Gender through Time
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Gender through Time in the Ancient Near East is a research project of international scholars that aims to explore the temporal dimensions of gender in societies of the ancient Near East from the Neolithic to the Iron Age periods. The project is directed by Dr. Diane Bolger, Research Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, and is being funded by the British Academy. The book that will result from the project (Gender through Time in the Ancient Near East) is currently scheduled for publication in 2007 by AltaMira Press as part of its Gender and Archaeology Series. Further details about the project appear below. For information on contributors, individual papers in the volume, and publication details, click on the relevant headings at the top of this page. |
Research
Context 
The last two decades have witnessed the application of gender theory to archaeological research, beginning in 1984 with Conkey and Spector’s ground-breaking article, “Archaeology and the Study of Gender,” and continuing several years later with Gero and Conkey’s highly influential edited volume Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory (1991), a wide-ranging, multi-authored publication devoted specifically to considerations of gender in the prehistoric cultures of Europe, Asia and the Americas. Recent approaches in archaeology have furnished opportunities for new ways of examining the past, both on account of their greater degree of relativism and self-criticism and through their legitimization of topics such as gender and ethnicity, which have previously been regarded by more traditional archaeologists as too ‘subjective’ or ‘invisible’ for scholarly consideration. As a result, the archaeology of gender has become one of the fastest growing disciplines within the field.
Despite these advances, gendered perspectives continue to be marginalized in archaeological interpretations of the societies of the ancient Near East. To cite but one important example, gender is conspicuously absent from discussions of the cultural implications associated with the emergence of complex societies in Mesopotamia, a focal point of much recent research. While Near Eastern archaeology still remains heavily entrenched in descriptive reporting, it is beginning to embrace more theoretically based models of analysis and interpretation. This project intends to contribute to this development by examining the interfaces between gender and social complexity within the rich and varied material remains of the past whose monuments are well known but whose political structures and social identities have yet to be explored in depth. It is based on the proceedings of a workshop of the same title held at the University of Edinburgh in January 2006 as part of the annual meeting of the British Association of Near Eastern Archaeologists (BANEA). In addition to papers presented at the conference, the book will also include contributions from international scholars who were not able to take part in the Edinburgh workshop.
Themes &
Objectives 
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