Women in Australian rock art research: The legacies of Andrée Rosenfeld and Patricia Vinnicombe

In the past decade, archaeologists have given considerable attention to research on gender in the human past. In this review, we attempt to acknowledge much of this diverse and abundant work from an explicitly feminist perspective. We focus on reviewing a selection of approaches to gender that are anchored to specific theoretical standpoints. In addition, we highlight several approaches that challenge an archaeology of gender that does not explicitly engage with the implications of this topic for research, practice, and interpretation. From our perspective, we suggest the value of situating gender research within an explicitly feminist framework, and we draw attention to some of the important insights for archaeology from the wider field of feminist critiques of science. Last, we draw attention to the crucial implications for the practice of archaeology.

Building a new anti-racist archaeology will require an unprecedented level of structural changes in the practices, demographics, and power relations of archaeology. This article considers why this iteration of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement is proving to be unique in terms of its potential to transform the field. We discuss how anti-racist archaeologists arrived at this juncture prepared to meet the challenges now before us, and how members of the Society of Black Archaeologists are collaborating with others to enact change. We acknowledge the significant social justice efforts of others and suggest how archaeologists can get involved to keep this critical momentum going.