In Worlds of Gender ten prominent scholars consider the research on gender and archaeology that has been conducted around the world. The authors discuss the archaeological evidence for gender distinctions from Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Australia, Europe, Mesoamerica, North America, and South America. Although some regions of the world have only been studied sporadically, this volume brings together the totality of the evidence to make it possible to compare sexual roles and identities from far-flung cultures of vastly different time periods. Worlds of Gender is an excellent resource for comparative cultural studies and gender studies, as well as a useful examination of how gender roles affect social structures.

This new edition of "Women in Ancient America" draws on recent advances in the archaeology of gender to reexamine the activities, roles, and relationships of women in the prehistoric Native societies of North, Central, and South America.
Women--and women's work--have been crucial to the survival and success of American peoples since ancient times. And as hunting and foraging societies developed farming techniques and eventually created permanent settlements, women's roles changed. Karen Olsen Bruhns and Karen E. Stothert consider the various economic adaptations that followed, as well as the ways in which women participated in food production and the specialized industries of their societies. They also look at women's access to power, both political and religious, paying particular attention to the place of priestesses and goddesses in the spiritual life of ancient peoples.
The narrative that unfolds in "Women in Ancient America" is based on the most recent research, using evidence and examples from a wide range of cultures dating from the Paleoindian period to European invasion. This book, unlike others, treats many different types of societies, as the authors develop arguments sure to provoke thinking about the lives of women who inhabited the Americas in the distant past.

This volume records the archaeological investigations of the author in the Quindio region, west of Bogota. The work (extensive survey, test pit excavation and documentary/museum researches) was carried out in the 1970s and is presented unchanged here, although the preface updates some of the references. Various problems with the survey methodology (such as overzealous graduate students ) allows the data presented only to indicate the potential of this archaeologically almost unknown region, which has nevertheless produced some of the finest pre-hispanic goldwork known. However suggested ceramic phases, results of excavations on features ranging from tombs to salt-pits and the text of an early investigation of the region Recuerdos de la Guaqueria en el Quindio by Luis Arango Cano (1924 in Spanish) are presented here and are bound to be of interest to specialists.