Women Carried Heavy Loads: Two Millennia of Burden Baskets in Southwest Iconography

Kelley Hays-Gilpin

NAU, Flagstaff AZ

kelley.hays-gilpin@nau.edu

Patricia McCreery

San Luis Obisbo, CA

SLOPatmac@aol.com

Osteological evidence from of the American Southwest includes occupational stress markers showing that a thousand years ago, Puebloan women regularly carried heavy loads (Martin). Robust muscle attachments show they used back and neck muscles more than their male contemporaries and their modern descendents. What tools did they use to carry heavy loads, what did they carry, and can we learn more about the gendered division of labor and other aspects of gender arrangements by focusing on this topic? We have begun a search of available literature on Southwest art and archaeology to explore the distribution, technology, and design styles of burden baskets and tump lines, and depictions of burden baskets in figurines, pottery paintings, and rock-art. We explore the burden basket as a possible iconographic reference to women’s productive activities in the past.