Forensic analyses of fingerprints on 11th-century pottery have provided physical evidence showing both males and females were involved in pottery production in an ancient New Mexico society.
Before this discovery, which was reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, there had been an understanding that pottery production had been exclusively handled by women in the village of Ancestral Puebloans.
Lead researcher John Kanter of the University of North Florida says this revelation of flexible gender roles explains why the Ancestral Puebloans were able to live in places where nobody can live today.