received complaints or got involved in administrative litigations could help judicial enforcement, according to Li Huiying, a top women researcher of the Communist Party School.

But ingrained cultural biases can’t be swept away overnight.

A campaign to revise village committee practices is slowly starting to unfold. Two villages in Hebei and another in Henan rewrote their self-governing rules in 2015, adding new articles to protect women’s land rights. Local courts and governments in these places have also issued guidelines to ensure gender equality on land in line with national laws.

Ma’s 6-year-old son started primary school in September. Although she now has more time on her hands, she hesitated on whether to pursue her court case or focus on the family inn that helped her earn about 4,000 yuan a month.

TheQUEST Archaeological Research Program

The QUEST Archaeological Research Program was established by Joseph and Ruth Cramer with a generous endowment to Southern Methodist University in January of 1996. Under the direction of Dr. David J. Meltzer, Henderson-Morrison Professor in SMU's Department of Anthropology, the goal of the program is to conduct long-term archaeological field and laboratory research on the environment, adaptations, and (perhaps) the origins of Paleoindian groups who inhabited the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains of North America in late Pleistocene through early Holocene times.

Please click here for a map detailing the various locations QUEST has worked.

(This page created and maintained by D. Meltzer, last modified, August 2005)