Cornmeal Production and Women’s Roles: Changing Labor Patterns in the Northern Southwest
Tracy A. Perkins
University of Virginia
125 Chiswick Rd. #401
Brighton, MA 0213
Changes in women’s roles coincided with the development of sedentary villages and can be examined by focusing on the organization of labor and specialized production in Anasazi prehistory. Specialization in the use of space and social roles relates to changes in social organization prevalent during this critical period for the American Southwest. By focusing on cornmeal production through an analysis of mealing tools, this paper explains how one aspect of women’s labor was intensified during the pithouse-to-pueblo transition. This research focuses on a class of structures found frequently in the Southwest—mealing rooms—and outlines their general characteristics and distribution. These features provide an ideal opportunity to address the organization of space and specialized production, as well as prehistoric gender roles (Mobley-Tanaka 1997; Ortman 1998; Schlanger 1994, 1995; Spielmann 1995). The present research provides a comprehensive analysis of sites dating from approximately A.D. 700-1200 in the Four Corners area and develops a regional synthesis of changes in cornmeal production. The organization of labor is addressed through evidence of mealing activities, and the role of specialization, particularly the division of labor along gender lines, is highlighted as central to organizational change in sedentary villages.
References
Mobley-Tanaka, Jeannette L.
1997 Gender and Ritual Space During the Pithouse to Pueblo Transition: Subterranean Mealing Rooms in the North American Southwest. American Antiquity 62(3):437-448.
Ortman, Scott G.
1998 Corn Grinding and Community Organization in the Pueblo Southwest, A.D. 1150-1550. In Migration and Reorganization: The Pueblo IV Period in the American Southwest, ed. by Katherine A. Spielmann, pp. 165-192. Arizona State University Anthropological Research Papers, No. 51.
Schlanger, Sarah H.
1994 Food Processing, Mealing Rooms, and the Organization of Prehistoric Society in the American Southwest. Paper presented at the 59th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Anaheim, California.
1995 Men’s Houses and Women’s Places: Gender and Power Relations During the Pithouse to Pueblo Transition. Paper presented at the 60th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Spielmann, Katherine A.
1995 Glimpses of Gender in the Prehistoric Southwest. The Journal of Anthropological Research 51(2):91-102.