Issues to consider:

4.1. The issue of matriarchy and the "Ur"- mother-goddess in popular culture.

4.2. Methodological issues in the interpretation of material culture.

4.3. Ethnography and gender.
 
 

Readings in bold are on reserve in Carpenter (light face are supplementary):

Everybody Read these first:

Ehrenberg, Margaret R. 1989, Women in prehistory, pp. 63-76 (and also look around in this useful book to get a background on the wider issues)
 

Reading for Group A:

Bamberger, Joan 1974, "The Myth of Matriarchy: Why Men Rule in Primitive Society", in Rosaldo and Lamphere, eds.  Women, Culture and Society. Stanford. Pp. 263-80.

Collier and Rosaldo 1981. "Politics and Gender in Simple Societies", in Sherry Ortner and Harriet Whitehead, eds. Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality. Cambridge. 1981, pp. 275-329.

Eisler, Riane T. 1987 The Chalice and the Blade, San Francisco, pp. 1-104.

Gimbutas, Marija 1991, The Civilization of the Goddess. The World of Old Europe. San Francisco. pp. vii-xi, Chapter 7, pp. 222-309.

Spector, Janet and Mary Whelan 1989. "Incorporating Gender into Archaeology Courses", in Morgen, Sandra, ed. 1989. Gender and Anthropology: Critical Reviews for Research and Teaching. Washington. Pp. 65-94.
 
 

Reading for Group B:

Bamberger, Joan 1974, "The Myth of Matriarchy: Why Men Rule in Primitive Society", in Rosaldo, M. and Lamphere, eds. 1974 Women, Culture and Society, Stanford, 263-80.

Collier and Rosaldo 1981, "Politics and Gender in Simple Societies", in Sherry Ortner and Harriet Whitehead, eds.  Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality. Cambridge. 1981 pp. 275-329.

Ortner, Sherry 1996, Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture. chapter 5, "The Problem with 'Women' as an Analytic Category", 116-38.

Sanday, Peggy Reeves 1981, Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality. Cambridge.pp. 215-31 and pp. 15-51

Gewertz, Deborah, 1988. "Introduction", in Deborah Gewertz, ed. Myths of Matriarchy Reconsidered. Sydney. Pp. vi-xi.
 
 

Supplemental Reading:

Bachhofen 1967 (1861). Myth, Religion and Mother Right. Princeton.

Leacock, Eleanor 1981. Myths of Male Dominance: Collected Articles on Women Cross-Culturally. Monthly Review Press.

MacCormack, C. and Marilyn Strathern, eds. 1980. Nature, Culture and Gender. Cambridge.

Morgen, Sandra, ed. 1989. Gender and Anthropology: Critical Reviews for Research and Teaching. Washington.

Poewe, Karla O. 1980. "Universal Male Dominance: An Ethnological Illusion", Dialectical Anthropology. Pp. 111-25.
 
Rapp, R. 1977. Gender and Class: An Archaeology of Knowledge Concerning the Origin of the State, Dialectical Anthropology 2: 309-26.

Rosaldo, M. and Lamphere, eds. 1974 Women, Culture and Society. Stanford.

Sweet, L. 1967. Appearance and Reality: Status and Roles of Women in Mediterranean Societies. Special Issue of Anthropological Quarterly 40.