Ambiguous Images: Gender and Rock Art - Paperback

by Kelley Hays-Gilpin (Author)

A significant contribution to the relatively unexplored field of gender in rock art, this volume contains information for those interested in past gender systems. Hays-Gilpin argues that art is both a product of its physical and social environment and a tool of influence in shaping behavior and ideas within a society. Rock art is often one of the strongest lines of evidence available to scholars in understanding ritual practices, gender roles, and ideological constructs of prehistoric peoples.

Author Biography

Kelley Hays-Gilpin teaches archaeology, ceramic analysis, and a rock art course at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, just hours from Petrified Forest National Park and her favorite rock art. She received her PhD in anthropology at the University of Arizona in 1992, then worked for the Navajo Nation Archaeology Department for several years. She has co-authored books on prehistoric sandals of northern Arizona and pottery of Arizona's Puerco Valley, and co-edited the Reader in Gender Archaeology with David S. Whitley. Current projects include collaboration with the Museum of Northern Arizon, Harvard Peabody Museum, and the Hopi Tribe on the Southwest Mural Project, a multidisciplinary study of 15th-17th century dry fresco painting from the Puebloan region.