Manifesting Power confronts the relationship between gender and power within prehistoric and historic societies. It addresses the extent to which our reconceptions of the nature of power, and of relations between the sexes, are rooted in our own experience of

western society, and argues that both conditions and perceptions may have been quite different among peoples of the past.

This collection includes nine innovative chapters which draw on data from a range of periods and areas. By looking at the evidence for gender distinctions

both from archaeological sites and from ethnographic observation, the contributors explore what these distinctions can reveal about power relationships in general. They argue that the evidence often does not point to the existence of hierarchical gender relationships, and explore the

forms of power available to women among the Maya and Aztec, and in prehistoric Denmark, Alaska, and the southeastern United States.