Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Brown, Susan Love

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the validity of previous theories concerning women’s access to roles of power within hunter-gatherer societies. This study examines how accurately immanent social identity theory and bifurcated role circumstantiality predict women’s access to the role of healer (shaman) within California hunter-gatherer groups. A sample of 27 California hunter-gatherer groups was analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Notably, chi-square tests of independence evinced a correlation between men’s and women’s circumstantial labor and observed healer gender. Through the statistical verification of such engendered ideas, this study tests notions concerning the strict binary division of labor and posits that gender may have operated as a role-based identity marker rather than one structured around innate characteristics. This research ultimately provides a better analytical framework from which archaeologists can interpret the past through the use of ethnographic analogies that are more inclusive of gender-enriched methodologies.

Extent

198 p.

Comments

Includes bibliography.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Includes bibliography.

Identifier

FA00004600

Format

pdf

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