Janet D. Spector (October 21, 1944 – September 13, 2011) was an American archaeologist known for her contributions to the archaeology of gender and ethnoarchaeology. An influential paper she co-wrote in 1984 entitled "Archaeology and the Study of Gender" is considered to be the beginning of feminist archaeology. She is also the author of the 1993 book What This Awl Means: Feminist Archaeology at a Wahpeton Dakota Village, which combines Spector's autobiography with the excavation of the Little Rapids site (also known as Inyan Ceyaka Otonwe) in Scott County, Minnesota and a fictional story of a young Dakota woman who lived in the village. The book was revolutionary in its attempt at a task differentiation framework and it’s intersectional approach to ethnography with indigenous and gendered