Prehistoric man is also a woman

"No! Prehistoric women didn't spend their time sweeping the cave! What if they also painted Lascaux, hunted bison, carved tools, and were the originators of innovation and social advancement?"

With this provocation, prominent French archaeologist and prehistorian Marylène Patou-Mathis begins this meticulous book on gender archaeology. Sociocultural imagination has forged the idea that, in prehistory, women were delicate and vulnerable gatherers, confined to the domestic and family sphere. They are also commonly depicted being dragged by the hair by men wielding clubs, taken as hunting trophies.

Patou-Mathis reveals a prehistoric woman beyond these representations, repeated ad nauseam by the earliest historians and archaeologists, all of them men, to the present day. These images—a reflection of social values, still patriarchal and bourgeois—are being corrected by women who have only recently gained ground in academia and laboratories. They have revolutionized our understanding of this period, such as the proof of the existence of Viking warriors and the valorization of the gatherer as essential to the development of civilization.

Prehistoric Man Is Also Woman: A History of the Invisibility of Women corrects a centuries-old misunderstanding, as it not only gives a voice to our ancestors—so often silenced—but also restores their dignity, with solid arguments based on the most recent research in archaeology and prehistory.

This Brazilian edition also features a foreword by social historian Giovana Xavier and an afterword by journalist and activist Renata Tupinambá, which expand on the book's meaning, commenting on it from a Black, Indigenous, and Latin American perspective.

“Marylène Patou-Mathis brings good news that provides new ammunition for the fight against naturalist arguments.” -Elle