Sex and Gender in Archaeology.

If you're following the news about archaeology at least a little bit, you'll have seen the Big News about the Viking burial with weapons and a woman in it. There were big speculations regarding that woman's role as a warrior or possibly even as a war leader.

Well.

Sex and gender are a difficult topic in archaeology, and have always been. Why? Because even if you find human remains, finding out what the person's biological sex was is not always easy. You can see some hints in the bone structure, in the attachment points of muscles to the bone, in the pelvis shape and also in the angle of the ear canal (yes, insert joke about why women are the better listeners here). However, that all requires a) good bone conservation and b) somebody knowing what they are looking at, with sufficient experience and c) not having a body that, due to some reason, appears more androgyneous.

So, back in the past, a lot of archaeologists mostly relied on the grave goods where the burial customs were distinctively gendered. The inconclusive, mixed-message burials posed a problem here. As time passed, it became more of a best practice to have an anthropologist look at the bones to help find out whether the gendering was as strictly correct as assumed before, or whether there was some mix-up in some graves.

Now we get to the interesting bit. We have a history of abuse of history (or, to put it more correctly, the interpretation of historic events) and of archaeology (or, again, the interpretation of archaeological finds) to support messages or agendas of contemporary political or sociological groups. (The abuse of archaeology during the Third Reich is one of the reasons why German archaeology is still more leery to venture forth with interpretations, and prefers just stating the number of axes and spindle-whorls found instead, by the way.) 

Which means that I tend to get suspicious when we suddenly find Woman Generals!!1!! Gender Fluitidy in prehistoric societies!!1!! or similar things today, when gender fluitidy and gender equality are big topics. Don't get me wrong, I would like it very much if women today were finally given equal standing with all others (especially men); if nobody were attacked or disadvantaged due to their sexual orientation; if nobody cared who is wearing the dress and who is painting their nails. I also think that we may have an image of gender equality or inequality that in some cases does not match the historical reality - otherwise it would have been quite weird that some medieval wives took over the craft workshop after their husband's death in the role of master. 

However, I am also of the opinion that even if non-binary people are fully accepted and fully integrated, we will still have the heterosexual couple as the norm. Because of, you know, biology. Again, that does not mean I think that there were only two genders, or that only two genders were accepted by the group/society - but that the heterosexual orientation would have been that of the majority of humans.

So I'm kind of feeling validated that a recent study has found that gendered burial practices in two large Bronze Age burial sites do align very well with sex identification - and the latter was based on a new method of searching for sex-specific peptides in the teeth. This newer method does not rely on the good preservation of the skeleton and it having good indicators, so it's a really good possibility to double-check previous interpretation. And in the case of the two Austrian cemeteries that were analysed in the paper, there was an almost complete match between sex and gendered burial style, with a few mixed-message burials (but none clearly contrary in gendered burial and sex of the skeleton). You can read the full article here.