Description: "Gender is foundational to how people, communities, and nations understand themselves and others. In studying the past, our own ideas about gender roles and gender difference shape what questions we ask and what answers we see. This is true for all historical periods, but it is especially true for the distant past and groups who did not leave direct oral or written records about themselves. In ancient North America, what we know about the past is that Indigenous women were important political, social, and economic actors in their nations, and that their labor literally reshaped the landscapes of their nations. What we can know about this period comes from a variety of sources including oral histories, archaeology, and DNA research, but the way these sources have been understood has been shaped by changing understanding of gender and women's work"--
