26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
In need of a good proofreader/copyeditor, April 11, 2008
This review is from: The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory (Hardcover)
As an anthropologist and a meticulous proofreader/copyeditor, I am dismayed at the poor quality of this publication from Smithsonian Books. When I first saw the book, I was excited, as we need a good solid book on this topic. The Invisible Sex does not serve. I suspect that Adovasio and Soffer talked to Jake Page, and he mostly 'wrote' the prose, and that no one familiar with the field (or good at proofreading) looked at the page proofs. Otherwise, some of the more ridiculous statments would never have made it into print. For example, "A scientific theory can be proved" (p. 29) and "There are in fact no truly scientific theories about [the evolution of language], for the very reason that any proposed theory is impossible to prove, meaning it is not a scientific theory." (p. 103). The authors claim that Taung was found by Raymond Dart (p. 39), and state that the foramen magnum is the lower part of the skull "where the backbone meets the skull" (p. 56) -- to these, my response is, "Um, NO." A theory is only scientific if it can be DISPROVEN (not proven), Raymond Dart did not find the Taung skull at the quarry himself, and the foramen magnum is, literally, a BIG HOLE, not a "part" of the skull. The explanation of Karen Rosenberg and Wenda Trevathan's work on human birth is completely botched (p. 65-71); a newborn's fontanelle is not formed by the forces of labor/delivery; Trevathan's last name is misspelled in the book and index, and she teaches at New Mexico State University (not UNM), while Karen Rosenberg teaches at the University of Delaware (not the University of Maryland). And this doozy from p. 91: "Genes are themselves made up of base pairs of amino acids." Um, NO. Elsewhere Acheulian is misspelled, as is Orrorin tugenensis and Wernicke's area of the brain, along with many other misspellings and inconsistencies in names. Sydney is the name of the city in Australia (not Sidney), 'without rhythm' is "arrhythmically" not arhythmically (p. 210); canines and incisors should not be confused with one another(p. 139), diminution is the correct spelling (not "dimunition)," and the Grandmother Hypothesis is incorrectly described (p. 164). One can't see the Thames from Boxgrove. A world with fluctuating seasonal resources is not "bipolar" (p. 212). On p. 172 & 259, the author's fundamental misunderstanding of the weaning process is made clear by their description of a mother 'weaning' her 4 year old onto a soft boiled mush of wild seeds. When people write of 'weaning gruels,' they are referring to the very first non-breast milk foods a child gets at age 6-8 months; they are not using the term 'weaning' to mean the end of breastfeeding at age 4 years or older. A four year old child is very likely still breastfeeding, but they also have 20 teeth with which to eat all solid adult foods. Just as a modern human child might go to morning kindergarten, get a Happy Meal lunch on the way home, and then nurse to sleep for a nap. The more serious flaw of the book, however, is the authors ongoing confusion between/among sex, gender, and sexual orientation. On p. 277, they refer to three genders: "male, female, and gay." The first two are biological sex categories, and the third is an American English term for a particular sexual orientation. Genders consiste of masculine, feminine, and a number of others, depending on the culture. "Manly-Hearted Women" were uber-females, married to men, not lesbians. One expects people who study sex and gender in prehistory to understand the distinctions! The bibliography is a complete disaster, with many references having missing or incorrect information. Again, it obviously was not proofread by anyone. Shame on Smithsonian Books for publishing this in such bad shape. The Invisible Sex does not in any way uncover the "true roles" of women in prehistory -- gender does not preserve in the archaeological record, no matter how much we may wish it did. In addition to the Hopi, across West Africa, adult males do the weaving and sewing. Even though in most cultures weaving is women's work, we shouldn't make ANY assumptions about the chromosomes, internal anatomy, external genitalia, sexual orientation, or cultural gender constructions of the individuals who wove cloth, who made baskets, who made stone tools, who hunted, and/or who gathered. We know the women got pregnant, gave birth, and breastfed the children. That's about all we can know. The Invisible Sex is archeological story-telling from a perspective which I vastly prefer over the "Man the Hunter"/Owen Lovejoy perspective, but it is still just archeological story-telling.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Important Challenge to Many Assumptions About Our Origins, June 5, 2007
This review is from: The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory (Hardcover)
This is a stimulating and intriguing book and before I get into the review proper, I would like to include you in a discussion that is, I believe, very important for appreciating it.
We have had a great many conferences about the origins of society with experts in many fields. Most believe that civilization develops as a kind of protection against chaos and fear. Therefore it is hard to believe that societies could have developed and prospered without leaving much in the way of artifacts.
So in that view, history and pre-history are mapped by the weapons, forts, castles, cities and statues that have survived the centuries. My counter to that is to ask whether societies could have developed not as a response to fear, but out of cooperation: people working with the world around them, rather than being scared of it. After all, people right now are suggesting that we should leave less of a footprint in the world. So surely it is conceivable that highly advanced civilizations could have arisen in the past, but history fails to remember them because they did not leave monuments to their own glory.
It reminds me of the comment in Chapter 23 of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:
"On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."
This issue is at the center of this intriguing new book. James Adovasio is the founder and director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute in Erie, Pennsylvania, Olga Soffer is professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois and Jake Page is a distinguished science writer.
They begin by challenging the whole field of archaeology for its focus on hard artifacts such as stone tools and, they claim, systematically ignoring more perishable artifacts such as fishing lines, nets and string. They argue that around 26,000 years ago, somewhere in central Eurasia, a quiet but far-reaching innovation was born, that is often called the String Revolution, but which they rename the "fiber revolution." They point to arts of the world where dry caves have preserved these perishable artifacts, and then fiber and wood products can account for 95% of all the artifacts recovered.
The book is broken into three parts and thirteen chapters, and it is worth mention some of the chapter titles because they give a clear flavor of the engaging way in which the book is written:
Part One: The Beginnings
1. The stories we have been told
2. Origins
3. The importance of being upright
4. Who brought home the bacon?
5. Gray matter and language
Part Two: The Road to Thoroughly Modern Millie
6. Leaving the African cradle
7. Almost altogether truly modern humans
8. The fashioning of women
Part Three: Peopling the World
9. Cakes, fish and, matrilineality
10. Seamstresses of the far North
11. Settling down in America
12. The agricultural evolution
Conclusion: Not invisible after all
The main conclusion of the book is that the introduction of nets, baskets and clothing had profound effects on the destiny of humanity. Along the way there are many fascinating excursions into such questions as the oldest profession. No, it's not that one: they suggest that it might have been midwifery, because of the growth of the brain and the inherent problems of fitting a large head through a small pelvis. There are speculations about why we decided to get up on our hind legs, how language and writing developed and why our ancestors decided that it was time to settle down and start farming.
The writers take many of their colleagues to task for under-estimating the contribution of women to the development of civilization, because it is they who were primarily responsible for the care and production of string, nets and baskets, and also had broader responsibilities, particularly in hunting, than is supposed in most standard textbooks.
The weakest part of the book is a series of arguments about sex bias of anthropologists: that there are not many women in the field and that this has lead to an under-estimate of the role of women in evolution. They could be correct, but it felt as if there was a bit of overkill in their discussion,
So have the authors proved their central point? There we would have to say "no." The reason is that they are making a number of grand inferences based on fossil fragments and artifacts to draw conclusions about gender and social structure. As an example, they infer that women are more likely to be the weavers and braiders, while men would be busily making weapons and heavy tools. On the other hand they also dispute the notion that weapons are merely toys for boys, and suggest that women were involved in hunting. On the basis of one amazing archaeological find in Kentucky, where women were buried with bannerstones - weights used on spear launchers - they propose that women were not only involved, but were respected, perhaps lead hunters. Perhaps they were, and it is high time to move on form the silly "weaker sex" stereotype. But in terms of evidence, it is certainly no slam dunk. It is not difficult to think of some other explanations.
This kind of speculation makes for enthralling reading, but is not, of course, proof.
This is a fascinating book for anyone curious about our origins that might make some good summer reading.
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