 1988 ;Johnson 1977 Knudson 1923, (Miller 1979; Whire 1,977). This research often oversteps the fine line ; 1979;Leudtke 1979; Montet-white 1974;Moss 1983, 19g6; purdv 1925. dividing imaginative science from popular ideas of the past, filled with 1981; Torrence 1983, i,989; Tringham et al. 1974). But studies rugged men doing primal things - and the media coverage responds undertaken by women are nor representative of the range of interests in accordingly; shooting arrows into newly killed and (importantly!) still lithics, and entire areas of modern lithic studies inchide virtually no warm boar strung up in wooden frames (Fischer et al. 1984) illustrates a women,investigators. Most notably perhaps, flint knapping, #here particularly lurid design in which only males participate. (In contrast to archaeologists replicate iithic prod,-,ction techniques, is'exclisiuely a males' programs, women's experimental lithic studies focus on such male arena (e.g Bonnichsen l9l7; Bordes 196g; Bradiev 19751 Brvan things as nutting (Spears 1975), leatherworking (Adams 1988), grain 1 960 ; Callah an 1 97 9 ; Clarke 1982 ; Crabtr ee 7967, 197 2 ; Flenniken 1 98 t, harvesting (Korobkova 1 98 1 ), and woodworking (Price-Begger|y 1,97 6), 1984; Kelterborn 1984; Madsen 1984: Neill 1952: Newcomer all of which are done with unelaborated and non-standardized stone 1971; Sheets and M$o 1972; Sollberger 1969; Titmus 19g4; Tsirk tools.) If male archaeologists are replicating anachronistic stone techno- 1974; \(/itth o{t 1967; Young and Bonnichsen 19g4). While many women logies for purposes other than reiterating an elemental association of males archaeologists have lea.neJ to knap (e.g. personal experience), there is with stone tool production and use. their reenactments nevertheless  168 J. M. Grno GpNrpnr-ttnrcs L69 project and kecp alivc, as male, rhe reduction of nature through priority to technoenvironmental factors to account for cultural change stonc. and human evolution (Meg Conkey, personal communication; Gero A final area of lithic studies rhar consistently underrepresents both forthcoming). fcmale investisators and female tool-makers/useis is the ethnoarchaeolo- gical observation of "stone age" peopies. Based on males' ethnographic observations, it is again almost invariably males who are observed Considerations for'Vomen as Likely Stone Tool Producers producing and using sione tools (Holmes 1897; Miller 1979;Vhite 1967, 1969, 1977) in a narrow range of male-related productive tasks. Etirno- In contrast to the male-dominated areas of lithic studies that focus on nralcs are recorded or filmed making projectile points, fashioning arrow (some) tool forms and on how (some) tools are made, a very different shaft.s, fclling trces, grinding axes. line of investigation asks how tasks were carried out with stone tools' . Ethnographically observed tool-making women occasionally figure lnto tltcsc sccnarios as secondary players. For example, Richard Gould's And it is femile investigators who, in disproportionate numbers, have worked from a functional perspective to study how tools were used, at stucly of Ausrralian Aborigines nores rhar both males and females pick the level of microwear analysis (e.g. Adams 1988; Bienenfeld t9a5; Juel up ancl use sharp flakes foi butchering and other domestic asks (1977: Jensen 1982, 1988; Lewenstein 1981, 1987 ;Mansure-Franchomme 1983; 164). But evcn after pointing this out, Gould reverrs to a study entirely Moss 1983, 1986; Olausson 1980; Price-Beggerly 1'976; Sale 1986; dcvotcd to males, and it ii still only males and male tasks that are Unger-Hamilton 1984), macrowear analysis (e.g. Cantwell 1979 ; Knudson sysrcmerically observcd : 1973; Stafford 1977), or assemblage composition (e.g. Arundale 1980; Gero 1983a, 1983b).t In doing so, women study the flake tools, the . ' . approxir.nately 20 of these flake knives are used by one person each "non-standardized", "non-curated", "expedient" tools that are in almost ye'ar. Of coursc, women use these as much as men, and I might add here all regards held to be inferior, based on contemporary values attached to thilt wornen somerimes rake a hand in the final Gnishing of wooden bowls time lnd form and ranking, and on the male-biased standards for tools too. Thus I arn being arbitrary in referring to use of stone tools as male that pervade lithic studies. If women's work has been observed cross- tasks, and I think it best to say so. (Gould 1977:166) culturally to be devalued, in archaeology it is put to the study of the devalued "utilized flakes". Bur the recognition of female tool_makers and users is thereafter I now wish to examine the proposition that women in prehistory made ignored, and daia is tabulated as "Toral amounrs of lithic raw material stone tools. I will argue that women, at the very least, made many of the ncedcd pcr man pcr year" (Gould 1977: 166, emphasis mine), although flake tools on,which modern female archaeologists focus their studies wc ltave been told that women use flake knives as mucb as men! and which mbdern female archaeologists replicate in experimental The point here is nor accusarory but expository; male bias is procedures. In the course of this argument I believe we will recognize systen)atically imposed on archaeological inrerprerarions of tool manu- much potential for women making a wider range of tools as well. flcture and use, as consrructs of archaeological interpretation interact Let us .start with the simplest assumptions: females comprised with modern gender ideology. Modern, *.it.rn males generally make approximately half of all prehistoric populations, and these women tools and womcn don't. It is sometimes even postulated that only males carried out productive activities at prehistoric sites. We suspect' are strong enough to make stone tools (but see Geis l98Z). Modern moreover, that women were especially visible and active in household gc'dcr ideology is uncierwritten by maie archaeologists undertaking contexts where they played significant roles in household production Itthtc studres that illustrate males making and using stone tools, and household management (Moore 1988: 32). Almost ironically, eppropriatinc. this productivc arena as male for as far back as humaniry women can be expected to be most visible and active precisely in the crn bc cxtcndcd. The restrictive and self-fulfilling definition of stone contexts that archaeologists are most likely to excavate: on house floors, tools as formal, standardized tools central to male activities leads to an at base camps and in village sites where women would congregate to anthropological overstatemcnt about the importance attached to weapons, carry out their work. Prehistoric women are probably disproportionately extractive tools, and hunting paraphernalia. The "maleness" of "rbols" represented in densely concentrated areas of household refuse, and - derived in this fashion ties back to control over rhe techno-eco/ ar-haeological materials from the central areas of base-camp or house- environment, as parr of the sarne logical system that tacitly accords floor excavations are at least likelv to be associated with women's work.  170 J. M. Geno GrNornr-rrrucs l/ I As women work in association with such living areas, they need tools 1988), and it is this richness in gender sysrems that makes gender a for the tasks they carry our. Although the kindi of tools women need dynamic variable in social and productive relations. would clearly vary from culture to Cultu.e and from task to task, it is To avoid an argument that would simply assign men ro some tasks and inconceivablc that they sat and waited for a flake to be produced, or that women to others, we can better examine some of the common they set out each time to borrow one. \(omen clearly required ready constraints on tool production for their gender implications; I will here access to efficient working edges in their routine work, and they must consider four: scheduling, access to appropriare raw materials, biological have manufactured them ai n.id.d. Since the user of a tool is in the best strength and, finally, the symbolic significance of production. positiorr- to judge its adequacy, it makes sense thar women produced many of their own tools, and indeed it would be most inefficient for them to rely on men for these needs. Scheduling F.inally, women are both srrong and smart enough to produce stone tools. The ethnographic, ethnohisroric, and e*p"ri-entil archaeology Judith Brown argues ('1970:1Q77) that women's child-care responsibilities Itterature amply illustrates (or implies)thar women make tools, although tend to restrict women to "repetitive, interruptible, non-dangerous tasks the unspectacular, rourine narure of such acriviry mitigates against its that do not require extensive excursions", thus setting trp unirrersal task being recorded as a distinctive undertaking: "[\Women] undertake all the restrictions for nursing mothers or for women with children three years work except that alone of the grand chase" (Jesuit Relations 3: 101), of age or younger. Such universal prescriptions are widely debated and in although we also know that *o-en in some conrexrs hunt as well (cf. fact rejected today, especially in reference to generalizations such as Estioko-Griffin and Griffin 1981). The ethnohistorical observations of "women's roles" or "women's experiences" (see Coward 1983); certainly stone-using societies illustrate that women both make and use stone women in many societies share responsibilities for child care with other tools; in addition to flake rools and core tools made by Australian household members or other household units. Even if one were to acceDr aboriginal women (Gould 1977 :,t66;Hamilton l98O: 7 ; Hayden 1.977: Brown's argumenr, this hardly eliminates women's participation from 183, 185; Tindaie 1972: 246), Tiwi women made axes (Goodale 1971t stone tool production. Producing expedient tools requires only a single 155) and, in at least one instance, a companion to the Lewis and Clark blow to a core and virtually no time at all. Even working formalizid expedition reporting seeing "squaws chipping flakes into small arrow tools is not time consuming: an "average sized" projectile point is points, holding the "flake iri their left hand, gt"asped between a piece of finished by a practised knapper in about 30 minutes (Flolmes tgtg: ltl bent leather, and chipping off small flakes by pressure, using a and ,328). If flying debitage is considered dangerous around young small pointed bone in ihe right hand for that purpose" (Holmes 1919: children, special tool preparation areas are easily arranged at a shori 316). remove from the house floor, and young children can alwiys congregare Like men's tools, the kinds of tools made by women would be elsewhere. There is every reason to believe thar women in many srone- determined by a range of hisrorical, marerial, economic, social, political, using contexts could regularly have found time and space to produce and symbolic factors; to generalize further about women's tools would tools,-and that tool production would have been localized within camps be to redute the categorli,,*orn"n', to one so broad and homogenized or villages or, many times, even within structures. that it would be meaningless. We musr be wary of reducing and sirnplifying the variations on qender divisions manifest in different societies, and even within siiele societies, as they relate to the Access to lithic raw rnaterials production of technoloeical artificts. It is obvious that the division of "Accessing" or "gaining access to" lithic raw materials frames the productive activities by gender varies enormously from group ro group, problem of procuring srone. in terms of obstacles, restrictions, and that what is exclusively hales' work in one serting is females' work in constraints; one gains_access despite such barriers as distance, knowledge another, and that women's control over a soecific task in one context of sources, claims of ownership, paymenrs, rransport, divisibility 6f tells us little about that work falling ro women in all comparable what's been acquired. In contrast, the idea of "conirol over" lithic raw contexts. In addition, feminist scholarship has contributed important materials renders such constraints invisible and suggesrs an immediate insights into how gender inreracrs with age classes and status rankings as correspondence berween wanting stone and having it. Clearly, who relattonships that organize productive activities (Gailey 1987; Moore "accesses" stone and who "controls" stone provides a semantic loading 1,72 J. M. GEno GnNornlIrnlcs 173 that is easily genderized in modern categories; women are allowed to course it is the flake tools of local materials that represent a vast majority access souries of stone while men conttol the flows of lithic material' of tools in the archaeological record. In fact, of course, the matter of attributing gender to stone Procure- ment is difficult in anv case. and the amount of women's control over Biological urrrgrl, appropriate raw lithic materials is difficult to reconstruct and probably highly variable. Ethnographic reports of stone-using people have often Already alluded to, the issue of strength is addressed here because it is been interpreted to illustrate a Dattern of male control oYer exotic stone. raised so regularly in discussions of sex roles, and because it lurks as an Gould, for instance, reports tfLat among the Australian aborigines, implicit objection to women's participation in stone tool production. Sex differences in upper body strength, significant in modern populations quarries occur at or near sacred sites - that is, totemic "dreaming" places. even when normalized for lean body mass (Fausto-Sterling 1985:21'7, People lmen - J.G.] who believe themselves to be descended patrilineally but see Lowe 1983), could be thought to have ramifications in tool from the particular-totemic being at one of these sites will make special trips to the quarry to secure stone there. A man places a high value on -production. In fact, upper body strength is not an issue in making tools, where stone from a'site of his dreamtime lotem Because of his patriLineal technique rather than force is determinate (John Clark, personal relationship to the site, a man sees the stone as part of his own being - a fact which motivates him to carry the stone to other, distant sites communication). Moreover, differential upper body strength gives us no (1977 : 164, emphasis mine) reason ro exDeq an activitv like tool production should fall either to males or to females; we don't expect the division of sex roles to follow This spiritual justification for why men and not women control the our own cultural categories of either rational efficiency or fairness. 'Women rare, imported, traded, or quarried stone materials is paralleled in other in fact are often found carrying out heavier labor tasks than Australian contexrs to rationalize male control over foreign interactions males, as in the transport of heavy goods to market locations or and exchanges: "Among the Yankuntjara people that I worked with, it gathering and transporting firewood. \We can't even assume that stone appeared that there was a prohibition against women using crypto- tool manufacturing will always be divided by gender rather than by age crystalline rocks. . . . A similar prohibition was recorded in Central or class or ability. Divisions or labor not only vary in all these Australia by Spencer and Gillen 1i1t2,373,376)' (Hayden 1977: 183). dimensions but also in the degree of task specialization, that is, in how A third obsirvation focuses on the acquisition of grindstones in the production sequences are divided up into specified tasks. A more western zones of the Australian desert regions where stone rePresents a meaningful question might ask, what stages of stone tool production scarce resource: "Men travelled to the known sources of stone, utilizing could be divided between males and females in the course of producing kinship ties with people in these areas. [The grindstones] were then specific tool types and, even more importantly perhaps, as played out in handed over to their wives..." (Hamilton 1980:8). soecific - socio-historic contexts. But other Australian accounts clearly report that while men flake the The issue of upper body strength might be significant only in very stone at quarry sites, it is women's work to carry it away (Jones and specific ar.eas of lithic production: in quarrying raw stone from bedrock Vhite 1988: 61 and 83). Thus, women clearly do partake in long-distance sources, in breaking apart large cobbles or large blocks of quarried stone trade for "exotic" roc'k and certainly could have controlled such stone to produce primary flakes, and in some pressure-flaking techniques, once it arrived "back home".2 \fle also know that quarry sites were often especially using an indirect punch. Female disadvantage in these'areas visited by larger residential groups, presumably of both sexes, and that could be significant eloug_h for them regularly to fall. to men. This camps were established over longer time periods where huge quantities presents more interesting alternatives for how gender might have been of flakes and partially reduced bifaces were removed (e.g. references to played out in stone tool production: under what circumstances would tipi circles associated-with quartzite quarries of eastern Wyoming, or the females and males have separate charge of distinct production spheres evidence for habitations at Flint Ridge, Ohio, in Holmes 1'919t 178 and (for what rypes of tools? in which quarrying contexts?), and under what 211). These reconstructions surely allow ample access for women to circumstances would gender tasks be specialized and complementary, highly-sought, high-quality stone. Finally, the ethnographic glimpses of towards a shared production goal? male-dominated i.rdi foi dista.rt stone materials fail to address the question of control over local stone sources for tool production, and of 174 J. M. GEno GsNopnrrtrucs 175 prehistory, there is no reason to exclude women's roles as producers of The social aalwe of tool prodwction hnely finished tools. \We have ample evidence of other wealth items and ltis in the realm of meaning, or social value, that women's ParticiPation highiy decorated items that women were charged with producing. can and Schneider (1983: 106-9), for instance, discusses Plains Indian women in tool production -urt ult]-otely be considered' That women making and dressing the ritual Sun Dance Dolls among the Crow, or do maki stone tools has already been shown. The questions of where and when women make tools, the kinds of tools they make, and the task- doing the quillwork on high-status Pawnee shirts; Blackfeet women specialized jobs they perform within tool production, are more complex decoiate tipis with paintings of war and huntinB; and Gros Ventre matters and will uoty in different socio-historic contexts. Recognizing women made beaded moccassins. Gailey depicts Tongan chiefly women that social value is always attached to specific labor tasks and that males' as the makers of all holoa, valuables or wealth objects: "IWomen-made] labor is generally more'highly valued t-hat females" brings us directly to valuables were always superior to things made by men . . Chiefly 'how vromen's production of valuables validated other chiefly persons' status the quesiion of g.,rJ..'systems work: how do males control the labor that is more toii"llv uaiued, and how do these gender roles in throughout life" (Gailey 1987: 97). In societies where female-male production activities .o-. in,o being? Is some labor valued principally relationships are characterized by reciprocity and complementarity because it is performed by males? And how do we account for the rather than by hierarchy and dominance, and where women are known apparent invisibility of women's labor? Finally, what social value would to have held positions of power and respect, there is no reason to believe accompany the production of different classes of stone tools? that women did not produce elaborate worked stone tools' Flaki tools bf definition lack the investment of energy that we today, This brings us to the final query: are projectile points in a category by using a modein value system, accord greater symbolic. and social themselves? Do men have to have made the arrow heads? \fle have importance, \Where women regularly perform undervalued work, it is already noted one ethnographic example of women chipping arrow relitively simple today to ,rro*.irt. thi production of flake tools with points, suggesting that the partitioning of labor is not determined sole-ly women, with'base-coiop op"rutions, wiih local materials, with simple by -hat iils thai is being made. Instead, the division of labor will be production sequences. D.uoid of social meaning, the common, expedient conditioned by the context of social relations' and by the social and ;'ucilized flake" naturally falls within a larger class of productive symbolic valui placed on what is made. The projectile point in and of activities that women are not only allowed to perform but that are often itself has no universal meaning. It can represent the cunning and danger associated by modern gender ideology with their lot. We find it easy to of the hunt, where hunters are highly esteemed and where projectile believe that women we".e allo*ed tJdo, perhaps were only allowed do, points speak to control over the means of production, in meat as well as "meaningless" work, work without toii"l ualue, such as flake tool in rton.. In such cases, projectile points miy indeed provide a means of Proouctlon, reproducing the male stitus as hunter and may be made by men. But this But thesc value loadings on stone tools can be questioned for is not all caies. In other contexts, especially agricultural societies, small- prcl-ristoric tirnes. Tcrrns like an "inaestment of energy" smack so thickly game hunting is divested of these meanings and is conducted as an bf n-rodcrn values that we are forced to question the assumption that incillary, secbndary subsistence enterprise. Projectile points in these tools with more retouch automatically carried greater social status or context; convey neither cunning nor danger, dominance nor male irnportance than effective, reliable (throw-away? "expedient"?) flake status . . . nor would projectile points have to have been made by men' tools. Are we sure that elaborately worked bifaces were necessarily more What then do we know? Unilateral male control over lithic production, highly valued? Or does this "investrnent of energy" only today produce from flake to point, has crumbled in light of sociological, historical, the expectation that formal "tools" were high class and made by men? experimental, and ethnographic evidence. lWomen can be suspected of Most central to this issue, would women have made elaborately -iki.rg as many stone tools as men, and of leaving even more tools than retouched tools? men do in recoverable concentrations where archaeologists usually dig. Everything we have considered up to this point suggests. that they Indeed, in hindsight it is illogical that the medium of stone should, by could have aid probably did. It certainly can be argued that the implicit itself, have been ihought to have deterministic power over the sex of ranking (based on ".n.igy investments't) of projectile points at.the to.p, those who would work it. Gender systems, deeply embedded in social other bifaciallv oroducJ tool, in the middle, and flake tools at the relations of complementarity and/or hierarchy, cooperation and/or bottom, is o .et..rt construct. Moreover, even if this value system held in dominance, override any particula;r artif.act medium. 176 J. M. GEno There are no compelling biological, historical, sociological, ethno- graphnic, ethnohistoiical, 6r .*p.ii-.n,tl reasons why wo.men could ioil-,ou.'-ude - and good r.uron to think they probably did.make- all kinds of stone rools, in all kinds of lithic materials, for a variety of uses and contexts. On the other hand, direct gender attribution of individual tools remains problematic; women, like men, can't easily be.sought at the level of ind'iuidu"l tool producers. Thus, for purposes of elucidating thc bare minimum level of female participation in stone tool production, I suggest we look at lithic assemblages that are (1) from dwelling or habiiJtion areas where, because of occupation over many days,.weeks or monrhs, we are -ort likely to find euidence of maintenance tasks related to food, clothing, child-rearin gi Q) made of. locally. available raw materials, ,o ,uold argumenrs io'. o,- against differential male/female mobility; and (3) of .;"rpedi.nt" flake iools, leaving aside the highly retoucfied toolswhich, fro- our cultural PersPective' conform to formal standards of tool morphology and are gtunt.i high social value. It is at this most minimal *^lvtil"l and co-ntextual level, which probably constitutes 90 percent tf ,h. archaeological record of stone tool manufactur", thrt we will surely "see" *Jmen. The remainder of this paper examines a particul.r coniext of stone tool production, and use in it-r" hight""ds of Pe.u, arguing that the work of women can be detected in thiJlithic tradition, ani thui the meaning of gender can be approached by thcse means. Stone Tools at Huaricoto, Peru Context of studY The lithic assemblages used in this study were excavated from the site of Huaricoro, a fo.,1iatiue period t.-pi. with associated occupational components located in the Callej6n d^e Huaylas intermontane valley of nor,k."nt.ni highland peru.3 The data have previously been analyzed to messages of soctal status assess the potential of stone tools for carrying-Here,- and gtoup identity (Gero 1,983a, 1989). changes .in lithic t..hn6logy. will be r.ui"*ed to see how an explicitly gendered analysis retocuses the lnterpretatlon, The site of Huaiicoto is located ar2740 m on a small promontory on the easrern side of the Rio Sanra, a north flowing river that is bounded by two parallel but contrastive mountain chains (fi$rre 6.1)' Both C.ordilleras Figure 6.1 Callej6n de Huaylas region showing location of qite of Huaricoto. exhibit extensive post-glacial change, but outwash and erosional deposits are considerably more ironoun..i on the eastern, Cordillera Blanca side of the Callej6n, a function of its higher, sreeper slopes. Rapid glacial  GeNor,nurnrcs 178 J. M. Gnno depositing, materials melting has further contributed to these Processes' derived from the Cordiliera Blanca on the valley floor where they accumulate in ,.rro..r""*"r"g ;rallel to the mouths of .the rivers of unsorted sands and emptying upper glacial lakes' lt is.on such a tt"utt gravels that Huaricoto is situated' years' from the late Occupation of the site spans approximately 2500 preceramic period ;;;i;ffi"B' th'ough :n:,1:Y"lntermediate and Salazar-Burger 1980)' period/Middle Horizon nO 600 (Burger "i The earliest i.o.1, hu"u. .tp*ta it"'ioni"l"platform covered with ' yellow clay and .onrrrr.,Jd with several carefully PttPll*' Burger sunken' 1 985). itrf _ti.,.a'....-oni"l ;.;;;-l* (B;;g., and salazar-Burgeran unoccupied and Salazar-Bur*.. i*;;" i.*tittt trtit stage as by mobile ceremonial zone that was visited and used only ititettittently hunters and gatherers. not BC The introdu.,iott oi ceramics at the site at about 1700 -does Rather' a changes' seen to accompany ;d;;l;;;; of .nlrrg.-.r,t-, series 'i"lt 'otio-cultural ,ft. i.-plt area through regular construction "i and filling of ..r.*o.rirf -i"iii"l aPP€ars 'o" to"iin"t h..,'h' p"iiod, *nd u"iY j:tn: o-T:t^t; -out of the 4N p re ceramic l.u. roieil,n; l, th (pt have been traced t.rru.", th"t b,..tttrerr.i ,h. growing temple mound large,elliptical areas 9) around the northern perimeter of the t.rnpl., and. were defined by the frigf-r dresred boulders ('huancas') 5' "r".ri;r'oi'l* constructed during ,il..1;;;6it'ul" ph"t" setting aPart an open plaza otir., ,it,i.l on the other area in front of ,h. ;;;;i;'"nJ a.nni"g "re"r sidc of the main ,t.r.,ui. as well (figure 6'2)' Because excavations at Huaricoto were largely directed to defining the components are te.rple and ceremo;i;i";; of the site' the"residential peri-od (EIP)' less well und.rr,ooi. Si"trt"g lrr the Early Intermediate howevdr, l"rg. of iiddtn accumulation are aPParent in the "rno.t,-tt, sector, conCentrations of northernmost excavation "p"'"nting-dense now reaches its domestic refuse fr";';l; ;;;t;iv t*p"nata ulllugt-thtt maximum exrenr frrp i.u.lop*.nt"of " ptt*"t""' "ill?g: "i'i;;:ifiir settlement associated with an older, strictly ceremontal area ls Paraucrcq Figure 6.2 Huaricoto, showing distinct excavarion secrors (inset courtesy of at other highland sites. . r t,.^^ t^.,- excavatlon R. Burger). Lithic materials from Huaricoto were collected from four 1989)' The se*ors (figure 5.2), *'hi.h;;detail.d elsewhere (Gero1983a, chipped and ground slate bifaces are noted throughout secror II levels, four site sectors ..;;;;;;A untq"^lly to the total lithic assemblage as mostly in a disfunctional broken or exhausted state, accompanied by a well as to the ,.pr.;;;;;; oitith ct'lt"'al period' Sector,I' the open thin scatter of barely modified flake tools. Sector IV, representedby a plaza east of the ,.;;i.' ;"nned the t"iiit oit"p'tion of the site w-ith two Preceramlc series of particularly ir,..r"rri,lg q.,u,,' materials coming {rom .supporting-terraces north of the temple, apparently dates only temnle to the middle period of Huaricoto's occuparion: thi-two lower rerraces ceremonial t ."r,t, ir,'itttJl"*;; lt"ti'' IIIthe Sttto' central 111 are Initial period, and there is one uppir Early Horizon terrace. Of the EIP srrata correspondrng yielded u lo* d",",ritf oiii.i-,i., and_lacked for this time' special interest, the lowest rerrace of sector IV contained a well-defined to the residential ;.G";t"" i"""a.ir.*here at the site 180 J. M. Grno GnxoBRlrturcs 1B1 lithic workshop area, apparently corresponding to-the produc.tion of evaluate the Huaricoto lithic assemblage for the accessibility of the stone bifaccs ...ou...d f.om i.,itiai p..iod occ,rpationi at Huaricoto. Fin_ally, materials represented at the site. Sector III, the deep refuse u*n on the extreme northern edge of the As tabulaied in figure 6.3, "local" materials are readily .accessible from tcmple mound, daies predominantly to the last .(EIP) period of site river cobbles o, s.,rfa.e outcroppings close at hand: sandstones, qua\tz- occupation. This sectJr contained ,h. gr"ut.rt density of artifactual ites, granites, and metamorphoied sedimentary rocks..The_se-probably an over- *erei"ke., from the nearby riverbeds of the Rio Santa, just 500 m below -ut.rinl in its midden strata, with few projectile points andwhile and to the west of the site promontory, or from the Rio Marcar| flowing whelming proportion of expediently produced fljke tools, the lowesr l""u.ls i"u.aled a preceramic .ornpon.n, of carefully prepared 50Om southeast of the site. hearths and a few tools. iool frequencies by cultural periods for the entire site are given in table 6.1. Flakes Proj. Pts. Flakes Proj. Pts. Table G.l Size and structure of the Huaricoto lithic assemblage based on 1014 arttiacts Bifaces and Flake rcols Projectile Points 636 (e6%) 26 (4%) Early Intermediate Period (n = 622) L,arly Horizon (n : 74) s7 (77%) 17 (23%) Initial Period (n : 247) 221(8e%) 26 (11%) Preceramic Period (n = 31) 27 (87%) 4 (13%) TOTALS 941 73 n=28 n=4 n=221 11=26 n = 5/ n = lt n=636 n=26 Preceramic Initial Period Early Horizon Early Intermedhte Inspection of the Huaricoto stone tools focuses on the three dimenstons [--r-.rM"*i,1" Nl -So**t'utro'ru^*at @-xruazax of litiric assemblages identified earlier as areas in which gender roles appear to rnteracr wrth lithic production and use' Again, while"none of Figure 6.3 Artifacts grouped in categories of relative rareness of raw material. ,i.,"r" ."p..rents a simple ,o.r"rpo.tdence of archaeological artifact with sex, each area has gender implications: "somewhat local" materials include volcanic stonep (tuffs, rhyolites, and andesites) derived from at least approximately 5 km away and from 1 Litbic ra.w materials. Gender can obviously be used as a category to the other side of the Rio Santa (Wilson et al. 1967: 44-6). In addition, limit control over different types of workable stone' this group includes materials that occur in the Cordillera Blanca but are 2 Degree of preparatio, of tooliorms' Gender has already been shown *o.i diffi.ult to obtain than the "local" materials because they are ,o L. *ith"'eneigy investments" in tool Production' derived from lower geological beds and outcrop less frequently: "rro.i"ted although we suspect this is lar:gely a modern association, Minimally, rhyolites and tuffs, shale, slate, and caliz. ce.t"i'ly contributed'extensively to fl ake tool production. Finally, "rare" materials were imported from outside the Callej6n de -o-.,i h"u. Huaylas or, minimally, were unevenly and sparsely available within the 3 Context of tool preporotion and use, Gender has spatial implications, with certain .on,.i,, and ranges of tool applications at least loosely wider local region; these include obsidian, quartz crystals, and high- suggesting female work areas. oualitv chert. Chert sources can only be identified in the Marofron drrir,rg. at significant remove (Vilson et al. 1967:26-7), while Burger and Aiaro 1illz| report that Callejon obsidian was imported from Litbic raw materials in Huancavelica, several hundred miles to the south. Quispisisa 'The If we take the view that women enjoyed access to abundant local lithic data in figure 6.3 indicate first, that although rare stone was used materials rather than depending on'imported quarried materials, we can more often to produce bifaces than flake tools (12"/o compared to 2o/o),  182 J. M. GEno GrworRurHrcs no cultural component at Huaricoto exhibits a significantly high 183 prop.ortion of rare materials, with the possible exceprion of the Huaricoto is simply that, rnore tools are made expediently, and tools are made rnore expediently. unrcliably small prcceramic biface sample. On the other hand, the pattern of using somewhat local marerials for complex tools, and local materials for expedienr tools, is apparent for all Context of tool preparation and wse culturalperiods; bifaces made of local materials show up is only 4"/" up The contextualization of Huaricoto lithics resrs ro 25"/" of each biface sample, while the flake rools of local materials are on recognizing the overarching change in site function from ncvcr represented by less than 60"/" and reach as high as 89"/" of. the flake tlre pr.*r".*.)iJriv'Horiro., occupations when the site was dominated tool assemblages. As well, somewhat local and ,arJmaterials accounr for ui irr ..r.r*ili'1rp..rr, the larer EIp occupation associa,;J-;ld'" -r;i[g."i"irr"r;." ,o between 82"/" and96% of allthe biface samples, while the same materials residential functions. All.time-transgr.rriu. onfy account for between 7lu/o and 4e"/" oT the flake tools. lighr of this contextual shift. o ----. trends must be interpreted"ra in A third trend somewhat obscured in the grouped data of figure 6.3 is the strong. tendency towards the adoption of a-single local material, a Projectile points and bifaces are overrepresented in the earlier strata rnetamorphosed sedimenrary rock here called "metashale", as the rh. .,..r"-o'i"f;;;;r," of temple andplaza(Table and, significantly, in standard material for flake tools. During earlier periods of site 6'1)' Most of these were recovered in a much ,educed'or-brok..r, expended state althou.g} a number of unbrok"n occupatior.r, metashale rcpresented only 35"/" to 4eu/" of the flake tool po;"rr-r..oi.r"d fro- ceremoniallv prepared hearths exhibit ui.ruar traterial while in tl-re last F,lP period. metashale dominated the flake tool ty n J ;r;-;r';rtih;ure 6.4). rtssernblagc with a r"pr.r"ntrii on of 62"/o. \We return to interpret these uiltrg. conrexr, flake toolassemblages replace bifaces ljT_,lr:.rEfn appear to be produced on-site more and finclings aftcr loohing at thc othcr lithic dimensions. often than b"efore; ,rr. or cortex remaining on debitage flakes (see "-oun. Gero 19s3a);r;;;d;;'a crude Dcgrec of tool prcparation Tool p.reparation ar Huaricoto can be assessed initially by a separarion of "cxpcdient" flake tools from the carefully worked'bifaces ih"t o..u. tlrroughout the sequence. Table 6.1 showed that bifaces comprise bctwccn 4{ht and 23"1, of thc total assemblage for any period, and that wlrilc.thc.Early Horizon rcprcscnration of bifaces is unexpectedly high, it is the _dramarically low fie qucncy of bifaces in the EIP that ir -ort noticcable. \ilThcrcasj in earlier periods. bifaces comprised letween 23o/o to ll"/u of thc assemblages, in thc EIP only a.i" of rhe lirhics are rcpresenred by bifaces. Not only do bifaces almost disappear in the later, more residential EIP sample, but even rhe flake tools exhibit less preparation. Measuring rhe Pcrcentage of flake tools with cortex remaining on the surface shows an increase of residual correx in the ErP:57u/o of fluk. tools retain some cortex., compared to measures of 43"/o,49"h, and 63"/, tn the three earlier Pcnoos. Finally, the amount of retouch per flake tool was calculated for a sub- sct of tl-re Huaricoto materials ."n be simply summarized (cf. Gero "nd trend demonsrrares that tools from 1983a: 139): a slight but consisrent later oc'cupational periods show less retouch, measured both by shaping eltd thrnnlng flake scars, than tools from the earlier periods. A fair L----l_-t____r CmS summary of the amount of investment in tool preparation over rime ar Figure 6.4 Projectile points recovered from ceremonial contexts of Huaricoro. 184 J. M. Geno GrNonRlrrHIcs 185 r-ncasurc of rivcr cobble material that was worked (or reworked) at the examples of dedicatory and apparently unutilized (or underutilized) site rathcr than at rhe river or quarry location. The fact that, after the projectile points recovered from ceremonial hearths in the early unrcpresentativc prcceramic samplc, proportions of debitage with cortex Huaricoto temple suggest that the projectile point was also offered up, in rise steadily and ieach a f.ull25'/" of all debitage in the EIP, suggests that addition to or as a substitute for ceremonial meat. In the earlier more tools are bcing produced, or reworked, on site than_ earlier, a occupations at Huaricoto, we can speculate that we are observing rituals finding that fits comforiably with the EIP rise in frequency of expedient in which meat played an important role, with males possibly providing tools and with the ,"plocement of the ceremonial area with a village this highly valued food, and probably actually hunting it, in an economy cconomy. that lacked domesticated animals until late in the Early Horizon. It may be, too, that men manufactured the Huaricoto bifaces recovered from the early ceremonial and dedicatory contexts; the ' Gender shifts in tool prodwction and use at Huaricoto narrowly restricted conditions that associate men with the production of To re capitulate, the major trends that accompany the shift from projectile points (e.g. when such tools carry the social meanings of, and ceremonialcenter to village settlement include: (1) a consistent pairing of reflect directly on the prestige of hunting and meat production) could flake tools with local ri* materials, while bifaces are made of less apply in this circumstance. 'Women, however, are likely to be directly accessible rnaterials; (2) both bifacially prepared tools and flake tools of associated with the use of these tools in the Huaricoto temple context the later EIP occupaiion manifest lesi ietouch and more cortex on tool and most probably participated in the rituals in the preparing, cooking, surfaces (less toolpreparation)than in earlier periods;and (3)a dramatic and serving of the ceremonially important meat. itrcrcasc in flakc tciols^(and the virtual disappearancc of bifaces), together It also can be seen that the conditions suggesting women's participation with thc homoscnization of local raw materials, characterizes the EIP in stone tool production and use increase with time, especially in villase (non-tcmple) phase. How are gender systems operating to conjunction with the appearance of a residential settlement at Huaricoto procluce thcsc data? after the Early Horizon. When flake tools replace bifaces and become It is questionablc whethcr the lower proportions of bifacial tools in more expedient in their production, and when local raw materials latcr phascs is because the prece.ramic, period and Early Horizon increase in representation, it is not necessarily because a new economic .Initial base is creating new uses for stone tools. Rather, the demands on stone ccononrles were so much more intensely focused on hunting or even on meat-eating. In fact, camelid domestication most likely dates to the late tools as sacred and prestigious have changed with the cessation of the EH, and meat preparation and consumption would probably-have temple complex, and social meanings attached to ritual hunting increased in the E,IPlBurke 1990). The change in the ratio of lithic forms paraphernalia have shifted. and raw materials follows more closely from the shift from a ceremonial In the village context, stone tools fulfill a much broader range of to a residential context. \We recognize that the carefully finished biface of functions than in the temple area, with less focus specifically on meat cxotic material in the restricted context of the ceremonial center is preparation and less social loading on tool morphology. Conditions are e quiaalem to the flake tool in the residential setting, and the flake tool created that concentrate women's secular work in household production performs many of the same actions unceremoniously that bifaces and management, and in the process, encourage the making and using of perform in a ritualistic setting: cutting, scraping, sawing, skinning' and expedient flake tools produced from abundant local raw materials. The whittling (Ahler 1970: 88-981. nif"..i recovered from restricted, sacred precise activities carried out at Huaricoto by EIP women using flake contcxts may have been constrained by more formal, standardized tools is still not well defined; the quality of locally available lithic morphological definitions and by the value of exotic raw materials from materials precludes fine-grained microwear analysis and we are left with which they werc made, to contribute to the legitimation of a restricted gross functional interpretations: working wood, defleshing cactus, and sacred contcxt: the Huaricoto preceramic and Initial period temple. butchering and skinning animals, perhaps leather work. In general, the The high proportions of expended projectile points from the early flake tools show little tendency toward task specialization, and the same ritual conte"h it Huaricoto probably refer to meat consumption (or tool proves to have been used in a wide variety of work actions (Gero offerings) at ccremonial feaitr; there is ample evidence for meat 1983a:152-61). preparation in Huaricoto's ritually prepared, ash-filled hearths that are Vhile males may also be making and using flake tools, male status is full of splintered bone and tiny flake spalls. At the same time, the no longer linked to lithic production but is tied up in newly defined  186 J. M. Grno GrNornlrrnrcs 187 prestigc goocls in othcr media, some of which are probably commissioned 2 Note that the associational chains that build up and give value to tools as (c.g. tl-re claborated Rccuay ceramics of the IllP (Gero l99O)) and/or standardized, curared, and elaborately retouched, also include tools of' nrade by womcn (c.g. fancy rextiles). Males are increasingly involved in "exotic" (vs. "common") materials, all associated with male production and actlvttlcs that accompanv earlv state formation and that take males into use. Note how different rhese values sound when "exotic" materials are widcr, socio-politicai rphc.cs but whose definition lies ourside the called "low density" materials and "common" materials are "high density". Dound.s ol thls lnqulrv. In whose terms do we rationalize the high- and low-value rerms placed on Our unde rst.,,ding, of gcndcr rclations as rhey operated in Huaricoto stone tool dichotomies? tool prclduction are still very incornplete, and indeed, the question "Did J Research on the lithic materials of Huaricoro was carried our from 1978 to wortlcn mrrkc srorrc rools?", ihhough'it c.ln now be answcrcd^affirmarively, 1980 with the generous help of a Fulbright-Hays pre-dissertation award, administered by the Comisi6n para Intercambio Educativo entro los Estados will hardly produce compelling insighrs into how gender sysrems Unidos y el Perf . A 1982 Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid supported the computeri- operatcd in Forrnativc Peru. To understand the constitution and zation of the flake tool data. The assemblages considered here are restricted opcration of gende r sysrems, a focus on a single material technology such ro lithics collected rn 1978 and 1979 .id o*. much to the generous aslithics is neccisarily fruitful, and to i g..rt exrenr the argumenr cooperation of Dr Richard Burger, Lucy Salazar-Burger, and Abelardo prcsented hcrc 'otis constraincd by an archaeological paradigm that would, Sandoval, projecr direcrors. xt least. implicitly, assume a simple .o...rpond.nce berween one prod.tretrvc proccss and one sex. To elucidate gender sysrems and rclatlons' wc will nccd to rrace rhe convergence of many lines of material REFERENCES cviclc'cc. But wc havc l'rad ro pur such interests on hold until gender is acccpteci as a consrirutivc clcment of all social relations and as a primary Adams, Jenny L. (1988). "Use-\Wear Analysis on Manos and Hide Processing nrcans. of siunifying rclationships of power (Scott 1986). As a new axis of Stones." 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