Considering gender analogies in southeastern prehistoric archaeology

Prehistoric archaeologists have done very little yet to explore how gender “works” within the historical processes of social construction during the long prehistory of the Southeast. As we undertake examinations of gender ideologies, roles, and relationships, applications of analogs play an important role. This is despite a distinctly unsettled agreement on uses of analogy in archaeology. In this piece, I explore archaeologists’ continued unease with the use of analogy in archaeological interpretation, assigning part of the blame to underlying and unresolved epistemological issues. A disciplined and studied use of formal analogies is suggested.