Gendered Crafts in the Great Salt Lake Desert

A Comparative Analysis of Late Holocene Cordage and Coiled Basketry

Bibliographic Data

ID2096593
AuthorsMarion M Coe (0000-0002-8963-2527, First American (United States), corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume88
Issue3
Pages302-325
Publication date2023-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Antiquity (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7316 • E-ISSN: 2325-5064
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/aaq.2023.33
OpenAlexW4381512194
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited42

Perishable artifacts are invaluable tools for reconstructing past lifeways of hunter-gatherers, and when preserved in arid settings, they can inform on dynamic interactions between communities and the environment. Many such materials were recovered from early archaeological surveys in Utah and Nevada but were largely excluded from contemporary analyses because of small sample sizes, their fragmentary nature, and insecure proveniences. This synchronic reanalysis of cordage and coiled basketry from 10 late Holocene sites in the Great Salt Lake Desert utilizes newer approaches to perishables analysis so as to collect data more conducive to statistical comparisons of subsistence and craft traditions absent from earlier Great Basin studies. Regional trends of conformity of fine cordage contrasted with a diversity of basketry manufacture suggest contemporaneous social stressors directing the production of materials and two potentially gendered subclasses of utilitarian objects. Feminine and masculine perishable crafts in the Bonneville Basin follow separate manufacturing traditions, observable despite small sample sizes and poor dating of these curated collections

Agriculture · Archaeology · Assemblage (archaeology) · Craft · Desert (philosophy) · Geography · Holocene · Hunter-gatherer · Salt lake · Stone tool · Structural basin · Subsistence agriculture · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · Geology · History · Paleontology · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access