The fight for gender equality has become a matter of urgent public discourse. Much of this struggle has focused on current developments in the West, propelling changes whose speed and visibility appear unique. Yet, shifting gender dynamics occur the world over and are as old as humanity itself. The purpose of this course is to equip students with the theoretical and methodological background to examine how gender shaped human societies from deep prehistory to the present day. To do so, it will primarily use the tools of archaeology, thus focusing on the material traces left by the communities that inhabited our planet in the past. By deciphering a wide array of datasets, from domestic organization to burial assemblages, from dress ornaments to iconographic representations, and by zooming into salient case studies, this course illuminates the astonishing variability of human gender dynamics. Students will gain an in-depth understanding of how gender works, both in past and in present societies. Doing this through the prism of archaeology allows us to better grasp the many forms that gender organization can take, and the deep social and economic forces that shape them.