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Rosemary Joyce Ph.D.

About

Rosemary Joyce, Ph.D., is a professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley and an archeologist who has conducted fieldwork in Honduras since 1977. Her research interests include ceramic analysis, household archaeology, and sex, gender and the body, interests unified under the heading of social archaeology, not coincidentally the title of a journal of which she is a founding editor. She would like to be known for changing fixed ideas about sex and gender, but is resigned to being known for her work on the early history of chocolate. Her publications include Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives (2008). Embodied Lives: Figuring Ancient Egypt and the Classic Maya (2003); The Languages of Archaeology: Dialogue, Narrative, and Writing (Blackwell, 2002), Gender and Power in Prehispanic Mesoamerica (University of Texas, 2001). She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Illinois-Urbana in 1985.

Books by Rosemary Joyce Ph.D.
Recent Posts
Family Reunion
Fossils of a new human ancestor identified in cave in South Africa are exciting on their own. Together, they raise questions about whether our earliest ancestors deliberately cared for the bodies of the dead.
Observing a New Year
January 1: New Year's Day. While many societies mark the beginning of the year on other dates, the transition from one year to the next is often a time for reflection, a potential crisis, a moment of renewal. Does that qualify as a human universal?
Who Are All Those Once-Removed Cousins and Unrelated Aunts?

On the holidays, we gather with relatives: and in some circles, we debate how we are related. How did that question become expert knowledge? An anthropologist should know the answer... but it isn't that simple.

On the holidays, we gather with relatives: and in some circles, we debate how we are related. How did that question become expert knowledge? An anthropologist should know the answer... but it isn't that simple.

Neanderthal Rorschach Test

Cave walls reveal previously unnoticed designs. If Neanderthals were their makers, what does that tell us about them-- and us?

Cave walls reveal previously unnoticed designs. If Neanderthals were their makers, what does that tell us about them-- and us?

You're 15, You're Beautiful, and You're Mayan

The remains of a girl who died 12,000 years ago in Yucatan are genetically linked to modern Native Americans—now it's time to reconsider why anyone ever suggested early humans in the Americas weren't the ancestors of the people who occupied the Americas in the 16th century.

The remains of a girl who died 12,000 years ago in Yucatan are genetically linked to modern Native Americans—now it's time to reconsider why anyone ever suggested early humans in the Americas weren't the ancestors of the people who occupied the Americas in the 16th century.

The Neanderthal or the Tiger

So Neanderthals probably ate significant amounts of plants. Why did anyone ever think otherwise?

So Neanderthals probably ate significant amounts of plants. Why did anyone ever think otherwise?

Making a Monkey Out of Early Peopling of the Americas

Which is the simpler explanation: that there were human beings in South America earlier than archaeologists thought—or that South American monkeys were producing stone tools 20,000 years ago?

Which is the simpler explanation: that there were human beings in South America earlier than archaeologists thought—or that South American monkeys were producing stone tools 20,000 years ago?

'Tis Better to Give Than to Receive

Do you love the gifts you got this year? Would you trade them in for money? What the gap between those questions measures is impossible to measure economically, but the heart of an anthropological analysis of gift-giving.

Do you love the gifts you got this year? Would you trade them in for money? What the gap between those questions measures is impossible to measure economically, but the heart of an anthropological analysis of gift-giving.