Women in Prehistory

Volume 4 in the Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture

This thought-provoking book argues the contributions of women to the earliest advances in human knowledge, especially the discovery and development of agriculture, were much greater than has generally been acknowledged. By examining skeletons and grave goods, archeological evidence from settlement sites, and rock carvings and sculpted figurines, and by drawing anthropological parallels to later societies, Ehrenberg throws new light on the lives and social status of women in Europe from the Palaeolithic era to the Iron Age. The high status almost certainly enjoyed by women as the main providers of food in early prehistoric societies probably diminished in the later Neolithic Age, as men assumed an increasingly dominant role in farming. Even so, in the Bronze Age and Iron Age societies, individual women held positions of power: Ehrenberg considers the possibility that Minoan Crete was a matriarchy and that Boudica was only one of a number of female Celtic leaders.