The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory

by J.M. Adovasio, Jake Page, Olga Soffer

Shaped by cartoons and museum dioramas, our vision of Paleolithic times tends to feature fur-clad male hunters fearlessly attacking mammoths while timid women hover fearfully behind a boulder. In fact, recent research has shown that this vision bears little relation to reality.

The field of archaeology has changed dramatically in the past two decades, as women have challenged their male colleagues' exclusive focus on hard artifacts such as spear points rather than tougher to find evidence of women's work. J. M. Adovasio and Olga Soffer are two of the world's leading experts on perishable artifacts such as basketry, cordage, and weaving. In The Invisible Sex, the authors present an exciting new look at prehistory, arguing that women invented all kinds of critical materials, including the clothing necessary for life in colder climates, the ropes used to make rafts that enabled long-distance travel by water, and nets used for communal hunting. Even more important, women played a central role in the development of language and social life—in short, in our becoming human. In this eye-opening book, a new story about women in prehistory emerges with provocative implications for our assumptions about gender today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Feminism, Science, Anthropology, Archaeology, Womens

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

James M. Adovasio (1944- ) is an American archaeologist and one of the foremost experts in perishable artifacts (such as basketry and textiles). He was formerly the Provost, Dean of the Zurn School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and Director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute at Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania. Adovasio is best known for his work at Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania and for his subsequent role in the "Clovis First" debate. He has published nearly 400 books, monographs, articles, and papers in his field.

(source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Iset · Rating 2 out of 5]

At the beginning of the book the authors provide three scenes of life in the Upper Palaeolithic featuring some rather skewed and silly stereotypes, and directly state that they set out to answer what is wrong with these pictures. I assumed they’d go on to discuss two points – the biases of Victorian antiquarians and historians and archaeologists of the 20th century, and the archaeological evidence itself, in what ways the evidence had been mishandled and what evidence there is that clearly shows female activity. The authors don’t so much address the first point as much as I would have liked, and the second point they only come to in the later chapters. In the first half of the book they actually spend a great deal of time discussing hominid biology, such as how remarkable it is that the human female pelvis is designed in such a way as to maximise brain size and still barely allow the baby to fit through the birth canal, or how brain size proportional to body size is a more critical indicator of intelligence than flat up comparing the fact that male brain size is on average larger in volume than that of females. Well, that’s great and all, but I felt like it was tangential – a woman’s biology tells us nothing about her accomplishments or evidence for her activities in the stone age, and I thought that’s what the authors set out to illuminate.

In addition, the book’s age shows and some of the authors hold outdated views even for the year it was published. The authors fail to mention the Denisovan hominids, or the fact that humans and Neanderthals interbred – both discoveries made after publication. The authors also hold on to the Multi-regional theory – the idea that an earlier hominid, perhaps Homo erectus, having spread out of Africa across Asia and Europe, then evolved separately in each region somehow into all Homo sapiens everywhere, and this is what accounts for our superficial skin-deep differences. I surely don’t need to discuss at length how unlikely it would be that separate populations would just so happen to all evolve into the same species, but it gets worse, as the authors flat out claim that there is no archaeological evidence whatsoever that Homo sapiens arose entirely in Africa and spread out across the globe. Stephen Oppenheimer wants to speak to you – there is a lot of evidence for it actually, both in DNA and excavated artefacts. In addition, one of the authors believes firmly in the Creative Explosion hypothesis – the one that posits that even though Homo sapiens is anatomically the same since 200,000 BCE there was some kind of hidden difference in the brain until c. 40,000 BCE in Europe when some magical unseen change gave us a flourishing of art and culture. This is, of course, nonsense, as there is evidence earlier and in different places for art, it ignores the lack of physical change, and it fails to explain how everyone else not in Europe developed higher thinking skills. As Oppenheimer (a geneticist) said, there is no gene for creativity.

In the end, this book actually debunked very little about the lives of women in the stone age, and worse, perpetuated some very shaky, even disproven hypotheses. I can't honestly recommend it.

[David Montgomery · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mediocre book that would have been a great magazine article.

There were definitely interesting parts here, but they were relatively few and far between. The book was moderately successful as a bit of revisionist history (or rather, revisionist pre-history), pointing out that many assumptions about how prehistoric humans acted were based on almost no evidence, and how many past assumptions had already fallen. But in many cases all they could offer as alternatives were plausible hypotheses. That's not necessarily the fault of the authors, especially back in 2006-7 when the book was published, but it did leave me feeling like the book came up short.

The 15-year-old age of the book is also a serious blow against it. Archeology has advanced a lot in the past decade and a half, and what was cutting-edge at the time is now far behind.

Finally, you could tell reading it that this was a book written by multiple authors (and apparently, judging by an afterword, had a troubled writing process). The prose was jumbled and never quite cohered into a single argument. Instead it bounced around from point to counterpoint, from example to theory, instead of developing a theory and expanding evidence.

The complete lack of any endnotes was another red flag. All three authors are acknowledged experts in their field, but you can write a book for a popular audience while still methodically documenting your arguments. I know because I've read lots of amazing books that do just this! Overall interesting but disappointing.

[Catina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Full review to come.
I never thought this day would arrive, but it has finally happened. A book about "women in prehistory" that is even worse than (they're tied for first place) Cynthia Eller's most famous book and Margaret Ehrenberg's "Women in prehistory".
This terrible book has most of the traits that make books of the "women in prehistory" genre so terrible, and which in no particular order are... it claims to be about women in prehistory, but in reality it has little do with prehistory and practically nothing to do with women; the authors aren't experts in any of the necessary fields (biology, primatology, evolution, bioarchaeology), and they arrogantly believe they don't need to talk to any actual experts in those fields or to read good introductory books (of the 'written by experts for other academics' kind) about those fields; the authors dishonestly present themselves as some kind of anti-sexist, woman-supporting enlightened figures because they reject some of the most blatantly sexist "theories", but they nevertheless don't really challenge sexism, and they support theories that are sexist in a more subtle/restrained way (hack writers like Jared Diamond do the same thing with race); the authors' knowledge of most of the relevant fields is superficial and outdated (they either haven't heard of several important findings and theories that aren't even that recent, or they don't care); at the structural level the book is a disjointed, disorganized mess, and it's written in an ugly style to boot...
I could go on.
Someone far more intelligent, humble, and mature than the authors would have realized that writing a good book of this type is beyond their abilities, and either sought help from relevant experts or simply abandoned the project and moved on. Alas, we aren't that lucky.
Damn. Now I need a good "ancient aliens" book, or a classic cockamamie ancient(hyphen)origins(dot)net article, to get the bad taste out of my mind.

[K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trigger warnings: death, some...uncomfortable...terminology is used to refer to LGBTQIA+ people (the book was published in 2007 and it shows)

Look, this book was FINE. But at the same time, I think the subtitle is misleading in the extreme. Because really, this book is just a popular (i.e. non-academic) discussion of early human ancestors and the social developments of early Homo sapiens. As the authors say early on, there's not a lot of evidence for women in the archaeological record through prehistory, purely because the types of things that women created were largely fibre-based and therefore don't survive unlike the stone tools used by men.

What the book DOES do is argues against the caveman image that is so often presented of early human life, but it doesn't necessarily focus on the true roles of women so much as reminding people that women existed during prehistory. There's a huge chunk of the book that discusses the biology of women's pelvises and how it relates to childbirth and, like...WHY? Sure, mention it in passing, but don't devote page after page to it.

So as a discussion of early human ancestors, it served as a nice refresher to what I learnt in first year archaeology at university. But in terms of actually containing what the subtitle implies? Kiiiiind of a fail.

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and readable with some avoidable sexism

J.M. Adovasio is an archaeologist. Olga Soffer is an anthropologist, and Jake Page is a science writer. They have put together in "The Invisible Sex" a book that attempts to

(1) Bring the general reader up to date on the latest developments in archaeology or paleo-anthropology;

(2) Uncover the True Roles of Women in Prehistory (as in the subtitle); and

(3) Provide a corrective to a male-dominated view of the prehistory.

The main image they want to correct is that of the great male hunter bravely slaying mastodons and in general bringing home the bacon to an adoring and appreciative family or band. What the authors want readers to see is that women weren't just tag-alongs on the way to our becoming fully modern humans, but at least equal partners. The authors refer to nets, threads, garments, basket weaving, cordage, digging sticks, the famous "Venus" statuettes, and other cultural artifacts to demonstrate the enormous role that women played culturally. They speculate that women invented farming, that they too engaged in the hunt, as well as producing works of art as important as the famous cave paintings.

The main method used by the authors is to infer the past from a study of recent hunter-gatherer societies while comparing ancient artifacts with more recent ones. This method certainly ought to provide insight into human life in prehistory, but of course there are some problems. The main one I think is that the "primitive" societies extant today or in the near past are not necessary typical of those that existed in prehistory because today's tribes occupy marginal lands since the best lands have long been given over to modern societies.

Personally, I never had any doubt about the significant role females played in the history of the species. Indeed, my feeling has always been that women are the default human being, and men an appendage, a necessary evil if you will. (Ha!) I don't think we need to study archaeology to understand that the central role in human culture is and was occupied by women. There is a sense of pandering and begging the question in the way the authors insist on the obvious. I think it stems from the fact that women in some of the sciences have felt and still do feel like second class citizens.

But that is changing. As the authors point out, most anthropologists today are women. The old male-delusional interpretations of culture in paleo-societies or in modern gatherer-hunter societies are a thing of the past. Instead we are in danger of having female-delusional interpretations. Here are a couple of examples of "reverse" sexism in the text:

From page 209: The authors imagine that "Aboriginal men" may have sniffed "contemptuously at the shell hooks and...strings that their women were using, making invidious comparisons of those little toys...with their mighty, multipointed, barbed, aerodynamic spears and other large instruments." Actually the men may have looked admiringly at such tools since such tools increased their subsistence.

On pages 248-249 in pre-Columbian New Mexico: While the women were farming, "The men had continued to spend much of their time roaming the surround, hunting (or goofing off?)." I think time spent "goofing off" applies to both sexes.

Frankly I am a bit weary of books that focus on sexualism in one form or the other to the exclusion of the science itself. This book would have been a lot better had the stance been devoid of sexism and just concentrated on what the authors have learned and understand. Their various interpretations of the enigmatic Venus of Willendorf figurine, from goddess to porn star, is a case in point. Clearly the figure, which the authors quite naturally attribute to a female artist, is a symbol in some sense of fertility, not just the fertility of the female, but of the earth itself since no woman could have gotten so corpulent except during a period of plenty. And that is what probably enamored those who made and kept such figures--the idea of the season of plenty. Such a woman not only had plenty to eat, but was a heavy favorite to survive whatever winter may come. Her personal sexuality is secondary to the generalized idea of fertility.

As for bringing the general reader up to date on the latest developments in archaeology or paleo-anthropology, the authors provide some interesting material. What has happened is that because of new technologies and more professional care taken by the scientists themselves, we are now able to unearth and be aware of artifacts such as threads, baskets, nets, etc., in a way previously not possible. And, it is true, it helps to see these artifacts from a woman's point of view, that is, as a gender female looking at what happened and assessing the importance of the artifacts, and drawing conclusions that did not occur to the old guys who once dominated the social sciences. Of course even better would be a balanced perspective, a fully human perspective, but we still have a ways to go to achieve that.

Perhaps the most glaring omission in the book is the failure of the authors to mention war (or what I like to call "the war system") as a reason for the rise of patriarchy during the transition from mostly hunter-gatherer societies to agriculture ones. Before there were storehouses of grain and large settled communities, the profits of war were meager. Once war became a viable occupation, men increased their power over women. Indeed the current religions of the Middle East, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, are all warlike and patriarchal.

So indeed, the authors do help uncover the true roles of women in the prehistory for those of us who had any doubt. However, whether women went on the Big Hunt or not, or whether men ever acted as "midwives" (which the authors identify as the real "oldest profession") is of secondary importance to the fact of hunting and midwifery.

--Dennis Littrell, author of “Understanding Evolution and Ourselves”

[Rachel Heath · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fascinating, informative read. I thought the authors really endeavored to be objective in their tone and exploration of various evidence, striking the right balance of skepticism of androcentic archaeological findings and skepticism of knee-jerk feminist assumptions. I gave this book a rating of only 3 stars, however, because it felt like the authors spent the first 3/5 of the book essentially offering up some archaeological findings of the distant past and then repeating the notion that sex, much less gender roles, are nearly impossible to discern in the deeps of prehistory. Not until the last 2/5 of the book did we reach anything beyond pure conjecture. I felt too much of the book was dedicated to explaining the evolution of homo sapien, rather than the development as woman as a gender and her activity in prehistory. Still a very interesting book but I had no idea what I was getting myself into!

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

When there is a ”True” in the title of the work, it is usually a case of No True Scotsman. And this book is no exception.

Apparently women were invisible because the Cave people would paint the caves only with penises, hence women were incapable of participating in the most obvious manifestation of the human primates.

But, the amazing author, has ”true” information. He had unprecedented insights by reading the prehistoric diaries and has seen the Mall security tapes.

[Michele bookloverforever · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was always assumed that men were the hunter-gatherers. why? because the first archeology books were written by men who could not imagine women doing anything more than cooking, cleaning house/tents and bearing and taking care of children. In actuality of course, they did far more. an interesting book. Why do we all assume it was a man who invented the wheel or discovered fire making?

[Alex Telander · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE INVISIBLE SEX: UNCOVERING THE TRUE ROLES OF WOMEN IN PREHISTORY BY J. M. ADOVASIO, OLGA SOFFER, AND JAKE PAGE: While the cover of The Invisible Sex indicates an interesting history book with its parchment design and implied cave painting of a woman, many may be deterred by the title and subtitle, thinking this a book championing the role of women only, pointing out chapter by chapter where all the men got it wrong in history. This would be an error on the reader’s part. The Invisible Sex is an amazing book that specifically charts humanity’s ancestry from the day when apes were the most evolved animal around, to some four to six thousand years ago when humanity settled down and began farming. What makes this anthropology book different is that the authors point out the known history on a certain period in time and then reveal the evidence and push forward the correct interpretation of women having a much larger role in civilization than was previously thought. Coupled with the up to date information and discoveries on our ancestry, The Invisible Sex is a great, easy to read book for any anthropology addict, or for anyone who wants to know what really was going on with our species in the last two million years.

Even though it is unclear which author is writing which chapters or parts, Adovasio, Soffer and Page are all working from their specified careers, drawing together their knowledge and talents to present a comprehensive meld of human history. The book begins at our beginning with the discovery of Lucy in Ethiopia and why this was such an important discovery – as to whether Lucy is actually female or just simply a male of small stature, remains unknown. While presenting a complete history of the Homo genus, they also take the reader through a history of the archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians who made the discoveries in the last couple hundred years. It is here that the essence of the book is revealed, as the authors point out the assumed role of men always conducting the hunting and gathering while the women stayed in the hut, looking after the children, and occasionally collecting the odd nut and berry. Coupled with this is the image of the brave and strong cavemen/hunters taking down woolly mammoths and giant sloths and providing the tribe with food for weeks. Coincidentally this ties in with the period in history when all the men were out working, bringing in the money, while the women stayed home, cleaning house and looking after the children.

They reveal the known history and then take it a part and got to the evidence, revealing what it says and what was really the dynamic of this time: that the men in fact weren’t killing woolly mammoths easily, providing all with bountiful meat, because the mammoth was the most feared animal around with its immense size and gouging tusks. In all likelihood the hunting was done in a large group involving women, children and other family members. They were not going after woolly mammoths and sloths, but were more focused on smaller animals like foxes, rabbits and other animals of similar size. Using large nets, they would scare these animals out from hiding, catch them in the nets, club them to death and then have a large supply of meat for some time.

Read the rest of the review here.

For more book reviews, and author interviews, go to BookBanter.

[Kathryn · Rating 1 out of 5]

A cluttered incomprehensible mess. 25% of it is spent illustrating dead-end theories that have no relevance to the title. It isn't until over halfway through the book that the authors feel 'prehistory' has been established enough to begin exploring the subject of their own book.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always been fascinated by human evolution and the mysteries of the prehistoric era. I think this field of study that pieces together rare clues and proposes possible narratives appeals to my imagination. The vast bulk of the human story is unrecorded, and, as the authors of The Invisible Sex point out, the prehistory pieced together by paleoanthropologists has overlooked the important role that females played in the evolution of humanity and the technological and social development of our species.

The Invisible Sex is a collective work by J.M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer, and Jake Page, and their premise is that the once male-dominated world of paleoanthropologists and archeologists largely left women's prehistory unconsidered and unexplored. Unearthing stone spearheads and knives naturally made scientists create the narrative of man the hunter, and women were mere afterthoughts necessary for reproduction.

As the researchers who authored the book go on to demonstrate, an unbiased or liberated view of the evidence shows that females contributed significantly to human evolution, language development, social development, and technological advances.

Review continues at my blog Her Ladyship's Quest

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book starts off slow, examining the evidence to date on the first humans, and showing just how little of it offers any objective clue as to the roles of men or women. For much of the book, speculations concerning early gender roles are systematically exposed as sheer speculation. Then as the evidence from prehistoric cultures expands, the authors engage in an increasing fascinating discussion, comparing findings and theories from across the world. The authors' combined expertise in both Old and New World archaeology offers helpful insights into the roles women have played in early societies. The authors carefully avoid exaggerating the powers of either gender, as they illuminate both the achievements and hardships of our founding mothers.

[Ivi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really interested in the subject of the book (the role of women in pre-history), but it is written in such a feminazi tone that it makes for an annoying read. It's written by anthropologists (and maybe one archeologist) so it has lots of really neat facts, but I wish the tone was less aggressive.

[AshleyYvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although sad the "prehistoric matriarchy" theory was laid to rest for me, it was nice to inform and update myself on how modern humans have evolved creatively instead of living for sheer survival. I'm always humbled and awed by our prehistoric roots. Finally, finally some feminine representation - as much as we're able to glean and lay other ridiculous theories to rest (hint: fire bad, tree pretty, man protect woman!) - and how women and men evolved to coexist in equality until we started turning away from our hunter-gatherer ways thousands of years ago.

[Milena A. Hatada · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sexo Invisível mesmo, né? Porque em todo o livro, o papel da mulher raramente aparece e realmente dá o título dele. Foi bem cansativo, o resumo do livro poderia ter sido feito em um artigo de poucas páginas em vez de um ensaio gigante contando a pré-história toda e as raras partes que apareceram as mulheres. Parece aqueles ensaios que precisam ter linguiça pra poder ser publicado em formato de livro e pouco agrega com o que traz de proposta de conteúdo.

[Tiffy L. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Only got through the 1st 20 pages cause the format utterly sucked. They kept bouncing to different scenes, and they only vaguely discussed the subject of the book, that in the beginning, the authors adamantly said they were going to discuss.

[Melissa Embry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine a world in which all the inventors, the artists, the leaders you had been taught were men were actually – women? What if one of humanity’s greatest inventions was as simple as – a piece of string? That’s the world scientists J. M. Adovasio and Olga Soffer (with help from science writer Jake Page) ask readers in The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory.

Adovasio, Soffer and Page don’t claim women did all the heavy lifting of prehistory. But, if we have little direct evidence of women’s contributions to our early development, we also have little evidence that those contributions were made by men. What we do know is that scientists in male-dominated fields tend to think like, well, men. The trio behind The Invisible Sex ask us to think, for a brief time at least, like women.

The results are fascinating, beginning with an early discussion of the need for female cooperation in birthing the babies of the species. The opening chapters trace humanity’s rise from apelike ancestors to the earliest members of the genus Homo (a name whose very meaning, “man”, has set the tone for so much of the thinking about our origins). Obviously, the major irrefutable fact known about the contributions of females, even before these females became anything we would call women, is that they birthed the babies of the species.

Certainly, I was aware that childbirth is a strenuous and tricky process for both mother and baby, But I hadn’t thought about how much female cooperation the process must have involved. Or about the implications of such cooperation on the social structure of early human – even prehuman societies.

“Women are the only primates in whom the baby emerges facing the rear. . . the tendency for human babies to be born facing the mother’s back has made human mothers the only primates – indeed, the only animals – that seek and get assistance in the birth process. It is possible, of course, for a woman to have her baby by herself, and it is even considered a cultural ideal in certain cultures. . . (but) an ideal that is apparently quite rarely achieved. . . ”

Lest readers be left more squeamish than fascinated, the narrative picks up considerably once it arrives at the material on which Adovasio and Soffer are among the world’s experts – basket making, weaving and, yes, string. These materials seldom appear in excavations because of their perishable nature. But continuing archaeological investigations have exposed ancient evidence or such materials – sometimes preserved in favorable situations, but often indirect. Enter a second direct evidence of woman’s work recorded on the famous “Venuses,” the supposedly nude images found carved in stone and ivory across the length and breadth of prehistoric Europe.

“What escaped many observers, both male and female, for many years was that some of these figurines were party clad,” note the authors of The Invisible Sex. “. . . (one) did have hair, it seemed, braided and wrapped around her head. Others had little bits of decorations – body bands, bracelets, minor bits and pieces of material of some sort. . . ”

When Adovasio and Soffer looked more closely, they found that the braids supposed to represent hair were actually a well-known basketry pattern. “Nude” Venus wore a hat! Closer inspection of the supposedly merely decorative lines on other carvings also revealed them to be twisted and knotted – belts, straps, even string skirts. And if women were wearing hats and clothes, it’s likely that they were also manufacturing the garments. And twining the threads and weaving the fabric, long before the commonly accepted dates for plant domestication.

I could happily have read an entire book on the basketry and fiber issues (and maybe I’ll have to explore some of Advasio’s and Soffer’s other books), and skipped some of the earlier chapters of this one. And although Page’s contribution has undoubtedly smoothed some of the academic-speak of the scientific authors, the results are not always as felicitous as a lay reader might wish. In all, however, a fascinating look at a too-little explored aspect of becoming human.

[Magdalena · Rating 1 out of 5]

I made an account on here with the only purpose to express how bad this book is.

Someone that I follow online had this book on their reading list so I gave it a go, while being aware that it is a very old book considering its themes. I thought it might be like reading some early sociology books, with most of it calling for the unlearning of biases, without much constructive evidence, but nonetheless offering some alternative hypothesis. Instead, this book made me feel like I was reading a bunch of essays scraped together by a few of my peers (that is to say, engineering bachelor students) who, along the way of writing it, forgot the main topic and instead circled around it and wrote instead interesting things they found on Wikipedia while researching.

To be honest, I did not go through the last 60 pages of the book. If the 'uncovering' is done in its whole in those 60 pages, I guess I will never know such wisdom. For the first 240 pages, I can say that I enjoyed some of the ways in which the biases of the former scientists were portrayed in the beginning, while trough the middle it read almost like a parody, so I was too amused to stop there. After a while, it became almost painful to go through the repetitions, backtracking, and the weird formatting of these inconsequential explanations.

I wonder if these authors had the vision that the title suggests. There is a mention of the female sex and its evolution, but it only exists to what I can only describe as a negation to the male sex. No, there weren't just males driving the evolution forwards, (imply the rest). No, there couldn't have been only male painters, (imply the rest). The female sex is, it seems, only presented directly when there is some importance that the current society ascribes to women, namely childbearing. Then we are encouraged to appreciate the magic of the female sex. The main problem here being that this evolution is a collaborative process between the sexes and, again, not something that can be accredited to the life of a woman. This is why if the tytle of the book was just 'The invisible sex', it would have described the book correctly. The 'Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory' does not really happen, and where women are mentioned in relation to their gender and not their sex, it loses its basis of what we had built up on in the chapters dedicated to biology and evolution. Why? Because sociology is not the strongest side of this book. It really does read like a work of three authors who branched into their own areas of interest, with some of them not relating to the questions posed in the introduction of the book.

I think for someone like me, who really wanted to see the disconnect between the patriarchal stories and human nature, and between our biological past and our current societies, would be better off reading new archeological data, feminist theory, anarchist or other texts that have been the voice of reason even before the mainstream idea that maybe we aren't only our biology.

[Sarah Overvaag · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an interesting view into prehistory and also into early archeological studies. I had never put much thought into how male dominated the theories of early peoples are. I knew some theories have been proven wrong but that almost never had to do with male and female roles. This book does a wonderful job of pointing out how female involvement was probably the beginning of big jumps in human development. The one that caught my attention the most was the simple cooing a mother may “say” to a baby or child being the beginning of language. Despite traditionally being seen as simply the cook, women would have been important, equal members of early groups. The book doesn’t argue that females meant more than the males, which is appropriate. One thing you should gather from this book is that our ideas of history are fluid. We can’t know the truth in exact detail when it comes to unwritten history. We must remain open to new theories and new forms of science, and we must approach these without the blinders of male vs. female.

[Fátima Fernandes · Rating 5 out of 5]

- A pré-história parece pertencer aos homens, ainda mais do que a História. Os vestígios que o passado distante deixou são normalmente armas e alguns instrumentos cuja utilização a inteligência dúbia dos dos arqueólogos atrinui exclusivamente aos machos.
.
- E as mulheres? As mulheres desses tempos permanecem invisíveis, como sugere o título deste livro excelente. Elas seriam apenas o ventre invisível das gerações futuras. E todavia...
.
- Estariam as mulheres presentes nas caçadas? Defenderiam elas o acampamento? E o mais: os instrumentos, os agasalhos, o cuidado das crianças? Que valor tem isso.
-
. A imagem da mulher pré-histórica a ser arrastada pelos cabelos pelo super-macaco, de arma ao ombro é a imagem que fica da arqueologia escrita por homens.
.
- E nada mais falso. É o que nos conta este livro muito bem estruturado e documentado (mais de 150 citações). Uma leitura obrigatória!

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

What this book is:

This book posits that there is insufficient evidence of women in the archaeological record throughout prehistory, because the types of things that women created were largely fibre-based, which are less likely to survive than stone objects assumed to be used by men. The authors point out that we struggle to even sex prehistory skeletons, and (mostly male) archaeologists have made many baseless assumptions about the role of gender in prehistory.

Personal opinion:

I strongly agree with another reviewer that “25% of it is spent illustrating dead-end theories that have no relevance to the title”. I appreciate the authors pointing out the existing sexism in archaeological perceptions of pre-history, but I don’t feel they provided a sufficient alternative. I’d be hard-pressed to pick out specific examples from the book that clearly illustrate their overall point.

[Rebecca A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather chatty overview of the current state of archaeology and prehistory. Discusses the difference between a male and a man, or a female and a woman, how the one term is biological, and the other is cultural.

Re-thinks the Goddess Principle promoted by Gimbuta and others, mainly because it's darn hard to know what ancient people thought about certain symbols, not to mention how they actually worshipped.

How we now have the technology to look for fibers--string, rope, weaving, etc.--in ancient sites, and how such traces outnumber stone and metal tools. Discusses if men or women were responsible for such work, also reflects on what we currently know about certain tribal practices in that regard.

This book gave me a chuckle because I'd never thought about the difference between cultivating and domesticating a crop. Now I know!

[Nathalie Pauwels · Rating 4 out of 5]

It basically was an entertaining and educational read. Each chapter the authors give you a vivid and seemingly plausible but male dominated scenario of a segment of prehistoric life. To focus then on the issues with that scenario and to offer alternatives in which women appear less as mere breeding machines. What the authors don't do is creating new possibly false theories. What they suggest as different readings of the sometimes little physical evidence remains an interpretation. Which again could be refuted by other scientists. The book just shows that it's not very likely that women were just passive followers of mammoth slaughtering men. They had to take up an active role in the struggle to survive in sometimes harsh conditions. And those men didn't attack that many mammoths anyway.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by this book as a rare example of an archaeology book written by archaeologists that is both well researched and also engaging and humorous. I'm also not that interested in early prehistory, but somehow this book made me interested and made me care more about the developments in archaeological thought and the prevalent theories have changed over time. It debunked a lot of the myths I had unwittingly bought into about prehistoric humans and made a good case for how women are actually visible in archaeology through their material and culture. It is worth saying though that this was written a while ago so I'm not sure what developments have been made now.

[Gretta · Rating 3 out of 5]

While certainly thought provoking and written in a fun irreverent voice, The Invisible Sex is exceptionally broad. This is probably necessary, since it deals with the Loooong stretch of prehistory around the globe. Because of this, the books has to devote a lot of time to context and less time than I would have liked to supporting their arguments. That being said, the book offers important lessons about how our current social structures influence our reading of the archeological record regarding sex and gender.

[Thom DeLair]

This is an older book, published in 2007, in a field that changes rapidly. The first third of the book doesn't seem to really get to deep into women/females in prehistory, but rather considers a lot of topics based on human evolution. I did learn some interesting things, such as when they consider how studies on stress have been conducted on 90% of men and therefore stress for women is probably poorly understood. But over all, with new research in the field, a newer version might have more specifics to say about the women in prehistory.

[Kelley Berberich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book fascinating, even taking notes to follow up on more in-depth information. The media may always dwell on prehistoric man, but the role of women was so crucial in many ways. Since I am a person with a medical background, I was especially interested in the studies of women in childbearing age, how the body has changed over time to accommodate birth, hormones, bonding etc. While some stories here were made up based on their finding, I was still entertained by it at the same time as it making me think further about the roles of women.

[Andi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did this book add to my knowledge? Yes. But it also pointed out how images of prehistoric living were based on very few facts and mainly conjecture/biases and then later in the book presented very similar imagery/scenarios with no supporting evidence to show that this interpretation reflected what we believed to be true at the time.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well done! Good science made accessible without being overwhelming, and I really appreciated how careful they were to spell out what was backed up by evidence, what was conjecture, what different opinions are, etc.

[Pat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the content of the book interesting but was greatly disappointed when I finished that it did not address the subject of their subtitle sufficiently.