The roles played by women in history, and even the very idea of what it is to be female, have always been in flux, changing over centuries, between cultures, and in response to diverse social and economic parameters. Even today, women’s roles and women’s rights continue to face changes and pressures. In establishing the series Women of the Past: Testimonies from Archaeology and History, the ambition is to build on the profound theoretical and empirical developments that have taken place over the last fifty years of gender-focused research and to explore them in a contemporary context. The aim of this series is to shed light on not just the outstanding and extraordinary women who were trendsetters of their time, but also the not quite so outstanding women, often overshadowed by outstanding men, and the ordinary women, those who simply went about their everyday life and kept their world turning in their own quiet way. This edited volume, Women of the Past, Issues for the Present, is the inaugural volume of the series and shows the wide span of the series chronologically, geographically, and socially in terms of the research presented. From Roman slaves to Viking women, and from medieval wet-nurses to the nineteenth-century wives who supported their archaeologist husbands on excavation, this groundbreaking volume opens a new vista in our understanding of the past.

Koefoed, N. J. and Raja, R. (eds). 2024. Women of the Past, Issues for the Present, Women of the Past: Testimonies from Archaeology and History, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols).