Are All Warriors Male?: Gender Roles on the Ancient Eurasian Steppe [Hardcover]

The 'warrior woman' concept has captured the scholarly and popular imagination at least since Herodotus' excursus on the Amazons. Most treatments of this subject, however, have tended to focus on historically documented contexts. This edited volume of essays by leading scholars presents the archaeological evidence for the prehistoric social configurations of Eurasian steppe peoples. It is a timely and rigorously researched treatment of ancient societies in which the domain of war was not always exclusively male. (Arnold, Bettina )

This important book dramatically expands the archaeological analysis of gender. Geographically, it harnesses the rich conceptual apparatus concerning gender and social roles to the study of the vast Eurasian continent, which has slowly emerged as one of the most intellectually vibrant domains of ongoing archaeological work. Analytically, the volume's tight focus on the gendering of martial violence is equally groundbreaking. By revealing 'man the warrior' to be as trite as the long-abandoned 'man the hunter,' the book's contributors elevate the archaeological study of gender, warfare, and violence into new and sophisticated realms of inquiry. (Smith, Adam )

Are All Warriors Male? is a lively inquiry into questions of gender on the ancient Eurasian steppes. The book's contributors are archaeologists who work in eastern Europe, Central Asia, and eastern Asia, and this volume is the result of their field research in this vast. As little has been written about the evidence of gender roles in ancient—or modern—pastoralist societies, this book helps to fill an empty niche in our understanding of how sexual roles and identities have shaped and been shaped by such social and cultural circumstances. Are All Warriors Male? is a groundbreaking work that challenges current conceptions about the development of human societies in this great cauldron of humanity.

Katheryn M. Linduff is University Center for International Studies Professor of art history and archaeology at the University of Pittsburgh, specializing in the study of early China and Inner Asia. Karen S. Rubinson is a research scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Barnard College.