Gender Violence in the American Southwest (AD 1100-1300): Mothers, Sisters, Wives, Slaves

Description

This volume uses osteobiography and individual-level analyses of burials retrieved from the La Plata River Valley (New Mexico) to illustrate the variety of roles that Ancestral Pueblo women played in the past (circa AD 1100–1300). The experiences of women as a result of their gender, age, and status over the life course are reconstructed, with consideration given to the gendered forms of violence they were subject to and the consequences of social violence on health. The authors demonstrate the utility of a modern bioarchaeological approach that combines social theories about gender and violence with burial data in conjunction with information from many other sources―including archaeological reconstruction of homes and communities, ethnohistoric resources available on Pueblo society, and Pueblo women’s contemporary voices. This analysis presents a more accurate, nuanced, and complex picture of life in the past for mothers, sisters, wives, and, captives. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Figures Table Acknowledgments 1. Mindful Bodies Introduction Presenting and Studying Bodies Why a Book on Gender Violence in the Past? Violence among Women Complexities of Sex and Gender Life Course Theory Intersectionality Nonbinary Genders Agency Challenges to Decolonizing the Past Mindful Bodies: Theoretical Framework Summary References 2. Portrait of a Desert Farming Community Introduction Studying Other People's Bodies—Concerns and Caveats Why a Small-Scale Society? Bodies in Context: Environments, Cultural Processes, and Biology Situating a Small-Scale Society in Time and Space: The Social and Political Climate in the AD 1100s Environment of the Northern San Juan Region Cultural Systems and Cultural Stress Individual Physiology Skeletal Indicators of Stress Impact of Stress on the Population La Plata: Cultural Diseases, Social Bodies Gender Roles and Implications for Inequities Summary References 3. Everyday Life Matters: Social Violence at La Plata Revisiting Violence the Past—Cautionary Notes Why La Plata? The Body Politic: Wounds to the Body and Power Identifying and Interpreting the Skeletal Correlates of Violence Captives as Disposable Commodities: The Evidence for Violence, Illness, Heavy Labor, and Early Death Skeletal Trauma at La Plata Skeletal Trauma at La Plata: Victims of Violence? Evidence of Heavy Labor at La Plata Mortuary Treatment at La Plata Survivors of Violence: The Long-Term Effects of Cranial Trauma Summary: Culturally Specific Gender Violence at La Plata Conclusions References 4. Wives, Mothers, Sisters, Slaves: Complexities in Roles and Relations Ethnographic/Ethnohistoric Analogies for the Past Pueblo Social Organization: Status, Power, and Prestige Pueblo Gender Roles and Divisions of Labor Wives, Co-Wives, Sisters, and Daughters Mothers, Grandmothers, and Aunts Ceremonial Leaders and Keepers of Knowledge Captives and Slaves Complexities of Women as Captives and Slaves Captives as Agents of Social Change Summary and Conclusions References 5. Capturing Women, Capturing Power The Big Picture Anthropological Approaches—Biocultural and Intersectional Working through the Past References Index