Women without History? History without women? Studies on the representation of prehistoric gender roles in Austrian exhibitions

Abstract

Archaeological exhibitions make statements not only about chronology, material culture and production techniques, but also about aspects of social organization and social dynamics. This includes statements about gender roles and their development through time. In order to investigate these statements further we initiated a project analysing the permanent archaeological exhibitions of Austria. The project began with certain expectations. We assumed that we would encounter certain patterns in our investigations: stereotyped representations of gender relations, a lesser importance of women in the sphere of crafts, economy, politics and subsistence. Also we did not expect to encounter images of strong female roles or images showing women as influential and active individuals. The preliminary data confirms much of our initial assumptions. Women, when they are represented, are depicted as inactive and inproductive.

Keywords

• gender
• museum
• text and image analysis
• archaeology
• public archaeology