This excellent book provides an overview of the development and current state of feminist prehistoric archaeology… has an immense scope and will probably become a classic in the field.

Historical Archaeology

Nelson presents a lucid, scholarly demonstration of the importance of an archeological approach to the past that focuses on the evidence for the roles of women and men, freed from the androcentric assumptions that have shaped our thinking.

Library Journal

A comprehensive analysis of research on gender in early societies written from the perspective of a distinguished anthropological archeologist. . . . A must for scholars and students (graduate and undergraduate) interested in how the richly textured analysis of gender is revolutionizing our concepts of the past.

Choice Reviews

In her book Professor Sarah Milledge Nelson presents recent interpretations and results of other researchers. They are followed by critical reflections and discussions, and the comments are often sharp and cutting. Various aspects on how power and prestige affect gender relations, in the past and present, are explored, and Nelson's critical feminist perspective sets the character through the entire book. Her text, however, not only deconstructive; she offers alternative ways to find new data and interpret old data and the examples highlighted come from both the archaeological and anthropological disciplines.

Linda Lökvist, (Department of Archaeology, University of Göteborg, Sweden), European Journal of Archaeology

This volume is more than just a helpful review of the classic and current literature on gender issues in archaeology.…Nelson makes the link-between gender roles involved in the development and practice of archaeology and those gendered assumptions that underlie archaeological models of past society-the integrating theme of this volume.

Journal of Anthropological Research

I recommend this book to any archaeologist, amateur or professional, and to anyone who is interested in the stories that archaeologists have to tell. At the very least it will challenge some old assumptions, and it may generate much new and productive research in the future.

Ann M. Early, Arkansas Archeological Survey, Mississippi Archaeology