The use and abuse of ethnographic analogies in interpretations of gender systems at Cahokia

In the last two decades, archaeologists have begun both to investigate gender systems in prehistoric societies and to examine the effects of contemporary conceptions of gender on prehistoric models. American Bottom researchers, however, have virtually ignored these issues in their analyses of Cahokian culture. Their references to gender are few and far between and tend to be fairly insignificant. Moreover, despite some evidence to the contrary, past Native American gender systems and modern American ones are assumed to be very similar. The trivialization of gender, its simplification and misinterpretation, and its exclusion from analyses have far-reaching implications for conclusions about Cahokian culture as a whole.