Feminine Knowledge and Skill Reconsidered: Women and Flaked Stone Tools

  Archaeologists continue to describe Stone Age women as home bound and their lithic technologies as unskilled, expedient, and of low quality. However, today a group of Konso women make, use, and discard flaked stone tools to process hides, offering us an alternative to the man‐the‐toolmaker model and redefining Western “naturalized” gender roles. These Konso women are skilled knappers who develop their expertise through long‐term practice and apprenticeship. Their lithic technology demonstrates that an individual's level of skill and age are visible in stone assemblages. Most importantly, they illustrate that women procure high‐quality stone from long distances, produce formal tools with skill, and use their tools efficiently. I suggest in this article that archaeologists should consider women the producers of Paleolithic stone scrapers, engaged in bipolar technology, and as such perhaps responsible for some of the earliest‐known lithic technologies.