Gender and Material Culture in

Archaeological Perspective
Studies in Gender and Material Culture
This series, edited by Moira Donald and Linda Hurcombe of the University of
Exeter, is a pioneering project consisting of three books which focus on different
aspects of the relationship between gender and material culture from prehistory to
the present. Incorporating the work of archaeologists, classicists, art historians and
social historians, these volumes form a unique interdisciplinary collection written
by leading scholars in the field from many countries. This project stems from an
exciting interdisciplinary conference on Gender and Material Culture which was the
first of a series of regular gender and history conferences organized by the
University of Exeter.

GENDER AND MATERIAL CULTURE IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

GENDER AND MATERIAL CULTURE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
REPRESENTATIONS OF GENDER FROM PREHISTORY TO THE PRESENT

Studies in Gender and Material Culture

Standing Order ISBN 978-0-333-64322-8 (three-volume set)
(outside North America only)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order.
Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with
your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above.
Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Gender and Material
Culture in Archaeological
Perspective
Edited by
Moira Donald
Senior Lecturer in History
University of Exeter
and
Linda Hurcombe
Lecturer in Prehistory
University of Exeter
*
Selection and editorial matter © Moira Donald and Linda Hurcombe 2000
Introduction and Chapter 6 © Linda Hurcombe 2000
Chapters 1-5, 7-16 ©Macmillan Press Ltd 2000
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-312-22399-1

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of

this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or
transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988,
or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court
Road, London W1T 4LP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.

The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of

this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
Companies and representatives throughout the world
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd
Macmillan® is a reistered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom
and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.

Outside North America

ISBN 978-0-333-64332-7

In North America
ISBN 978-0-312-22398-4
ISBN 978-1-349-62336-5 ISBN 978-1-349-62334-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-62334-1

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and

made from fully managed and sustained forest sources.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-39504

Transferred to Digital Printing 20 I 0.

Contents

List of Figures and Tables vii

Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
Notes on the Contributors xii
Introduction xix
Linda Hurcombe

Part I Questioning Perspectives

1 The Material Culture of the Homosexual Male: A Case for
Archaeological Exploration 3
Keith Matthews
2 Sisters are Doing it for Themselves? Gender, Feminism and
Australian (Aboriginal) Archaeology 20
Sarah Colley
3 A Sexist Present, a Human-less Past: Museum Archaeology
in Greece 33
Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou
4 Gender: Enabling Perspective or Politically Correct Term?
An Analysis of how Gender and Material Culture are Viewed
by 1990s' Academia 56
Mary Baker

Part II Social Contexts for Crafts, Technology and

Production
S Gender and Craft Innovation: Proposal of a Model 71
Louise M. Senior
6 Time, Skill and Craft Specialization as Gender Relations 88
Linda Hurcombe
7 Time, Gender and Production: A Critical Evaluation of
Archaeological Time Concepts 110
Charlotte Brysting Damm
8 Who Lights the Fire? Gender and the Energy of Production 123
Jenny Moore
v
vi Contents

Part III Artefacts and Their Social Settings

9 Long Handled Weaving Combs: Problems in Determining
the Gender of Tool-maker and Tool-user 13 7
Tina Tuohy
10 The Use of Space in a Gender Study of Two South African
Stone Age Sites 153
Lynn Wadley
11 Gender, Material Culture, Ritual and Gender System:
A Prehistoric Example Based on Sickles 169
Catherine fohnsson, Karolina Ross and Stig Welinder
12 Lithic Functional Analysis as a Means of Studying Gender
and Material Culture in Prehistory 185
Linda R. Owen

Part IV Diet, Bodies and Burials

13 Fat is a Feminist Issue: On Ideology, Diet and Health in
Hunter-Gatherer Societies 209
Marek Zvelebil
14 The Anthropology and Archaeology of Mesolithic Gender in
the Western Baltic 222
Chris Meiklejohn, Erik Brinch Petersen and Vemer Alexandersen
15 The Gendering of Children in the Early Bronze Age Cemetery
at Mokrin 238
Elizabeth Rega
16 Classic Maya Diet and Gender Relationships 250
John Gerry and Meredith S. Chesson
Index 265
List of Figures and Tables

Figures
9.1 Long Handled weaving combs, showing specialized
decoration 138
9.2 Amateur decoration and delicate designs 139
9.3 Pairs of combs 140
9.4 Plan of the burial at Viables Farm 148
9.5 Combs and a necklace from Glastonbury 150
10.1 Rose Cottage Cave, level Mn 159
10.2 Rose Cottage Cave, level A 160
10.3 Jubilee Shelter 163
11.1 Sickles from the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age 170
11.2 Women harvesting the crop using sickles during the
Bronze Age 171
11.3 Bronze Age rock carvings 179
11.4 Wall painting of biblical scene, Middle Sweden 180
12.1 Microscopic use-wear traces on an experimental
lithic tool 186
12.2 Lithic artefacts from Petersfels 198
12.3 Organic artefacts from Petersfels: 1 199
12.4 Organic artefacts from Petersfels: 2 200
12.5 Diverse artefacts from Petersfels 201
13.1 Organization of hunter-gatherer societies 212
14.1 A double grave from G0ngehusvej 7 224
15.1 A female grave from Mokrin 240
15.2 A male grave from Mokrin 241
15.3 A child's grave from Mokrin 241
15.4 Discriminant function histogram for mandibular first and
second incisors and canine 244
15.5 Mokrin grave goods, by sex and gender 246
16.1 Map of eastern Mesoamerica 252
16.2 Scatterplot comparing the isotopic composition of animal
and human populations 254
16.3 Boxplots illustrating overlap of male and female isotope
ratios, Classic period 255
16.4 Scatter plot showing isotopic separation of regional groups 257

vii
viii List of Figures and Tables

Tables
6.1 Gender associations of tasks 90
6.2 Iron-working: time and skill required 93
6.3 Making a polished stone axe: time and skill required 94
6.4 Pottery production: time and skill required 96
6.5 Basketry/textile production: time and skill required 98
6.6 Categories of time and specialist skills 100
11.1 The numbers of graves with bronze or stone tools during
the late Bronze Age 172
11.2 The number of occurrences of sickles together with other
objects in Early Bronze Age graves 174
11.3 The number of female graves with metal objects at the
Ule burial ground in relation to the age of the cremated
women 178
12.1 Use-wear analyses of lithic artefacts from the European
Palaeolithic, 1980-5 187
12.2 Worked material determination on lithic artefacts from
Magdalenian sites of Europe, 1985-7 194
12.3 Ethnographical and ethnohistorical uses of plants
discovered in the Late Glacial of Southwestern Germany 196
14.1 Stable isotope (13 C) and radiocarbon (1 4 C) data for
Bogebakken 233
15.1 Sex assignment for juveniles, by discriminant analysis of
dental metrics 243
16.1 Contingency table, distribution of male and female sample
skeletons in each status cluster 253
16.2 Average isotopic values for males and females, Classic
period 256
16.3 Two-way ANOV A statistics demonstrating the significance
of sex and regional location in dietary variability 256
Preface

This volume is one of a series originating from an international conference

held at the University of Exeter in July 1994. The idea for the conference
and the volumes developed out of discussions between a modern historian
and an archaeologist about their work which, despite being separated by
thousands of years chronologically, was thematically linked. Moira Donald
was teaching a course on the material culture of the home and had just
embarked on a research project on households in nineteenth-century
Exeter. 1 Linda Hurcombe was teaching a course on material culture in pre-
history and was examining the problem of engendering the archaeological
past from human evolution onwards. 2 Our discussions led to the organiza-
tion of a multi-disciplinary conference, Gender and Material Culture from
Prehistory to the Present. This conference attracted speakers from around the
world and has culminated in the publication of the present series of which
this volume forms a part. The other volumes are entitled Gender and
Material Culture in Historical Perspective and Representations of Gender from
Prehistory to the Present.
Gender studies has emerged as a significant and exciting new field, but
individual researchers can sometimes feel isolated within their discipline or
their academic department. With the conference and these volumes it was
our aim to open up debate to a wide audience in a variety of fields. The
series will, we hope, be accessible to students and academics alike and
will encourage the breaking down of traditional discipline boundaries,
incorporating work from archaeologists, classicists, historians and art histo-
rians. The key objectives of the three-volume series are to bring a gendered
approach to interpretations of material culture and to place material
culture at the centre of the study of the past, irrespective of period.
We are grateful to all the participants in the Gender and Material Culture
Conference, especially Barbara Bender, our keynote speaker, who also wrote
the introduction to the volume Representations of Gender from Prehistory to
the Present. Our thanks go also to our past and present colleagues of the
University of Exeter who gave papers: Sandra Cavallo, Julia Crick, Tia
DeNora, Anne Duffin, Helen Sims, Karen Stears, Tina Tuohy and John
Wilkins. Many other colleagues from Archaeology and History at Exeter
participated in other ways and they also deserve our thanks, particularly

1. Di Cooper and Moira Donald (1995) 'Households and "Hidden" Kin in Early
Nineteenth-century England: Four Case Studies in Suburban Exeter, 1821-61',
Continuity and Change, 10 (2), pp. 257-77.
2· Linda Hurcombe (1995) 'Our Own Engendered Species', Antiquity, 69, pp. 87-100.
ix
x Preface

John Critchley, who as Head of Department at that time facilitated our

administrative efforts. The University of Exeter gave us a grant towards the
initial organization of the conference and towards some of the editorial
work on the volumes. The technicians in the Archaeology drawing office all
contributed in various ways during the preparation of the conference and
at the event itself. Sue Rouillard was responsible for much of the artwork
and some of the images on the conference material. Sean Goddard took the
photographs which were used in the poster and jacket design under Sue's
direction. Sue also oversaw the complex business of illustrations and figures
for all three volumes, for which we give our warm thanks. Sean Hawken,
Cathy Pink and Jim Williams aided Linda Hurcombe in the final stages of
the archaeology volume. Aruna Vasudevan and Keith Pavey for Macmillan
succeeded in keeping the three-volume series on track. Our thanks go
above all to Di Cooper, co-researcher with Moira Donald on the Exeter
households projects. Di was the lynch pin of the conference administration
and contributed a great deal of the spadework on the editing of the
volumes and correspondence with the contributors. Her role was invaluable
in the successful completion of this project. Finally, thanks are also
deserved by our patient contributors and those close to us who have lived
with this project for some time.

MOIRA DONALD
LINDA HURCOMBE
Acknowledgements

All illustrations are the copyright of chapter authors, unless stated

otherwise.
We are also grateful to the Dalarnas Museum, Falun, for permission to
reproduce the photograph of the Swedish wall painting, DM10874 as
Figure 11.4. The drawing produced as Figure 11.2 is from an original by
Flemming Bau, used as the frontispiece in Lademanns Danmarkshistorie,
Bronzealderen 1 (1979) (Copenhagen: Forlaget Sesam). Alfred Pawlik is
responsible for the microwear photograph reproduced as Figure 12.1, and
the photographs used in Figures 12.3-12.5 are taken from E. Peters, Die
Altsteinzeitliche, Kulturstiitte Petersfels (Augsburg, 1930).

xi
Notes on the Contributors

Verner Alexandersen is a lecturer at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of

Copenhagen, Panum Institute, and is also in Private Clinical Practice. His
teaching areas are Dental Morphology and Dental Anthropology. He was
educated in Dentistry at the Royal Dental School, Copenhagen (DDS) and in
Human Genetics at the University of Wisconsin (MA). His current research
interests are the dental aspects of human evolution and especially of north-
ern Europe. His publications include 'The Pathology of the Jaws and the
Temperomandibular Joint', in D. Brothwell and A. Sandison (eds), Diseases in
Antiquity (1967); 'Description of the Human Dentitions from the Late
Mesolithic Grave-fields at Skateholm, Southern Sweden', in Lars Larsson
(ed.), The Skateholm Project. I. Man and Environment (1988) and 'The late
Mesolithic Dentition in Southern Scandinavia', Rivista di Antropologia (1988).

Mary Baker lectured in gender archaeology and in women's studies at

Lampeter, University of Wales and completed her MPhil on gender issues at
Lampeter. She is now researching her PhD on philosophical gender theory
at Southampton University. She has published articles on the invisibility of
women and children and Italian gender theory and feminist post-
structuralist engagements with history and is currently researching and
teaching at Southampton University.

Charlotte Brysting Damm obtained her MAin 1985 from the University
of Aarhus, and her PhD in 1991 from University of Cambridge. Her
research covers Stone Age in Northern Europe, gender, time, archaeology
and indigenous groups. Recent publications have included time in
archaeology, theoretical perspectives on prehistoric rituals and the Stone
Age in Northern Norway. She is currently a lecturer at the Institute of
Archaeology, University of Troms0 in Northern Norway.

Meredith S. Chesson is a postdoctoral tutor in archaeology in the

Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. Her field research in
Jordan focuses on the social, economic, and political dimensions of life
within early urban households in the third millennium southern Levant.
Her current research involves the analysis of mortuary practices from early
urban communities, in conjunction with non-residential and residential
data, to examine issues of social differentiation, kinship and identity in
these communities, and the exploration of possibilities for an explicitly
feminist approach to field research, analysis, and conceptualization of the
archaeological past.
xii
 Notes on the Contributors xiii

Sarah Colley completed her BA and PhD in archaeology at Southampton

University. She worked as an archaeozoologist in the Faunal Remains Unit
at Southampton University and then as a Research Scientist in archaeologi-
cal computing at the IBM UK Scientific Centre, Winchester. From 1986-90
she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Prehistory,
Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University,
Canberra. She is currently employed as a Lecturer in the School of
Archaeology, University of Sydney where she teaches Australian archae-
ology and cultural heritage management.

Moira Donald is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Exeter. She

has published on various subjects, including women in the Russian
Revolution, kin in nineteenth-century Exeter, the home as workplace, and
the European socialist movement. As well as co-editing with Linda
Hurcombe this three-volume series on Gender and Material Culture, she is
the author of Marxism and Revolution: Karl Kautsky and the Russian Marxists
1900-1924 (1993) and the co-editor with Tim Rees of Reinterpreting
Revolution in Twentieth-Century Europe (2000). She is writing a history of the
Second International and developing a research project on nineteeth-
century households.

John Gerry is a lecturer in anthropology and an Academic Dean

at Harvard University. He is also the Laboratory Coordinator for the
Archaeological Materials Research Facility in the Peabody Museum. His
areas of interest include Mesoamerican archaeology and human osteology,
and he has recently published in the journal Geoarchaeology and in Bones of
the Maya, a Smithsonian Institute volume.

Linda Hurcombe is Lecturer in Prehistory at Exeter University.

Publications include a book on obsidian usewear analysis and numerous
articles on palaeolithic stone tools from Pakistan, issues of artefact func-
tion and gender (including an article on the gender bias of archaeology in
Antiquity, 1995). She is the co-editor of this volume and of two others
Gender and Material Culture in Historical Perspective and Representations of
Gender from Prehistory to the Present.

Catherine Johnsson received her MA degree from the Department of

Archaeology, University of Uppsala, Sweden. In her MA thesis she special-
ized in Bronze Age rock-carvings with agricultural motifs.

Dimitra Kokkinidou graduated in archaeology and art history at the

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece (1984), and received her MPhil
(1986) and PhD (1989) in the Neolithic and Bronze Age of northern Greece
at the University of Birmingham, UK. She has published on Greek pre-
xiv Notes on the Contributors

history and on social aspects of archaeology, and is a co-author of

Archaeology and Gender: Approaches to Aegean Prehistory (1993) (in Greek). Her
research interests include gender interpretations of material culture, ideo-
logical uses of the past, socio-historic approaches to archaeology and edu-
cational implications of cultural heritage. She teaches in the Department of
Greek Studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Keith Matthews graduated from Lancaster University in 1980 with a

degree in archaeology. He has worked continuously as a field archaeologist
since 1985 and has been with Chester City Council since 1990, where he is
Senior Archaeologist. He is also undertaking research for a PhD in the
archaeology of subcultures, of which the archaeology of male homosexual-
ity is a major component.

Christopher Meiklejohn is full Professor in the Department of

Anthropology, University of Winnipeg (Canada), where he has been since
1970, and is also Adjunct Professor at the University of Manitoba. His
teaching areas are Physical Anthropology and Old World Prehistory. His
current research interests are centred in the study of human skeletal mater-
ial in archaeological contexts, and in particular the dynamics of the periods
before and after the agricultural transition in Europe and the Middle East.
His publications include 'Socioeconomic Change and Patterns of Pathology
and Variation in the Mesolithic and Neolithic of Western Europe: Some
suggestions' (with C. T. Schentag, A. Venema and P. Key) in M. Cohen and
G. Armelagos (eds), Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture (1984);
'Health Status of European Populations at the Agricultural Transition and
Implications for the Adoption of Farming' (with Marek Zvelebil), in
H. Bush and M. Zvelebil (eds), Health in Past Societies (1991); and 'Issues in
the Archaeological Demography of the Agricultural Transition in Western
and Northern Europe: A view from the Mesolithic' (with J. M. Wyman,
K. Jacobs and M. K. Jackes), in R. Paine (ed.), Problems in Archaeological
Demography (1997).

jenny Moore developed a career in law then studied archaeology

at Manchester and has completed a PhD in the Archaeology and
Archaeological Science Research School at the University of Sheffield. She
has published extensively on anthropogenic use of fire and is co-editor of
Invisible People and Processes: Writing Gender and Childhood into European
Archaeology. She is currently employed as Editor for the Institute of Field
Archaeologists.

Marianna Nikolaidou studied archaeology, anthropology and art history

at the Universities of Thessaloniki, Greece and Cambridge, England. She
 Notes on the Contributors xv

received her PhD from the Department of Archaeology, University of

Thessaloniki, with a specialization in Minoan religious symbolism and has
conducted fieldwork at Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age sites in Northern
Greece and Crete. She is currently a research associate at the Institute of
Archaeology, University of California Los Angeles where she is participating
in the publication of the Neolithic/Early Bronze Age site of Sitagroi,
Northeast Greece. Other ongoing projects include the publication of
Neolithic pottery from Mandalon, Northwest Greece, and of Bronze
Age sealstones from the Minoan island of Pseira, Crete. Research interests
include craftwork, ceramics, symbolism and iconography, gender and
social issues in the Neolithic and Bronze Age Aegean. Among other publica-
tions, she co-authored with Dimitra Kokkinidou the book Archaeology and
Gender: Approaches to Aegean Prehistory (1993, in Greek).

Linda R. Owen has a BA in anthropology from the State University of New

York at Buffalo and a MA and Doctorate in Prehistory, Ethnology and
Linguistics from the University of Til bingen, Germany. She has been a part-
time lecturer at the Institute fiir Ur- und Friihgeschichte und Archaologie
des Mittelalters, University of Til bingen since 1982 and lectured on gender
roles in prehistory at the University of Vienna in Winter 1997. Her teach-
ing, research and publications focus on the prehistory of Central Europe
and North America, gender roles in prehistory, lithic technology and
usewear analysis. In 1997 she co-organized an international conference on
Ethno-Analogy and the Reconstmction of Prehistoric Artefact Use and Production
at the University of Tiibingen and is presently working on an edited
volume of papers from the conference. She has also compiled an
English-German, German-English Dictionary of Prehistory and worked on
German-French and English-French volumes.

Erik Brinch Petersen is Professor in the Institute for Archaeology and

Ethnology, University of Copenhagen, where he has been since 1968. His
teaching areas are European Palaeolithic and Mesolithic and Field Methods.
He was educated in archaeology at the Universities of Copenhagen and
Bordeaux, (becoming a Magister in European Prehistory in 1968). His current
research interests are hunter-gatherers, dealing primarily with the Late
Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic of Northern Europe, and the Palaeoinuit cul-
tures of Greenland. His publications include 'A Survey of the Late Palaeolithic
and the Mesolithic of Denmark', in S. K. Kozlowski (ed.), The Mesolithic in
Europe (1973); 'Excavation of a Mesolithic Cemetery at Vedbaek, Denmark',
Acta Archaeologica (with S. E. Albrethsen) (1977); and 'The later Mesolithic
Population of Sjoelland, Denmark, and the Neolithic Transition' (with
C. Meiklejohn and V. Alexandersen), in M. Zvelebil, R. Dennell and
L. Domansk (eds), The Origins of Farming in the Baltic Zone (1997).
xvi Notes on the Contributors

Elizabeth Rega received her PhD (1995) from the University of Chicago,
and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology, W. M. Keck Science
Center, The Claremont Colleges. Research interests include interaction of
biological factors with cultural phenomena in Central Europe and Medieval
England, as well as anatomical correlates and variation of thumb move-
ment in humans and non-human primates.

Karolina Ross received her MA degree from the Department of

Archaeology, University of Uppsala, Sweden. Her MA thesis examined
Bronze Age gender roles using the Bronze Age rock-carvings.

Louise M. Senior received her PhD titled 'Time as "Money": Ceramic

Production Labor Estimates as Indices of Economic Transformation and
State Formation at Tell Leilan, Syria', from the University of Arizona in
1998. It is available from University of Michigan Microfilms, and a revised
version from Yale University Press in the Yale Tell Leilan Series. Her
primary research is in ceramic craft specialization with emphasis on the
interplay of technological change and early state development in Northern
Mesopotamia during the third millennium BC, but she has also worked
extensively in the puebloan Southwest USA. Some recent publications
include: co-authored articles in American Antiquity and Science; 'The
Estimation of Prehistoric Values', in Expanding Archaeology (University
of Utah Press, 1995); and 'Leilan "Sila" Bowls and the Akkadian
Reorganization of Subarian Agricultural Production' (with Harvey Weiss)
(1992). Louise is continuing her research on materials and pursuing her
interests in gender issues. She is currently teaching at Pima Community
College and working with Native American groups for the environmental
consulting company, SWCA Inc., in Tucson, Arizona.

Tina Tuohy studied Fine Arts at the City and Guilds School of Art and
Central School of Art, London. Later she also studied textiles; weaving, spin-
ning and dyeing at Hammersmith School of Art. Thereafter she worked as a
craft consultant for Dryad Handicrafts' showroom in London, left to get
married and raise a family after which returned to higher education at the
University of Exeter and acquired her BA and PhD in Archaeology of
Prehistoric Combs of Antler and Bone. At present, she is a lecturer in
Archaeology for the Department of Continuing Adult Education at the
University of Exeter. Research interests include communities and crafts in the
first millennium BC with particular emphasis on antler working and textiles.

Lyn Wadley is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of the

Witwatersrand, South Africa. She obtained her MA in archaeology from the
University of Cape Town in 1976 and her PhD from the University of the
Witwatersrand in 1986. Her research interests are the Later and Middle
 Notes on the Contributors xvii

Stone Age of southern Africa and, particularly, the social organization of

people associated with these technological phases. She has conducted
excavations in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa and is currently
involved in a study of several Stone Age cave sites in the eastern Free State.
The largest of these sites, Rose Cottage Cave, has a deposit depth of more
than 6m and its earliest occupation is probably older than 100 000 years.
Lyn Wadley is the author of a book on the Later Stone Age people of the
Magaliesberg, editor of a book on southern African gender studies, and has
published many papers in academic journals.

Stig Welinder is Professor in Nordic Archaeology. He has a part-time

position as lecturer at the Department of Humanities at Mid Sweden
University, 6stersund, Sweden, and a part-time position as professor at the
Department of Archaeology, Troms0 University, Norway. His current
research interests are landscape archaeology and the archaeology of house-
holds, gender and children.

Marek Zvelebil was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1952. After gra-

duating from the University of Sheffield in 1974, he received his PhD at
Cambridge in archaeology in 1981. He is currently Professor in
Archaeology at Sheffield University. He has also taught at the University of
South Carolina (1980-1), Boston University (1987) and the University of
California at Berkeley (1997). Dr. Zvelebil's main research interests include
hunter-gatherer societies (past and present), European prehistory, the
origins of agriculture and landscape archaeology. He has done fieldwork in
Finland, Ireland, and Czechoslovakia. Among his publications are From
Forager to Farmer in the Boreal Zone (1981), Hunters in Transition (ed. 1986),
Health in Past Societies (ed. with H. Bush, 1991), Harvesting the Sea, Farming
the Forest (ed. with R. Dennen and L. Domanska, 1997) and Ideology and
Social Structure in Stone Age Europe (ed. with A. van Gijn, 1997).
Introduction
Linda Hurcombe

Archaeology has a rich tradition of material culture studies. There have

been artefact typologies and seriation to define time periods and sequences;
analyses to discover origins, dates and technologies; collections of
fine ceramics or metalwork to grace individual or public display cases;
explorations of invention, innovation and the processes of transmission;
interpretations of social relations, exchange systems and symbolism; inves-
tigations of colonialism, ethnicity and boundaries. In addition to this long
list there are critiques of all these approaches! This volume continues this
exploration by considering a neglected aspect. How will gender be seen
within, and affect changes to, the study of material culture?
There are key aspects of archaeological study which are based on mater-
ial culture: artefacts, technology and grave goods. In a gendered study,
artefacts, burials and artistic representations are obvious evidence cate-
gories. Anthropomorphic art images and gendered designs are covered in
Representations of Gender from Prehistory to the Present in this series. Other
evidence categories form the content of this volume, which contains sec-
tions on social contexts for crafts, technology and production covering
innovations, skill, time and the energy of production (Part II); artefacts
and their social settings exploring the relationships between user and pro-
ducer, usage and space, use and significance, and finally use and our own
study bias (Part Ill); Part IV covers diet, bodies and burials. In archaeologi-
cal research, these latter topics are linked by the source of information -
the skeletal remains. These may give a biological sex, and evidence for
health and diet, together with artefacts or features associated with the
body.
Biological sex is the starting point for the discussion of gender but the
latter is a social construct. Notions of binary opposites do not cover all the
biological sex variations, let alone different genders. The increasingly
sophisticated treatment of the subject has moved from trying to see
'women' in the archaeological past, through to the realization that there are
multiple genders. This has been achieved via critiques and deconstructions.
xix
xx Introduction

Gender issues in archaeology have revealed bias in the workplace and

raised profound criticisms of the methodologies of the subject. Gender can
be constructed and reconstructed from the material culture remains and is
a determining category. Feminism is affecting the discipline of archae-
ology by arguing for alternative views to be heard and accepted; pluralist
views are being encouraged. For this reason Part I covers alternative per-
spectives, starting with Keith Matthews' Chapter 1 exploring the material
culture of the homosexual male. Much of his discussion centres on classi-
cal and historical information, enlightened by an analysis of some of the
needs and behaviour styles of this gender group. The recognition of gay
material culture in the archaeological record is problematic because
according to Matthews, many subtle features act as signifiers. He suggests
that body adornment, sex toys and homoerotic art might all prove
recognizable elements of a 'sub-culture' connected with this gender. This
chapter reveals what may be missed if alternative views are not heard. It
raises the levels of conscious criticism. That is true of all four chapters in
Part I.
Colonialist and ethnic bias is addressed in Sarah Colley's Chapter 2. She
advocates considering the effects of gender, race and class rather than iso-
lating gender in archaeological research. The interpretations of aboriginal
material culture made by white feminists may be no more valid than those
they seek to replace and to take gender out of its linked cultural contexts is
meaningless. Australian society is increasingly opening up to aboriginal
views and hence the conflicting issues arising from a personal identification
with cultural heritage and archaeological constructs of that past are
challenging the validity of interpretations. In this sense, Colley raises issues
which challenge contemporary political views. Mary Baker in Chapter 4
also questions political views in the sense of politically correct ones. As
society becomes more consciously critical of itself so the very term
'politically correct' becomes the devalued and derided 'pc' acronym.
Furthermore, some of the revisionist research papers are themselves ques-
tionable. Baker takes as a case study an article drawn from one of the key
books on archaeological gender issues (Handsman, in Gero and Conkey's
Engendering Archaeology volume, 1991) deconstructing its own gendered
assumptions.
Material culture can be a political issue because of the way it is collected
or presented by museums. Kokkinidou and Nikolaidou in Chapter 3 take a
fresh look at Greek museum displays to show that the categories of arte-
facts displayed assume prior knowledge and confirm accepted cultural
values. The focus on art-historical collections and impressive discoveries
limits discussion to the experts who have been inculcated with a particular
view. Where women are seen, they pass as objects d'art and gender is not
commented upon or raised as an interpretative issue. In fact, Minoan and
 Linda Hurcombe xxi

Myceneaen figures contain interesting images of gendered people which

are discussed in Representations of Gender from Prehistory to the Present.
All the chapters in Part II on crafts, technology and production are con-
cerned with the gendering of the social contexts of production. Louise
Senior in Chapter 5 takes innovation as her theme, creating a model from a
case study of pottery production. Where the gender of the producer
switches, either the person conforms to the gender associated with the
activity or the product is transformed. With this simple but profound
observation a number of the key phenomena of change in archaeological
craft products can be re-examined and interpreted with fresh ideas. Time
and skill are linked in my own Chapter 6 to analyze some of the compo-
nents that denote a craft specialist. Novel categories of social time and spe-
cialist skills are put forward by comparing four craft spheres. It is argued
that women are strongly linked to plant crafts and that these have been
seriously undervalued as specialist activities in the past.
Time, and the values and attitudes towards it, are shown to be gendered.
Charlotte Brysting Damm's Chapter 7 explores concepts of time and then
uses a case study based on pottery production to show different categories
of attitudes towards time and how these pervade archaeological studies of
production. Archaeologists have valued increased production and increased
efficiency of production in much the same way as our current society sees
'time as money' - a resource. Yet there is no reason why other societies
need conceptualize time in this way. Skill or artistry may be the more
valued aspect of a craft product. In many ways Jenny Moore's Chapter 8 is
also about attitudes and perception. The energy of production has most
often been seen archaeologically as the development of high-temperature
processes. In contrast, this chapter examines different categories of fire and
their gender associations. Smelting and metal working are usually associ-
ated with men but Moore investigates uncritical attitudes towards anthro-
pological data. Her chapter points out that in some case studies women are
excluded from the smelting process, yet the smelt is conducted within a
clay structure with breasts and the whole process is seen as analogous to
giving birth. Ideologically there is a female influence and presence, and for
this very reason, the physical presence of fertile women is not permitted.
This shows that a bald statement denying the involvement of women in
this process is obscuring the complexity of the issues and the gender rela-
tions revealed by the evidence. Furthermore, pyrotechnology allows
cooking, pottery production, steam bending and many other aspects of
the production of material culture items. The categories of fire and the
gender(s) responsible for them may lead to other ways of gendering the
archaeological evidence for the energy of production.
The gender of the tool user is a common theme linking all four chapters
in Part III, despite the fact that 'use' is a neglected aspect of artefact studies.
Tina Tuohy in Chapter 9 questions the function of one artefact type -
xxii Introduction

long-handled bone and antler combs, and the gender of the user and
maker. These combs were associated with weaving tasks. Previous inter-
pretations of these artefacts were influenced by the report from the Iron
Age site of Glastonbury where excavations date back to the last century.
This re-examination questions the gendered assumptions of the excavator
and yet the author is also aware of her own assumptions when she
attempts to gender manufacture, decoration and use leading to a different
interpretation of the evidence. Lynn Wadley focuses Chapter 10 on the
evidence for male and female tasks as spatial distributions of objects and
activities in South African sites. She recognizes the organization of space as
a gendered construct and uses ethnographic data to support concepts of
gendered tasks and spaces. Catherine Johnsson, Karolina Ross and Stig
Welinder in Chapter 11 again take one artefact, sickles, but look at the
contexts in which they occur archaeologically (e.g. burials and art) and the
contemporary assumptions of the gender of the user. The two do not
match. Furthermore, the significance of the artefact as a symbol for the
harvest or fertility is examined by them. In particular, they pose one simple
question, who used the sickles? This is such a straightforward question but
it has no simple answer. The role of artefacts in society is complex and
multiple meanings can be signalled by one artefact.
Whilst Linda Owen's Chapter 12 is also about use and social context, the
focus shifts to how archaeologists have been biased in the formation of
experimental evidence to determine the use of tools. They have neglected
plants. Yet they are not alone in this. The ethnographic sources are investi-
gated to show that plants fulfilled many uses but that due to the bias of the
ethnographers, who were chiefly males, the accounts do not record the
evidence for these activities in the same detail as they do some of the tasks
more often performed by men. Thus the gender-biased enthnographic
evidence still influences the current experiments on use, and continues to
affect the recognition of plant-processing activities which are frequent,
important, and mainly associated with women.
Part IV on diet, bodies and burials draws together a range of studies based
on evidence from archaeological human remains. Food and diet were delib-
erately included within our wide definition of 'material culture' because
they can be defined as material culture. In historical periods, cooking and a
sense of cuisine can be studied as aspects of material behaviour. In contrast,
prehistoric periods have tended to place food and diet under the term 'sub-
sistence', implying that all that was obtained was eaten, and giving a sense
of little choice, no surplus and no cultural influences. It has been appreci-
ated that styles of pottery and other vessels may signify changes in how
food was prepared or consumed but this has been more of a feature for the
later prehistoric periods (see Wilkins' Chapter 8 in Representations of Gender
from Prehistory to the Present). Marek Zvelebil's Chapter 13 focuses on
hunter-gatherer societies where notions of equal access to food sharing
 Linda Hurcombe xxiii

have usually been assumed. He uses ethnographic evidence and bone trace
element data to investigate whether differential access to particular kinds of
food occurred according to gender divisions. He provides a new interpreta-
tion of the phrase 'fat is a feminist issue' because access to the fat rich parts
of a carcass may be governed by food taboos or by the hunting party
'snacking' at the kill site. In this way food and access to some edible
resources are shown to be open to control of access and governable by
social rules as much as any of the raw materials and products more gener-
ally considered under the term 'material culture'. His concern is that such
unequal access to particular kinds of food could lead particular genders to
favour the adoption of farming.
Chris Meiklejohn, Erik Brinch Petersen and Verner Alexandersen have
studied Mesolithic burials and follow up the issues of diet and health in
Chapter 14, while adding the dimensions of artefactual evidence found in
the graves and the modes of treatment of the dead. They investigate gender
by looking for the associations of objects in the graves with a particular sex.
The grave goods are simple natural objects plus a few tools, and items could
be incorporated into the burial because they were part of the clothing or
carried about the body. The evidence is complicated by the need to allow
for errors inherent in the skeletal analysis of sex. The patterns are further
complicated by the use of one material such as ochre in different areas of
the body according to the categories of female, male and child, whereas
some objects such as antlers seem to relate to age rather than gender. In
addition, the artefact types may be distinctive of burial contexts since some
lithic types from graves are not found as part of the settlement evidence
and children have some of the richer graves yet richness is usually a
measure of status. The wear on teeth does suggest gender differences but
these could be due to activities where teeth are used to hold or chew some-
thing rather than being due to a dietary difference. Stable isotope data does
not show a significant gender difference.
John Gerry and Meredith Chesson in Chapter 16 continue to explore the
role of food using stable isotope data as a means of investigating equal
access to nutritional needs. They weave their results with other data from
ethnography, ethnohistory and grave goods, images and texts. In classic
Mayan society it has been thought that there was an unequal status
between genders; Gerry and Chesson's analysis of a variety of dietary
indicators and grave goods demonstrated that this need not be the case.
Women had status and were valued as weavers; they do not show poor
nutrition in comparison to men.
The conflicting evidence of biological sex indicated by skeletal morphol-
ogy and the social 'sex' signified by dress codes or objects is most often
located in archaeological burials. Establishing the biological sex rests on
skeletal indicators which have their own margin of error. Hence, there is a
tendency to assume that where the skeletal and artefactual indicators differ
xxiv Introduction

the 'wrong' sex is the biological one and is part of the error inherent in the
method. This creates a problem because the biological sex could be accurate
and the differing artefactual construction of 'sex' should instead be seen as
a potential source of gender information. Beth Rega's Chapter 15 also notes
the limitations imposed by skeletal sexing and ageing techniques. Her
chapter deals with the gender of children. Two issues emerge: children
might have their own gender categories rather than being part of any adult
system and the sexing of skeletons is problematic because it is commonly
based on skeletal changes which develop after puberty. Hence, children
often remain unsexed in skeletal reports. Rega's study raises the important
issue of when a child takes on the gender associations of an adult, but it is
Meiklejohn et al. who point out that age categories defined by skeletal
features may not be those recognized by the ancient society. The limits
of the methods of sexing and ageing skeletons could obscure or blur the
existence of gender categories.
Taken together, the debates opened up on gender in the past by the
chapters in this volume are leading to other voices being heard and expos-
ing the subjective flaws in the interpretation of material culture. There is
bias in the collection of evidence and in the interpretation of data; new
questions require relevant studies which are only just beginning; plant
working and organic material culture has been undervalued; the symbolism
of one artefact can be complex; scientific techniques can address social
gender; the values and attitudes of the contemporary society colour the
concepts and discussions. Many of the chapters critique previous assump-
tions and offer alternative interpretations. It is possible to see new ways of
interpreting familiar data and novel information that can address old ques-
tions. The chapters in this volume show the many ways in which gender
may be explored through material culture in archaeology.

Reference
Handsman, R. (1991) 'Whose Art was Found at Lepenski Vir? Gender relations and
power in archeology', in J. Gero and M. W. Conkey, Engendering Archaeology:
Women and prehistory (Oxford), pp. 329-65.
Part I
Questioning Perspectives
1
The Material Culture of the
Homosexual Male: A Case for
Archaeological Exploration*
Keith Matthews

There are common themes in the material cultures of gay men from widely
differing cultural traditions. These theoretical models can be compared
with archaeological evidence in an attempt to use it to identify gay men
and their material culture in the past. This chapter raises questions about
how sexuality, as opposed to gender identity, is interpreted and reinforced
through material culture; how the sexual identities of dead populations
may be reflected in their material culture; how hostile documentary evid-
ence can be used to penetrate the workings of an oppressed subculture;
how material culture can be used as a means of subversion of the norms of
mainstream culture; and how archaeologists', anthropologists' and histori-
ans' preconceptions colour their approaches to past social behaviour. These
issues are broadly similar to those discussed in other social sciences as a
result of the development of post-modern philosophical viewpoints during
the 1970s (Seidman and Wagner, 1992, p. 5).

Archaeology and subculture

The main impact of post-modernist critiques on archaeology has been in
the development of so-called contextual and post-processual archaeologies
(Hodder, 1991, p. 121; Shanks and Tilley, 1987). This has increased debate
about feminist, Marxist, indigenous and other alternative interpretations of
the past (Hodder, 1991, p. 156). These new approaches have particularly
sought to analyze societies in terms of individual interaction rather than
the prevailing model of societies as homogeneous systems driven by quasi-
scientific and deterministic laws (Shanks and Tilley, 1987, p. 45). A further
feature of post-processual archaeology has been in its approach to the
meanings of material culture, drawing on general culture theory and
3
4 The Material Culture of the Homosexual Male

semiotics. The influence of sociologists such as Giddens and Bourdieu and

of philosophers such as Foucault is also apparent in much recent archaeo-
logical thought (Shackel and Little, 1992, p. 8).
The post-processual rejection of the older view of societies as unified enti-
ties in a state of dynamic equilibrium is compatible with the individual's
perception that human beings are not driven by external forces, that a large
element of personal behaviour derives from individual choice and that,
most importantly, people belong not to monolithic social groups but to
fluid subsets of society whose membership is constantly changing. In this
sense Shanks and Tilley (1987, p. 209) are right to repeat Margaret
Thatcher's view that 'Society does not exist', although the view taken here
is that societies are real entities, if much more complex than archaeologists
and politicians have been willing to recognize.
All human beings belong to what may be termed 'subcultures', and
frequently to many different subcultures. Sociological interpretations have
generally viewed subcultures as a form of 'deviant' behaviour (for instance,
Hebidge, 1979, p. 75) and post-processual archaeology has been criticized
as encouraging 'unconstrained multiple readings of the past' (Kohl, 1993,
p. 15). These responses ignore the greater variety of human experience than
can be found in normative accounts of mainstream culture: in any but the
simplest societies there are social groups which fall outside elites, and an
interest in these groups will seek to integrate their experience into an
understanding of how societies function as polythetic entities.
Like most British archaeologists, the author is a white middle-class
English house-owning male and therefore belongs to the dominant sub-
culture of late twentieth-century British society. However, at the same time
he is part of an oppressed minority as a result of his homosexuality. It is an
important premise of this chapter that membership of any minority may
give the individual insights into the workings of society which non-
members may not possess, and that these insights extend beyond focusing
on the individual's own subculture. Subcultures can focus around any
feature which gives them self-identification. This is how the homosexual
male identifies himself (Freer, 1987, p. 57): his sexuality enables him to
identify with other members of his subculture and gives that subculture a
'purpose' or historical trajectory.

Classical homosexuality
The works of Michel Foucault (1986a, 1986b) have dominated recent dis-
cussions of sexual behaviour in Classical Greece and Rome; his work, based
on proscriptive texts, can perhaps be criticized for its normative approach
and its use of largely hostile documentary evidence where homosexual
behaviour is concerned. There is a substantial body of Greek literature
which describes the erotic appeal (both sexual and emotional) of male
youths to older men (Dover, 1978; Jay, 1981). Plutarch even expressed the
 Keith Matthews 5

opinion that the only true form of love was that between a man and a
youth (quoted in Miles, 1989, p. 68). It is noteworthy that in the literature
which celebrates this love it is treated as part of everyday experience.
However, this literature was produced both by and for an elite, and it is
impossible to be certain that the behaviour it portrays was not confined to
that elite.
It is also clear that the phenomenon was at least as much as a rite de
passage as a sexual behaviour pattern (Keuls, 1985, p. 276), a form of
culturally-sanctioned paedophilia and part of the institutionalized
misogyny of Athenian society. Adult homosexuality did exist, though, and
was generally despised (Keuls, 1985, p. 291; Foucault, 1986a, p. 194).
Passivity in penetrative sexual acts was a particularly serious offence
because it contradicted all the accepted standards of masculine behaviour,
and those suspected of being guilty of it could be deprived of their citizen
status (Coote, 1983, p. 31).
The Roman world also acknowledged homosexual behaviour. Catallus,
Tibullus and Martial, for example, moved easily between heterosexual and
homosexual subjects and wrote love poetry about youths and women with
equal passion and tenderness. Catallus is particularly held up as a good
example of a Roman bisexual (for instance, Coote, 1983, p. 33), but the dis-
claimer contained in his Poem XVI is often overlooked: he refutes a charge
of 'indecency' (based on homosexual references in his poetry) by saying
that while his verses may be 'naughty and hardly decent' (molliculi ac
parum pudici), 'a decent poet ought to be clean-living' (castum esse decet
pium poetam). He wants his poetry to show a degree of toleration, not per-
sonal behaviour. Historians and archaeologists often forget that poets can
write non-autobiographically, using conventional literary topoi as a means
of expression.
Under the Empire, toleration of homosexual and bisexual activity is
believed by Foucault to have declined, but marriage between two males
remained a perfectly legal -if merely tolerated- activity until the fourth
century, when a law of 342 forbade it (Boswell, 1980, p. 123). It is worth
noting, though, that Christian ceremonies for the formal union of male
partners circulated in Eastern Europe into the twentieth century (Boswell,
1995, p. 278). In 390 a law was passed which made the selling or coercing
of males into prostitution a capital offence, but it was not until 533 that
Justinian criminalized homosexual behaviour as such, placing it on an
equal standing with adultery, punishable by death (Boswell, 1980, p. 171).
His motives appear to have been more political than moral: it was part of a
suite of repressive legislation whose main aim was the elimination of polit-
ical rivals. This law was a source of considerable protest, not least from the
Church (Boswell, 1980, p. 173). It is also one of the few laws ever to have
been used retrospectively: those known or suspected to have been 'guilty'
of the offence before it became one were as liable to punishment as those
known to have committed it later.
6 The Material Culture of the Homosexual Male

Homosexuality in twelfth- and thirteen-century Europe

With the resurgence of towns in the High Middle Ages, a gay subculture
can once again be traced in the literary sources (Coote, 1983, p. 37). At this
period romantic love was idealized in a way it had not been since Classical
Rome: the poetry of Courtly Love celebrates not just heterosexual passion,
but also lesbian and gay love. What is especially remarkable is that there
was a movement within the church which sought to justify homosexuality
on theological grounds and even to incorporate it into mainstream moral-
ity (Boswell, 1980, p. 210). It is possible that this more open discussion of
homosexuality was a result of the influence of medieval Islamic culture,
with its well known homoerotic aspects, which is visible in the arts at the
same time.
A major figure in what may be termed the 'gay revival' of the twelfth
century was the Englishman Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx 1146-66, who was
later canonized. His theorization of homosexuality was based on what he
saw as the 'marriage' of jesus and john portrayed in John's Gospel, as well
as on his own passionate attachments to men. Most remarkable of all, he
allowed physical affection between men - including monks - as a legiti-
mate means of attaining grace (de Spirituali amicitia, III.87).
However, although Peter Lombard's Sententiae, the standard moral text of
the age, does not mention homosexual relations at all, there is no sign of a
general move towards acceptance of the behaviour. Criticisms of the
English kings William Rufus and Richard Coeur de Lion focused on their
supposed 'effeminacy' (Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, III.8; Roger de
Hovedon, Annales, 362), although only in the case of the latter is there any
evidence to link the accusations with homosexual behaviour. King
Edward II's well known attachments to Piers Gaveston and other men was
the ultimate cause of the coup led by his wife and his unpleasant murder.
In contrast with Classical Greece, it is clear that homosexual behaviour
was not restricted to the elite: the twelfth-century French poet Bernard of
Morlas believed that gay people were 'as common as grains of barley in
harvest, as oysters in the sea or sands on the shore' (quoted in Coote, 1983,
p. 118) and there is literary evidence from all over Europe for these people.
It is noteworthy that contemporaries particularly associated homosexuality
with towns and cities. In the Inquisition Register of jacques Fournier,
Bishop of Pamiers 1318-25, Arnaud de Verniolles makes it clear that his
homosexual experiences were largely urban, and that in Pamiers there were
large numbers of gay men (over 1000, he claimed) (Ladurie, 1980, p. 145).

Historic gay subcultures

In summary, the literature of Classical and High Medieval Europe is full of
hints and occasional descriptions of men living what would today be
recognized as gay lifestyles. Many of these men would undoubtedly be at
home in the gay clubs and bars of any late twentieth-century European or
 Keith Matthews 7

American city. They were the men who enjoyed the company of other
men, who occasionally cross-dressed, who were sometimes 'camp' (i.e.
highly feminized, often in a humorous or ironic manner). They were not
the producers of the poetry of Courtly Love nor, indeed, its subjects. The
non-poetic accounts are generally not sympathetic, and many sources are
downright hostile.
Homosexual males at certain periods in the past belonged to well known
subcultures; to the modern gay man the descriptions of these subcultures
have a surprisingly familiar ring, suggesting that there is an ahistorical
element in homosexual behaviour. Some of the members of these subcul-
tures practise cross-dressing, usually in private, and others associate them-
selves openly with men and youths in preference to women. The scandals
of the Emperor Elagabalus's cross-dressing (Historia Augusta Heliogabalus,
26) or of King Edward II's love for Piers Gaveston are well known because
they were public figures who did not restrict their sexual behaviours to
their private lives or attempt to hide their orientations.
Those public figures who have tried to keep their private lives from
public scrutiny have always been vulnerable to exposure: the ambiguous
relationship between the Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaten and his son-in-law
Smenkhkare, depicted as a 'married couple' on one stela (Gardiner, 1961,
p. 232), may have been a greater contributory factor in the older pharaoh's
downfall than has hitherto been recognized. The modern practice of
'outing' - identifying public figures as homosexual - has highlighted the
numbers of individuals posing as heterosexual.

A model of oppressed homosexual behaviour

It is possible to construct a theoretical model of homosexual behaviour in a
society which does not wholly sanction it by using the experiences of gay
men in the last three centuries. This period is useful because, in most of the
world, male homosexuality was a serious (and frequently capital) crime and
because studies by historians of the period have often employed oral
evidence which enables us to treat them as much as anthropological case
studies as historical (for instance, Heger, 1980; Chauncey, 1991; Haeberle,
1991; Weeks, 1991; Shilts, 1993).
In a few cases, such as among Afro-Americans in the early twentieth
century, homosexual behaviour was tolerated within a particular subcul-
ture (in this case the so-called Harlem Renaissance, which gave rise to the
Blues, Garber, 1991, p. 320). It is possible that in some cases institutional-
ized oppression - in this instance, racism - can enable a subculture to be
more accepting of deviance within its membership, although in others,
such as the nascent Christianity of the early Roman empire, the need to
reinforce group identity led to extreme forms of normative behaviour
expectation.
8 The Material Culture of the Homosexual Male

An important feature which recurs in virtually all gay subcultures is the

essentially furtive nature of homosexual behaviour: this is clearly a
function of its illegal status. When it has been open, it has generally been
the subject of irrational scorn, fear or hatred by outsiders who viewed
themselves as upholders of morality (Haeberle, 1991, p. 374; Steakley,
1991, p. 225). This often led to the linking of the subculture with the crim-
inal underworld (Arguelles and Rich, 1991, p. 444); it has been celebrated
most forcefully by Jean Genet (1976, 1977). A further factor in this associ-
ation has been the link between homosexuality and prostitution: at a time
when men, particularly working-class men, were expected to marry and
raise children, the most easily obtainable gay sexual experiences were often
with male prostitutes (Weeks, 1991, p. 201). The subculture of prostitution
is intimately linked with other criminal activities, through its organizers
rather than through the prostitutes or their clients.

Gender-role exaggerating behaviour

Male homosexuality is frequently associated with feminized behaviour pat-
terns, particularly in popular myth (Sanderson, 1986, p. 13). It has been
common in many cultures for gay men to use female names (Huussen,
1991, p. 145), refer to each other as 'she' (Genet, 1976, p. 78; Lahr, 1986,
p. 111; Moodie, Ndatshe and Sibuyi, 1991, p. 416) and, on occasion, dress
as women (Chauncey, 1991, p. 297; Trumbach 1991, p. 38), especially in
private or in exclusively gay surroundings. Where this behaviour occurs it
cannot be regarded as transvestism or transsexuality (Sanderson, 1986,
p. 14): the gay man does not usually seek to make himself female, or even
to appear female, but rather exaggerates roles assigned by society to females
in order to distinguish himself as different from other males. The katoi of
Thailand use feminine dress and manners as a means of escape from
poverty by entering transvestite cabarets. In this extreme example some
katoi even undergo full sex changes in order to make themselves attractive
to foreign visitors on whom they depend for much of their income. In
Plato's Phaedrus (239), Socrates describes youths who have been seduced
away from manliness and who have become effeminate, covering
themselves with make-up, making it clear that these youths are no longer
desirable.
Some gay men have adopted forms of dress and behaviour which
exaggerate those features considered manly by heterosexuals (Genet, 1977,
p. 239; Greig, 1987, p. 134): a recent expression of this has been the 'clone',
who has cropped hair, a thick moustache, wears a lumberjack shirt, tight
jeans and sometimes - often when visiting a bar or a club - a hard hat and
whose demeanour is aggressive and contemptuous. This behaviour is fre-
quently associated in literature and pornography with fantasies about
seducing heterosexual men, who are perceived by many gay men to be
more 'masculine' than homosexuals. Both feminized and exaggeratedly
 Keith Matthews 9

masculine behaviour types appear to be responses to the lack of positive

homosexual role models during the gay man's childhood.

Meeting other men

It is well known that certain places 'attract' gay men (Trumbach, 1991,
p. 136); this is a result of the adoption of recognized meeting-places (or
'cruising-grounds'), especially at times when others do not use them. Public
parks, heaths and sand dunes are areas which have frequently attracted
these reputations (Rechy, 1971, p. 114; Weeks, 1991, p. 209). Because their
reputations have frequently been common knowledge, it is easy for the
novice to enter the subculture via cruising-grounds. Sometimes bars or
cafes have had largely or exclusively gay clienteles, especially theatre bars
(Weeks, 1991, p. 209); occasionally they provide back-rooms for casual
sexual encounters (Hamilton, 1994, p. 20). Saunas (Rechy, 1971, p. 263)
and public toilets (known, inexplicably and very euphemistically, as
'cottages' in England and as 'tea rooms' in the USA) (Lahr, 1986, p. 105;
Sanderson, 1986, p. 38; White, 1988, p. 143) are notorious locations for
furtive gay sex. In South African gold mines, where 'mine marriages'
between men have been common, some rooms in the barrack-like accom-
modation provided for migrant workers have been turned over to near-
exclusive homosexual use (Moodie, Ndatshe and Sibuyi; 1991, p. 416).
Informal networks of gay men have allowed the easy meeting and
exchange of partners. Oscar Wilde was part of one such network, which
centred on the flat of his friend Alfred Taylor (Weeks, 1991, p. 208). This
pattern has continued to be one of the main cohesive elements of a dis-
tinctly gay subculture in the western world by creating social rather than
entirely sexual groups. Since the 1970s there has even been a move towards
gay ghettoes in some places such as San Francisco, New York, London and
Manchester. Gay subcultures are an essentially urban phenomenon
(Ladurie, 1980, p. 147; Trumbach, 1991, p. 130; Smith, 1994, p. 24).
Although homosexual men can be found in both rural and urban settings,
many gay men have migrated to large towns and cities from rural commu-
nities and small towns simply in order to increase their chances of meeting
other gay men (Sanderson, 1986, p. 41). In addition, the relative anony-
mity of the individual in a large town increases the security of the gay man,
often by enabling him to keep his sexuality a secret from colleagues - and,
more importantly, neighbours.

Relationships
Long-term relationships have been the exception rather than the rule
among gay men, although there have been well known exceptions, such as
Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, and it has been suggested that openly
gay couples are more likely to remain together than those who are not.
This is largely because such relationships, being either forbidden or at least
10 The Material Culture o(the Homosexual Male

frowned upon, they need to be hidden from society and must be carefully
disguised. The deception involved can make relationships stressful to the
point where they are not worth considering or, at best, are no more than
casual. A survey of the mostly male readers of Gay Times revealed that only
28 per cent of them were involved in a live-in relationship, a low figure
which surprised the editorial staff (Smith, 1994, p. 24).
The practical difficulties involved in undertaking successful long-term
commitments to a single partner and the high profile of sexual behaviour
within the subculture has meant that all gay men are perceived to be
highly promiscuous (Sanderson, 1986, p. 45). This is a source of further
condemnation from society at large, where marriage and the rearing of
children are presented as the true meaning of human existence, and the
nuclear family as the basic unit of society. The debates about AIDS in the
popular press have characterized the syndrome as a 'Gay Plague', spread by
promiscuous homosexuals and bisexuals, a dangerous and First World-
centred viewpoint.

Dress codes
In order to meet partners, gay men adopt a number of strategies to make
themselves mutually recognizable while remaining hidden from those who
represent dangers. These are generally grounded in visible material culture.
Perhaps the most common strategy has been to employ dress codes based
on clothing, jewellery, hairstyles, make-up and tattoos. Such codes have
needed to be subtle or ambiguous to prevent them becoming readable by
heterosexuals, though. In recent decades coloured handkerchiefs in back
pockets, the numbers, positions and designs of earrings and even types of
footwear have all been used to indicate the very precise sexual preferences
of individual gay men. In some cases, where the gay man wishes to identify
himself publicly, his dress code can be flamboyant as with the British
comedian Julian Clary or, on a more subtle level, Quentin Crisp.

Homosexual material culture

The behaviour types outlined above have found expression in the material
culture of gay men. Jewellery, especially types not worn by heterosexual
males, such as earrings or bracelets, has frequently been used as a signifier
of feminization by both women and homosexual men. Gay men have been
notoriously more fastidious about their appearance than heterosexual men,
and consequently may dress more stylishly (Rechy, 1971, p. 90); this is
easier if they have never been married and do not have a family to support,
and thus have more disposable income available to buy expensive fashion
clothes than heterosexuals. It is also a consequence of the need to remain
attractive for longer than most heterosexual males, as most gay men need
to continue to find new sexual partners at ages when their heterosexual
contemporaries have long been married.
 Keith Matthews 11

Sex toys
Because it is the sexual behaviour which is often the sole common interest
shared by gay men, this has often led to a more open expression of sexual-
ity than among heterosexuals. Sex toys such as dildoes, cock-rings, nipple-
clamps, restraints and so on are encountered much more frequently in the
gay world than in the straight. Leather and rubber clothing is also more a
part of the mainstream gay subculture than the heterosexual.

Homoerotic objects
Other aspects of gay behaviour are also detectable in material culture.
Decoration in the home, for instance, may include objects and paintings
with an overtly or covertly sexual homoerotic content; the paintings of
Caravaggio are an excellent example of barely covert homoerotic art (for
instance, Victorious Love, Gash, 1988, p. 77). It is a commonplace that the
home of every gay man contains a reproduction of Michaelangelo's David.
The material culture needs to be sufficiently ambiguous if it is to remain
inoffensive and not too far outside mainstream material culture whilst
being readable by those in the know (for instance, Shilts, 1993, p. SO).

A deconstruction of homosexuality in archaeology

There is little indisputable evidence for homosexual activity. Greek vases
clearly show men engaged in a variety of sexual acts, generally with women
and youths, but occasionally with other men; they also show the use of
dildoes. The literary evidence for Roman and medieval gay subcultures has
already been discussed; it ought to be possible to find archaeological
evidence of their existence and to characterize their material culture more
widely and more precisely than from the hostile literary references.
Beyond direct representations, archaeological evidence for homosexual
behaviour is difficult to interpret. This is clearly not because such behav-
iour and its associated subcultures did not exist but because they are on the
fringes of mainstream society, which is what is most easily interpreted by
archaeologists, and also because archaeologists have not looked for them.
The archaeological subculture has been dominated by men who have
tended to be macho (even if not always necessarily heterosexual). The crass
depiction of Indiana Jones as a romantic, womanizing, swashbuckling
adventurer has provided the public at large with an image of archaeologists
which professionals have been quick to dismiss as fictional nonsense;
however, there are archaeologists in the real world whose self-image has no
doubt been reinforced by comparisons with Harrison Ford's on-screen
persona.
Few archaeologists have questioned the sexual behaviours of the societies
they seek to reconstruct; in some ways this is because such intimately per-
sonal behaviour is extremely difficult to interpret, although post-processual
12 Tile Material Culture of tile Homosexual Male

approaches to the interpretation of material culture have shown that there

are ways of entering this difficult area. A more relevant factor may be that
the majority of archaeologists are heterosexual and have had no need to
question their sexualities. The teenage years of lesbians and gay men are
usually even more difficult than for heterosexuals: their hormones require
sexual outlets which the heterosexual culture surrounding them forbids.
Some gay people follow their biochemical instincts, but others doom them-
selves to lives of miserable conformity with heterosexual society.

Gay material culture in the archaeological record

On the basis of the behavioural model proposed above, it is possible to
outline three basic types of homosexual material culture which might be
present in the archaeological record: clothing (including personal adorn-
ment), sex toys, and homoerotic artefacts. Furthermore, the morphology of
specific buildings or building types may be shown to be related to sexual
functions which semiotic analysis might be able to specify. It will be
impossible to demonstrate that the archaeological material is definite proof
of the existence of a gay subculture, but if the evidence can support such
an interpretation it merits further exploration.
Clothing is rarely preserved on archaeological sites except in waterlogged
conditions; even then it is usually difficult to ascertain its precise owner-
ship and function. Some Roman leather goods look distinctly impractical
for everyday wear and the possibility of specialized sexual functions must
not be overlooked (van Driel Murray, personal communication). So-called
'leather bikinis' have often come from male contexts, such as temporary
forts, and are so shaped as to be virtually unwearable by either sex: they
would cause intense pain. There are other leather garments which seem to
be designed for more than one wearer, and some of which have dildo-like
attachments. However, with burials it is easy to link an individual with
specific artefacts, although it must be recognized that the living choose
those objects which accompany the dead into the grave. The existence of
same-sex couples in past societies might lead us to expect the grieving
partner to place familiar objects with his dead lover, either openly or
secretly. Such objects might show some evidence, for instance, of grave
goods which can be identified as possessing otherwise 'female' attributes
accompanying a small number of male skeletons.
Projecting characteristics of gay material culture derived from literature
onto areas distant from the place of writing, either spatially or socially, is
not a valid means of analysis, though. The use of earrings in Romano-
British contexts, for instance, need not have implied effeminacy as it did to
the upper classes in Rome: it is known that some ethnic groups in the
Empire (such as Syrians, Persians and some north Africans) used earrings as
a male jewellery-type.
 Keith Matthews 13

Feminized male burials in Roman Britain

There are examples from Britain of what do appear to be Romano-British
practices in the use of bracelets and necklaces as female jewellery-types.
The large sample of burials from the Lankhills cemetery, Winchester,
indicates that these two types were only ever worn by females (Clarke,
1979, p. 152). In Romano-British cemeteries where grave goods are found
this observation generally holds true (for instance Matthews et al., 1981),
which suggests that observed deviations from this pattern will not have
been regionally influenced and that they will have a social meaning.
A male (based on physical anthropological evidence) from a cemetery at
Cirencester in his late forties or early fifties was accompanied by a bracelet
(McWhirr, Viner and Wells, 1982, p. 129) and a male burial aged 23-25
from Trentholme Drive, York, was buried with seven red glass beads in the
neck area (Warwick, 1968, p. 138). In the latter instance, it is instructive to
note that this is not explicitly called a necklace: the skull is merely said to
have been 'associated' with the beads. Do these two rare instances mean
that those responsible for burying these individuals perceived them to be
effeminate or otherwise highly feminized, although this is still a long way
from identifying them as homosexual? Does their possession of apparently
feminine jewellery actually set them apart from other males in their respec-
tive cemeteries? What is the meaning of their unusual material culture?

Meeting-places
The possibilities of identifying gay meeting places on purely archaeological
grounds are more limited. Without graffiti, frescoes or other 'documentary'
evidence, public places are not generally susceptible to this kind of analysis.
However, archaeologists ought not to forget the secondary uses to which
public buildings can be put. Parts of Chester's city walls are today a well
known cruising-ground, especially after dark; there are no records indi-
cating when the tradition started, but it goes back beyond living memory,
and the possibility that its roots go back to the medieval or even Roman
periods on the walls of towns throughout Europe should not be over-
looked, amusing as the notion may appear. There are two suggested
identifications from the Roman world of male brothels; one, at Ostia, has
been suggested on the basis of its mosaics and murals, while the other, at
Vindolanda, has been put forward as a possible explanation for what
appears to be a concentration of youths' shoes in a single building (Murray,
1995).
It is possible that the internal layouts of public places may offer an
insight into gay meeting-places. Hillier and Hanson (1984) have presented
a technique for analyzing the grammar of building layouts, which they
term 'gamma-analysis'. Comparisons of straight with gay nightclubs sug-
gests a number of morphological differences, with the emphasis in the gay
examples on seclusion, even exclusion. Semiotic analysis - more difficult
14 The Material Culture of the Homosexual Male

with purely archaeological examples - also suggests major differences: the

emphasis in gay bars and nightclubs is usually on darkness and secrecy,
unlike the bright and highly social decor employed in most straight places.
The private dwelling may also be examined in this way. It could be poss-
ible to identify a homoerotically ambiguous material culture, consisting of
objects which are sufficiently innocuous to outsiders but which, never-
theless, offer unmistakable clues to those able to read them. To the modern
gay man the phallus is the gay male symbol par excellence. In the Roman
world representations of phalli were common and associated with the god
Priapus. They are found in material culture as tintinabula, lamps and as
decorations on other objects. They are usually read by archaeologists as
having no associations other than with Priapus and other cults (Turnbull,
1978); however, it is possible that their presence- combined with other less
tangible clues - could signify homosexuality in certain contexts.

Sexuality and subculture

A major difficulty in dealing with the sexual identities of past societies is in
the disparate nature of the archaeological evidence. It is difficult enough to
recognize the individual in the past without trying to separate an indi-
vidual's behaviour from that of whole social groups. An analysis of subcul-
tures, using a broad patterning at a lower level than that of society at large
but which nevertheless derives from individual behaviours, offers a means
of penetrating sexuality. However, because gay subcultures are perceived,
even by the most liberal, to be on the margins of society they have rarely
been explored except within radical discourse. Gay men have often been
invisible in societies because many have preferred to lead a double life,
restricting homosexual behaviour to specific places, times or activities (such
as cottaging). Archaeologists have discovered gender only in the last
decade, so it will be a few years yet before sexuality becomes an important
issue for the discipline.
Sociologists have clear definitions of sex, gender and sexuality which
most people, archaeologists included, do not (Giddens, 1993, p. 161). Sex is
the structural difference between those bodies which possess ovaries and a
vagina and those which possess testicles and a penis; gender is the psycho-
logical, social and cultural difference between those identified socially as
men and women; sexuality is the set of responses which deals with lust and
the behaviour designed to achieve orgasm for the individual.
Theorizations of homosexuality enter radical discourse because the sexu-
ality is subversive by its very nature. It is impossible to be gay without
engaging in radical discourse, explicitly or implicitly: the practice of same-
sex love calls into question the accepted norms which our society has
placed on gender and is dangerous to the myths which sustain male dom-
ination. In some societies where population levels were small, and infant
 Keith Matthews 15

mortality high, the social group perceived its existence in terms of a strug-
gle for survival, such as among the Bronze Age Hebrews (Fox, 1991, p. 84),
and there has been a fear of reproductive dead-ends. Solutions have varied
from separating the reproductive function of sex from lust, as in the
Classical world, to proscribing homosexual behaviour and punishing it
with death, the solution adopted by the Hebrews and their moral descend-
ants in medieval Europe.

Sexuality as an artefact
By turning to other cultures it is possible to appreciate to what extent sexu-
ality is culturally defined and must be regarded as an artefact (for instance,
Yates, 1993, p. 49). Even sex and gender are not necessarily biological
determinates (Tilley, 1993, p. 22). Ethnography provides examples of soci-
eties where masculinity is acquired only at the moment of male rite de
passage: up to that moment all children, regardless of their sex, are regarded
as genderless. Some males do not undergo the rite de passage and never
enter adult male society: their gender is externally defined and irrelevant
either to their sex or their sexuality. The nineteenth-century outrage at
Freud's theories of infantile sexuality and modern difficulties over teenage
sexuality and concepts of the age of consent are evidence that western
society also treats the young as essentially genderless; the childhood differ-
entiation between boys and girls may be taken as an extended rite de
passage, a period of gender-learning.
An unashamedly archaeological definition of sexuality and gender must
identify the human body and its uses as artefacts. The human body is a
signifier of meaning in exactly the same way as material culture: indeed,
much material culture is in origin an extension of the body. Sexual
behaviour is one of the body's measurable attributes as an artefact, and sex-
uality is both the outward expression of the attribute (in other words, the
signified) and an artefact - a manufactured product - in its own right.
Sexual behaviour is itself highly complex: the drive is based in hormone
secretion (the individual's sex), but social behaviour (gender identity) chan-
nels the drive into paths which can be more or less acceptable to the main-
stream. Certain individuals within any given population will have a basic
sexual attraction towards members of the same sex; the means by which
that attraction is converted into behaviour is a socially determined artefact,
sexuality.
The western tradition has increasingly identified sex, gender and sexual-
ity with each other and has, perhaps deliberately, blurred their distinctions.
The growth of heterosexual problematization in the Christian Roman
world brought sexuality and gender together into the theory of nature, pre-
senting the two as inextricably linked to biological sex. Medieval moralists
-some of whom seem to be alive and well today- contrasted the 'natural'
coupling of man and woman with a variety of 'unnatural' couplings. Freud
16 The Material Culture of the Homosexual Male

lent this theory scientific respectability by characterizing homosexual and

other 'deviant' desire as sexually valid but infantile. It is only in the latter
half of the twentieth century that radical discourse has begun to challenge
this consensus.

Conclusions
Without literary evidence for thriving gay subcultures at different periods
in European history, it would probably be hard to characterize them from
their archaeological remains alone, if they were recognizable at all.
However, by extrapolating details from recent gay subcultures to produce a
generalized model of homosexual material culture it is possible to search
for the archaeological evidence of these past subcultures.
There are ways of looking at the data which raise questions about the
sexual attitudes and identities of groups within past societies. Detailed
research into burial practices will undoubtedly reveal more examples of dis-
crepancies between the sex of the body and the objects associated with it.
This is without doubt the easiest means of identifying individuals who
were perceived as belonging to a gender which was not their biological sex,
although the precise meaning of this phenomenon need not always be
related to sexuality, including homosexual behaviour, in life. An analysis of
post-medieval and modern gravestones might give further clues about the
existence of same-sex couples expressing their grief publicly.
The morphology of public and semi-public places in terms of their inter-
nal grammar might allow the identification of places associated with sexual
behaviour; semiotic analyses could then determine the form of that behav-
iour. Graffiti, murals and other decorative elements would reinforce this
type of interpretation. If these places were then associated with artefacts
known to have sexual connotations- for instance, condoms in twentieth-
century contexts or phallic representations in the Roman world - a firm
identification might be suggested.
Finally, and perhaps most fruitfully of all, there is the possibility of
identifying a distinct homosexual material culture based on homoerotic
artefacts. The associations of these objects might then allow the characteri-
zation of the subculture as a whole. The theoretical behaviour model
proposed above shows that the material culture which is most nearly
identifiable as gay falls into three basic categories: body adornment, sex
toys and homoerotic art.
Sexuality is a major social issue: at a time when there is an increasing
conservatism in British society which seeks to lay the blame for what are
seen as various social ills on supposedly dangerous minorities and which
still refuses to give equal rights to gay people, more discussion of what con-
stitutes not only gender but also sexuality is needed. If archaeology has a
radical political role to play in society- as Christopher Tilley has repeatedly
 Keith Matthews 17

asserted - then its potential insights into human gender and sexuality
ought to form an element in the discipline's public outreach rather than
conniving with the heritage industry to present a sanitized (and, thankfully
for the industry, degendered) past.

Note
* I am grateful to Mike Morris and Julie Edwards for reading an earlier draft of this
chapter and to the many people, too numerous to name, who commented on its
presentation at the Gender and Material Culture conference in Exeter.

Bibliography
Aelred of Rievaulx de Spirituali mnicitia, in M. Laker Spiritual Friendship Cistercian
Fathers Series 5 (Washington, DC, 1974).
Arguelles, L. and B. R. Rich (1991) 'Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Revolution:
Notes toward an understanding of the Cuban lesbian and gay male experience',
in M. B. Doberman, M. Vicinus and G. Chauncey (eds), Hidden from History:
Reclaiming the gay and lesbian past (Harmondsworth), pp. 441-55.
Boswell, J. (1980) Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Westem
Europe from the beginning of the Christian era to the fourteenth century (Chicago).
Boswell]. (1995) The Marriage of Likeness: Same sex unions in pre-modem Europe
(London).
Catullus Catullus: The poems, ed. K. Quinn (London, 1970).
Chauncey, G. (1991) 'Christian Brotherhood or Sexual Perversion? Homosexual
identities and the construction of sexual boundaries in the World War I era',
in M. B. Doberman, M. Vicinus and G. Chauncey (eds), Hidden from History:
Reclaiming the gay and lesbian past (Harmondsworth), pp. 294-317.
Clarke, G. (1979) Pre-Roman and Roman Winchester, Part II. The Roman cemetery at
Lankhills, Winchester Studies, 3 (Oxford).
Coote, S. (ed.) (1983) The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse (Harmondsworth).
Dover, K. J. (1978) Greek Homosexuality (London).
Doberman, M. B., M. Vicinus and G. Chauncey (eds) (1991) Hidden from History:
Reclaiming the gay and lesbian past (Harmondsworth).
Epistle of Barnabas, in M. Staniforth, Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers
(Harmondsworth, 1968).
Foucault, M. (1986a) The Use of Pleasure: The history of sexuality volume 2, trans
R. Hurley (London).
Foucault, M. (1986b) The Care of the Self: The history of sexuality volume 3, trans.
R. Hurley (London).
Fox, R. L. (1991) The Unauthorized Version: Truth and fiction in the Bible
(Harmondsworth).
Freer, P. (1987) 'AIDS and ... ', in G. E. Hanscombe and M. Humphries (eds),
Heterosexuality (London).
Greig, N. (1987) 'Codes of conduct', in G. E. Hanscombe and M. Humphries (eds),
Heterosexuality (London), pp. 132-6.
Garber, E. (1991) 'A Spectacle in Color: The lesbian and gay subculture of Jazz Age
Harlem', in M. B. Doberman, M. Vicinus and G. Chauncey (eds), Hidden from
History: Reclaiming the gay and lesbian past (Harmondsworth, pp. 318-31.
18 The Material Culture of the Homosexual Male

Gardiner, A. H. (1961) Egypt of the Pharaohs: An introduction (Oxford).

Gash,]. (1988) Caravaggio (London).
Genet,]. (1976) Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs (Paris).
Genet,]. (1977) Miracle de Ia rose (Paris).
Giddens, A. (1993) Sociology, 2nd edn (Cambridge).
Haeberle, E. J. (1991) 'Swastika, Pink Triangle, and Yellow Star: The destruction of
sexology and the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany', M. B. Duberman,
M. Vicinus and G. Chauncey (eds), Hidden from History: Reclaiming the gay and
lesbian past (Harmondsworth), pp. 365-79.
Hamilton, A. (1994) 'Backroom Bonanza', Gay Times (January), pp. 20-1.
Hebidge, D. (1979) Subculture: The meaning of style (London).
Heger, H. (1980) The Men with the Pink Triangle, trans D. Fernbach (London).
Hillier, B. and]. Hanson (1984) The Social Logic of Space (Cambridge).
Historia Augusta, Lives of the later Caesars: The first part of the Augusta History
with newly compiled Lives of Nerva and Trajan, trans and introd. A. Birley
(Harmondsworth, 1976).
Hodder, I. (1991) Reading the Past: Current approaches to interpretation in archaeology,
2nd edn (Cambridge).
Horace, The Satires of Horace and Persius, a verse translation with an introduction and
notes by N. Rudd (Harmondsworth, 1973).
Hoveden, Roger de, Anna/es, in The Annals of Roger de Hovedon. Comprising the history
of Englm1d, and of other countries of Europe from Ad782 to 1201, translated from the
Latin, with notes and illustrations by H. Riley, 2 vo/s (London, 1853).
Huussen, A. H. (1991) 'Sodomy in the Dutch Republic during the Eighteenth
Century', M. B. Duberman, M. Vicinus and G. Chauncey (eds) Hidden from History:
Reclaiming the gay and lesbian past (Harmondsworth), pp. 141-9.
Jay, P. (ed.) (1981) The Greek Anthology and Other A11cient Epigrams (Harmondsworth).
Juvenal, The Satires, translated and with an introduction and notes by Peter Green,
rev. ed (Harmondsworth, 1974).
Keuls, E. C. (1985) The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual politics ill ancient Athens (Berkeley).
Kohl, P. L. (1993) 'Limits to a Post-processual Archaeology (or, The Dangers of a New
Scholasticism)', inN. Yoffee and A. Sherratt (eds), Archaeological Theory: Who sets
the agenda? (Cambridge).
Ladurie, E. le Roy (1980) Montail/ou: Cathars a11d Catholics in a French village,
1214--1324, trans Barbara Bray (Harmondsworth).
Lahr, J. (ed.) (1986) The Orton Diaries, including the correspondence of Edna We/thorpe
and others (London).
Matthews, C. L. eta/. (1981) 'The Roman Cemetery at Dunstable, Durocobrivae',
Bedfordshire Archaeological Journal, 15.
McWhirr, A. L. Viner and C. Wells (1982) Romano-British Cemetries at Cirencester,
Cirencester Excavations, 2 (Cirencester).
Miles, R. (1989) The Women's History of the World (London).
Moodie, T. D., V. Ndatshe and B. Sibuyi (1991) 'Migrancy and Male Sexuality on the
South African Gold Mines', in M. B. Duberman, M. Vicinus and G. Chauncey (eds),
Hidden from History: Reclaiming the gay and lesbian past (Harmondsworth),
pp. 411-25.
Murray, C. van Driel (1995) 'A Question of Gender', in Theoretical Roman Archaeology:
Second Conference Proceedings (Aldershot), pp. 3-21.
Orderic Vitalis, Historia ecclesiastica, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall, 6 vols (Oxford,
1969-80).
 Keith Matthews 19

Peter Lombard, Sententiarum libri quatuor. Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina
192 (Paris, 1855-).
Petroni us, Petronius: The Satyricon and Seneca: The Apocolocyntosis, translated with an
introduction and notes by]. P. Sullivan (Harmondsworth, 1977).
Plato, Phaedrus and the Seventh and Eighth Letters, translated with introductions by
Walter Hamilton (Harmondsworth, 1973).
Rechy, ]. (1971) The Sexual Outlaw: A documentary (London).
Sanderson, T. (1986) How to be a Happy Homosexual: A guide for gay men (London).
Seidman, S. and D. Wagner (eds) (1992) Postmodemism and Social Theory (Oxford).
Shackel, P. A. and B. J, Little (1992) 'Post-processual Approaches to Meanings and
Uses of Material Culture in Historical Archaeology', Historical Archaeology, 26(3),
pp. 5-11.
Shanks, M. and C. Tilley (1987) Social Theory and Archaeology (Cambridge).
Shilts, R. (1993) Conduct Unbecoming: Lesbians and gays in the US military, Vietnam to
the Persian Gulf (Harmondsworth).
Smith, D. (1994) 'So Who are the Readers of Gay Times', Gay Times Oanuary),
pp. 24-6.
Steakley,]. D. (1991) 'Iconography of a Scandal: Political cartoons and the Eulenberg
affair in Wilhelmian Germany', in M. B. Duberman, M. Vicious and G. Chauncey
(eds), Hidden from History: Reclaiming the gay and lesbian past (Harmondsworth),
pp. 233-63.
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, trans R. Graves; rev. with an Introduction, M. Grant
(Harmondsworth, 1979).
Tibulus, The poems ofTibullus with the Tibullan collection, trans with an Introduction,
P. Dunlop (Harmondsworth, 1972).
Tilley, C. (1993) 'Introduction: Interpretation and a poetics of the past', in C. Tilley
(ed.), Interpretative Archaeology (Providence and Oxford).
Trumbach, R. (1991) 'The Birth of the Queen: Sodomy and the emergence of gender
equality in modern culture, 1660-1750', in M. B. Duberman, M. Vicious and
G. Chauncey (eds), Hidden from History: Reclaiming the gay and lesbian past
(Harmondsworth), pp. 129-40.
Turnbull, P. (1978) 'The phallus in the Art of Roman Britain', Bulletin of the Institute
of Archaeology, University of London, 15, pp. 199-206.
Warwick, R. (1968) 'The Skeletal Remains', in L. P. Wenham, The Romano-British
Cemetery at Trentholme Drive, York, Ministry of Public Building and Works
Archaeological Reports, 5 (London).
Weeks,]. (1991) 'Inverts, Perverts, and Mary-Annes: Male prostitution and the regu-
lation of homosexuality in England in the nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
turies', in M. B. Duberman, M. Vicious and G. Chauncey (eds), Hidden from History:
Reclaiming the gay and lesbian past (Harmondsworth), pp. 195-211.
White, E. (1988) The Beautiful Room is Empty (London).
Yates, T. (1993) 'Frameworks for an Archaeology of the Body', in C. Tilley (ed.),
Interpretative Archaeology (Providence and Oxford).
2
Sisters are Doing it for Themselves?
Gender, Feminism and Australian
(Aboriginal) Archaeology*
Sarah Colley

Introduction
This chapter examines some contradictions and problems raised by trying
to develop feminist approaches to Australian Aboriginal archaeology in the
current climate of increased Aboriginal input and control over archaeologi-
cal research. Material culture studies are central to much of this discussion
because archaeologists use material culture to interpret pre- and post-
contact Aboriginal Australia.
Australia is a former British colony with a current population of
around 18 million people, of whom approximately 1 per cent identify
themselves as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. Captain james Cook
claimed the Eastern seaboard of the continent for the British in 1770 AD
and the first permanent British settlement was in 1788 in Sydney, from
where the colonists spread across the continent. Colonization had a dev-
astating impact on the indigenous peoples of Australia which has left a
legacy which Australia has yet to overcome (see, for example, Reynolds,
1982).
Today Australia is a highly multi-cultural society which has undergone
rapid social change in the last 20 years. Some changes are linked to the
breakdown of the previous colonial order and involve public debate about
Australian national identity and republicanism. An important aspect of
such debates is the changing status of Australia's indigenous Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples and their relationship with other Australians.
Aboriginal people feel very strongly about the study of their material
culture which they regard as an essential component of their cultural her-
itage. In the context of Aboriginal dispossession under colonialism cultural
heritage in all its manifestations has strong political and social significance,

20
 Sarah Colley 21

in addition to more traditional spiritual values (for example, Langford,

1983, NSW NPWS, 1989; Attwood and Arnold, 1992).
Aboriginal heritage politics have had enormous impact on material
culture studies and the practice of Australian archaeology in recent years
(Flood, 1989; Murray, 1992; Pardoe, 1990). For example, it is now manda-
tory for archaeologists to consult with Aboriginal communities before
undertaking archaeological research. The Australian Archaeological
Association has adopted a Code of Ethics which acknowledges indigenous
ownership of cultural heritage (Davidson, 1991). There is a trend towards
direct Aboriginal involvement in archaeological research at many levels,
including increased Aboriginal input and control in government organiza-
tions charged with heritage management. These changes have influenced
the practice of Australian archaeology, and material culture studies more
generally. A great deal of argument has centred around questions of owner-
ship of Aboriginal cultural heritage, including the Aboriginal places, objects
and human skeletons which form the subject of much archaeological
study. Traditionally ownership of places and items of material culture, and
knowledge about them, was strictly controlled according to Aboriginal lore.
In the context of colonialism, conflict has arisen between Western concepts
of 'academic freedom' and traditional indigenous rights and responsibilities
towards places and objects. Increased Aboriginal control of archaeological
research has often resulted in restrictions being imposed on what archaeol-
ogists may study, and even on what they may publish, particularly in the
case of human skeletal remains, 'secret-sacred' items, and places with par-
ticularly strong spiritual significance. Some archaeologists resent such
change, though few dare say so in print (McKay, 1993). Many others
welcome direct Aboriginal involvement in their work (for example, Pardoe,
1992; Clarke, 1994; Greer, 1995).
The complex, changing and often controversial politics associated with
Aboriginal heritage continue to exert major influence on the study and
interpretation of material culture in archaeology and other contexts. This
chapter explores the rise of feminist and gender studies in archaeology
against this background.

Gender, feminism and Australian archaeology

In Australia, women are strongly represented in powerful positions in gov-
ernment organizations responsible for archaeology and heritage manage-
ment, and in private archaeological consulting businesses, although they
are less well represented in senior academic positions (Truscott and Smith,
1993). Women archaeologists have undoubtedly been responsible for
promoting gender studies in Australian archaeology, although a small
number of men are also interested in this field. Gender studies are currently
very topical in Australian archaeology; the first Australian Women in
22 Gender, Feminism and Australian Archaeology

Archaeology Conference was held in 1991 (du Cros and Smith, 1993). It
included discussion of many aspects of archaeology and gender studies
including feminist and gender theory, work places issues, and archaeologi-
cal case studies in both pre- and post-contact Australian archaeology.
Following the success of this meeting further conferences were held in
1993 (Moser, 1993) and in 1995 and more are planned.
Prior to these conferences a number of studies, mostly by women schol-
ars, had explicitly addressed questions of gender in their interpretation of
the Aboriginal past. Australian archaeological journals have also published
papers which allude to gender. A review of this literature demonstrates the
types of gender studies which have been conducted in the context of
Australian Aboriginal archaeology. Much of this work has involved
attempts to identify gender in the archaeological record on the basis of
material culture. Some studies have aimed to identify the presence of
women in the archaeological record. For example, josephine McDonald's
study of the archaeology and rock art at the Great Mackerel rockshelter
near Sydney demonstrated that women, as well as men, were actively
involved in producing art at the site. Art has usually been discussed in the
archaeological literature as a solely male activity. McDonald (1992) inferred
that men, women and children all used the rockshelter on the basis of the
size and shape of hand stencils on the shelter walls, depictions of ethno-
graphically known male and female tools and implements, and the propor-
tions of stone tools, faunal remains and other items of material culture
excavated from deposits in the rockshelter.
Demonstrating that women were present in the past as well as men is not
particularly remarkable, although such studies act to challenge the male
bias implicit in much archaeological research. Of greater theoretical interest
are studies which offer explanation for variability in the archaeological
record in terms of gender relations. An early example is Sandra Bowdler's
Bass Point study (Bowdler, 1976). Here she used ethnographic data about
male and female fishing and food sharing to explain changes in the
midden. Early European accounts suggest that some items of material
culture (for example, shell fish hooks) were exclusively used by Aboriginal
women, while others (for example, bone-tipped, multi-pronged fish spears)
were used only by men. Fragments of these items survive in the archaeolog-
ical record and can be interpreted in terms of gender. Lower midden layers
at the Bass Point site (radiocarbon dated to before about 600 years before
present) contained fish bones but no fish hooks, and large gastropods were
the most frequent shell type. Upper midden layers also contained fish
bones and fish hooks, with mussel shells predominant. She argued that
before 600 years ago all fishing at Bass Point was done by men using spears.
Women used their time to collect large gastropods from the lower tidal
zone. After 600 years ago fish hooks became available and women started
fishing with them. But because of traditional food-sharing obligations
 Sarah Colley 23

women were compelled to hand most of the fish they caught to the men.
Women continued to collect shellfish to feed themselves, but because their
time was now more limited, they stopped collecting large gastropods and
concentrated on mussels which were easier to reach, even though they
were a smaller and less desirable food.
Another important study of gender relations, which has also been
applied to the interpretation of archaeology, is Annette Hamilton's ethno-
graphic study of what she calls 'dual social systems' based on her own
fieldwork among Aboriginal peoples living in the eastern Western Desert in
1970-1 (Hamilton, 1980). In this area male and female economic and reli-
gious life were almost entirely separate, although they articulated in impor-
tant ways. Among other things, men and women made and used different
types of stone tools (i.e. they had different items of material culture).
Hamilton contrasted the heavy chopping stone implements used by
women for manufacturing wooden implements with the finer stone adzes
used by men. She suggested that women's technology is 'a continuation of
the older "core tool and scraper" tradition' which is associated with
Pleistocene settlement in Australia (prior to c.4000 years ago), and that the
technology used by men 'represents a more recent innovation, one which
was not made available to the women' (1980, p. 8). She questioned a sug-
gestion by Rhys Jones (1977) that the new technology of the so-called
'Small Tool Tradition' which appeared across the Australian continent
about 4000 years ago, would have increased extractive efficiency and saved
time spent on subsistence, allowing people to conduct lengthy ceremonies
and ritual gatherings, which are also thought to have developed in the last
few thousand years. She notes that in recent Western Desert societies men
appropriated women's labour in collecting and grinding grass seeds to
finance men's ceremonies. If similar conditions existed 4000 years ago, the
introduction of a new exclusively male technology would have had little
direct impact on men's abilities to hold ceremonies which were financed by
women's labour. Hamilton's notions of 'dual social systems' have been
used by Ian Walters (1988) to explain the differential occurrence of fish
hooks (used either by men, or by women, or not at all) in coastal eastern
Australia over the last 1000 years, and by Sandra Bowdler (1981) in a dis-
cussion of the importance of communal foods and ceremonies in mid-late
Holocene settlement of previously marginal highland areas in eastern and
south-eastern Australia. Gendered material culture observed historically
and ethnographically thus forms the basis of archaeological gendered
interpretations.
Bird (1993) challenges the widespread and previously unquestioned
assumption in the Australian archaeological literature that men hunt and
make stone tools and that women collect plant foods and shells and don't
make stone tools. Such reasoning has been used to argue that women are
'less visible' in the archaeological record than men, because evidence of
24 Gender, Feminism and Australian Archaeology

women's plant collecting activities is less likely to survive archaeologically

than evidence of men's hunting and stone tool manufacture and use. She
cites numerous ethnographic examples of women both making and using
stone tools across Australia and New Guinea. Her study goes further than
simply identifying the presence of women in the archaeological record to
suggest that a consideration of gender roles and relations is necessary to
any meaningful understanding of the way stone tool technology is
organized and how this can be interpreted from the archaeological record.
The other major type of published work are studies which address work
place issues and androcentrism in archaeological interpretation (for
example, Beck and Head, 1990, and various papers in du Cros and Smith,
1993). Many Australian researchers who have written about gender do not
identify as feminists. However the topic of gender is obviously closely allied
to feminism, and many researchers who are interested in gender do adopt
an explicitly feminist approach. Wendy Beck and Lesley Head (1990)
suggest that Australian prehistoric archaeology has long been permeated
with implicit androcentrism in both its theoretical concerns and its prac-
tice. While some researchers (mostly women) have included women in
their interpretations of the past, in general, 'there has been little systematic
feminist influence on either theory or methodology in Australian pre-
history' (1990, p. 41). Why might this be so, and why has there been a
sudden burst of interest in gender and feminism in Australian archaeology
in the 1990s?
The answers to this question are clearly complex and cannot be dealt
with fully here. However, I will discuss briefly some factors which I think
are important, and some reasons why, even though Sandra Bawdier and
others have been writing about gender since the 1970s, such studies have
had minimal impact on 'mainstream' Australian Aboriginal archaeology.
My discussion is relevant to the interpretation of material culture, the role
of ethnography and ethnographic analogy in archaeological interpretation,
and problems raised by adopting feminist approaches to the Aboriginal
past in the current socio-political climate.

The 'culture' of Australian prehistory

Until recently Australian prehistoric archaeology has espoused a particular
set of very masculinist values (Beck and Head, 1990; McKell, 1993). Such
attitudes have combined with a highly conservative theoretical orientation
based on an almost totally uncritical adherence to variations of cultural
materialism and cultural ecology (Thomas, 1981, 1982; Huchet, 1991).
Such modes of explanation view culture as something which allows
humans to adapt to the natural environment, and assumes 'rationality' of
human behaviour based on such things as energy cost minimization. These
approaches emphasize cross-cultural generalizations, large-scale structure
 Sarah Colley 25

and long-term 'dynamics' at the expense of the ideological, social, histori-

cal and contextual.
This intellectual atmosphere has discouraged the development of alter-
native modes of explanation including gendered interpretations for past
changes in material culture and feminist approaches to archaeology as a
whole. Forces from outside and within the discipline have wrought
inevitable changes in recent years, notably: the increasing influence
of Aboriginal people; intellectual movements associated with post-
modernism; and changes to the funding and organization of archaeological
employment.

Social anthropology and Australian archaeology

During the 1960s prehistorians and social anthropologists shared common
interests in traditional Australian Aboriginal society. Australian prehistory
was regarded as a vital field for investigating problems of adaptation and
hunter-gatherer lifestyles (McBryde, 1986, p. 21). Australian social anthro-
pology has undergone radical change in its theoretical orientation since
then, while theoretical approaches in Australian prehistory have hardly
changed. The disciplines have drifted further and further apart, with
implications for the study of both gender and material culture.
Australian social anthropologists have been interested in gender relations
since the 1960s. According to Francesca Merlan (1988) most European
observers have commented on the deeply dichotomous nature of gender
relations in all Aboriginal societies which results in strongly separate men's
and women's roles and domains. However, there are also important
regional differences across Australia in the form and content of gender rela-
tions (Merlan, 1988, p. 26). Most studies of gender have focused on 'tradi-
tional' Aboriginal social practice and have questioned women's status in
relation to men. Are Aboriginal women just different from men, or are they
also disadvantaged in some way? (1988, p. 19). Merlan suggests that ques-
tions so posed are oversimplistic. She advocates studies of gender relations
which consider which aspects of social relations are relevant to the consti-
tution of gender and vice versa, and emphasizes the importance of
studying changes in male-female relations resulting from European colo-
nization. This continuing, although changing, interest in Aboriginal gender
relations among some social anthropologists has not been paralleled
among Australian archaeologists. Social anthropologists have moved
away from ethnography, the study of material culture, and 'traditional'
Aboriginal Australia. Most are more interested in contemporary issues (such
as Land Rights and Aboriginal welfare), in critiques of previous anthro-
pological research and in the transformation of Aboriginal identity as
a product of colonialism. Such concerns are far removed from most
Australian prehistory and archaeology.
26 Gender, Feminism and Australian Archaeology

The role of ethnography in archaeological interpretation

All archaeological studies of Aboriginal gender are based on ethnographic
analogy, and as such are epistemologically unsound. However, so are most
other types of archaeological interpretation (Wylie, 1985; Murray, 1988) so
it is unreasonable to argue that gender-based explanations are any less
'valid' than most other explanations offered in Australian archaeology. The
problems of ethnographic analogy are not unique to Australia, and cannot
be easily resolved. Some Australian archaeologists reject the use of ethno-
graphic analogy. In doing so they seemingly reject 'social' or 'cultural'
explanations, and thereby any possibility of gendered interpretation. This
move away from ethnography by some Australian archaeologists has
undoubtedly hindered the development of gendered interpretations of the
Aboriginal past.
At the same time, most Australian archaeologists have continued to rely
heavily on ethnography. Some have conducted their own ethnoarchaeo-
logical research into material aspects of 'traditional' Aboriginal societies,
owing to lack of interest by anthropologists (for example, studies in
Meehan and Jones, 1988). With the notable exception of Betty Meehan's
study of Anbarra shellfishing in the Northern Territory (Meehan, 1982),
these studies have not been particularly concerned with women or gender
roles, and none of them has addressed gender relations.
The use of ethnography to interpret material culture and gender in the
archaeological record also raises questions about the value and reliability of
information about Aboriginal women and gender contained in accounts
written mostly by upper-class European men in the nineteenth century.
Some of these problems are discussed by Bowdler in her Bass Point study
(Bowdler, 1976). Historical accounts of Aboriginal societies in the region
near the Bass Point site are very scanty, and there are no references to
women collecting shellfish. European observers however describe 'men' or
'people' collecting shellfish - the use of language is ambiguous - and could
include women. Bowdler considers that 'women, except when out in their
canoes on Sydney Harbour, had very low visibility as far as the First Fleeters
were concerned' (1976, p. 253) and one European writer observed that
Aboriginal men took care to keep the women at a distance. However,
women were frequently observed fishing from canoes using traditional
shell fish hooks, while men fished using four-pronged bone-barbed spears.
There are also several accounts of food-sharing obligations where women
gave most of their fish to men.
The following issues raised by Bowdler's study apply equally to most
other gender-based interpretations in Australian Aboriginal archaeology.
Bowdler has created a general model of gender-relations based on in-
complete and culturally biased nineteenth-century accounts and used it to
explain changes in the archaeological record dated to 600 years ago. Her
argument is based on the assumption that gender roles remained static
 Sarah Colley 27

from 600 years ago until the nineteenth century. Archaeology demon-
strates that people first arrived in Australia at least 40 000 years ago and
probably earlier (Flood, 1995). Can we assume that Aboriginal gender roles
and gender relations remained unchanged throughout this time? To what
extent were gender roles observed by nineteenth-century observers already
transformed by European colonization (Colley, 1995)? To what extent were
they 'traditional'? What is 'tradition' in pre- and post-contact Australia? For
example, are nineteenth-century accounts closer to 'tradition' than ethno-
graphies written in the 1970s and 1980s, and therefore more 'valid' as a
source of ethnographic analogy (Robins and Trigger, 1989)? Such questions
apply to all ethnography, of course, not simply to ethnographies about
gender (Murray, 1988, 1992).

Feminism and critical approaches to Aboriginal archaeology

One of the major strengths, and one of the greatest difficulties, of adopting
feminist approaches to archaeology is an ideological commitment to adopt
critical perspectives on what we do - in both theory and practice.
Australian archaeologists who are interested in gender have so far failed to
confront the theoretical problems raised by their largely uncritical applica-
tion of ethnographic analogy. In this, they are no more or less 'guilty' than
other Australian archaeologists -but the situation does beg the question of
what constitutes a 'feminist' approach to archaeology, and the extent to
which Australian studies of gender are 'feminist'? Englestad (1991), Taylor
(1990) and others have defined feminist archaeologies as both questioning
the fundamental intellectual tenets of much 'traditional' archaeology and
as having political aims, to change not only archaeology, but the society in
which people live and work. Following this definition, the only 'feminist'
contributions to Australian archaeology so far are studies which examine
work place issues, and those which document androcentric bias in archaeo-
logical interpretation. In this sense feminist Australian archaeology shares
features in common with Aboriginal challenges to Australian archaeology
(for example, Langford, 1983; Fourmile, 1989; NSW NPWS, 1989; Geering
and Roberts, 1992). There has so far been little consideration of how fem-
inist critiques might articulate with issues of concern to Aboriginal people -
such as racism, Aboriginal control of Aboriginal cultural heritage and the
kinds of interpretations made of the Aboriginal past. Questions of repre-
sentation, and constructions of Aboriginality, are of great interest to
Aboriginal people themselves, and to an increasing number of Australian
academics from a variety of disciplines (Beckett, 1988; Attwood and Arnold,
1992; Thomas, 1994). A major issue is the nature of 'tradition' and public
perceptions of Aboriginality. An Aboriginal person is currently legally
defined as someone who identifies as Aboriginal and is accepted by an
Aboriginal community as such - this is a cultural definition, not a racial
28 Gender, Feminism and Australian Archaeology

one. Non-Aboriginals often define Aboriginality by criteria which are racist

-only 'traditional' Aborigines are 'real', others are not 'really' Aboriginal-
despite their being discriminated against because they are Aboriginal
(for example, see Thomas, 1994, pp. 176-7). Archaeology and gendered
interpretations of the Aboriginal past are relevant to such issues of
representation.
There is a growing feminist literature on the articulation of gender, race,
class and colonialism (for example, Moore, 1988; Bulbeck, 1992; Pettman,
1992; Choo, 1993; Stokke, 1993; Charles, 1994). Henrietta Moore notes
that 'gender is everywhere experienced through the specific mediations of
history, class, race, colonialism and neo-imperialism' (1988, p. 189), and
that a major contribution of feminist anthropology, as opposed to an
'anthropology of women' is to acknowledge differences in women's experi-
ences resulting from these factors. Such arguments are highly relevant to
Australian archaeology in which mostly white, non-Aboriginals, from
middle and upper socio-economic classes study the culture of Aboriginals,
dispossessed by colonialism who, with a few notable exceptions, generally
belong to the lowest European socio-economic class. When gender is added
to this equation further contradictions arise. For example, it would be
extremely naive to assume that Western feminist interpretations of the
Aboriginal past are likely to be any more acceptable to some Aboriginal
people than other Western interpretations. Western feminism and contem-
porary Aboriginal social values do not necessarily coincide. This has impli-
cations for 'acceptable' interpretations of archaeological data, for example,
where Aboriginal people claim that certain traditional places are men's
sacred sites forbidden to women, where archaeological evidence suggests
otherwise (Ucko, 1983). Women archaeologists (Aboriginal and non-
Aboriginal) have been forbidden from visiting or studying such places. Of
the very small number of Aboriginal people employed in archaeology and
heritage management, men currently far outnumber women (Bancroft,
1995). Is this a general feminist issue - or something that Aboriginal
people, or Aboriginal women, need to deal with themselves? Work place
sexual politics are further complicated by inter-cultural and racial politics
surrounding the study of Aboriginal heritage. Such issues are hardly sur-
prising, but few Australian archaeologists have acknowledged or tried to
address them. The focus of much Australian feminist archaeology so far has
been largely self-serving- (non-Aboriginal) Sisters Doing it For Themselves.
The organizers of the 1995 Australian Women in Archaeology Conference,
held in Sydney, made particular efforts to involve Aboriginal women in the
conference, and some of these issues were raised.
Feminist and other critical approaches have the potential to develop a
more sophisticated understanding of the use of ethnography in archaeolog-
ical interpretation, and the meanings we assign to the material culture we
excavate. Archaeological and historical research into European-Aboriginal
 Sarah Colley 29

contact, currently a growing area of Australian archaeology (Reynolds,

1982, 1989; McGrath, 1990; Birmingham, 1992, 1993; Choo, 1993; Murray,
1993; Colley and Bickford, 1995), is one way to assess the impact of
colonialism on Aboriginal gender relations, how this is reflected in material
culture and how we might more reliably use ethnography to interpret pre-
contact Aboriginal Australia (Colley, 1995). As many Australian social
anthropologists have backed away from studies of Aboriginal material
culture, archaeologists interested in the impact of colonialism on
Aboriginal society will probably have to develop their own research in this
field. Such studies are important to both pre- and post-contact Australian
archaeology, not just to Historical Archaeology as traditionally defined
(Colley and Bickford, 1995). They also need to explore links between
gender, race and class. Material culture studies in archaeology which focus
solely on gender in isolation from Aboriginality and colonialism are ulti-
mately meaningless, given the profound transformation of Aboriginal
society under colonialism, and the colonial legacy within which all
Australians currently live and work.

Note
* I am grateful to Anne Bickford for discussing the contents of this chapter with
me.

Bibliography
Attwood, B. and J. Arnold (eds) (1992) Power, Knowledge and Aborigines (Melbourne).
Bancroft, R. (1995) 'Aboriginal Reflections on Reburials', paper presented at the 3rd
Australian Women in Archaeology Conference 'Redefining Archaeology: Feminist
perspectives' (Sydney) (3-5 February).
Beck, W. and L. Head (1990) 'Women in Australian Prehistory', Australian Feminist
Studies, 11, pp. 29-48.
Beckett, J. (ed.) (1988) Past and Present. The constmction of Aboriginality (Canberra).
Bird, C. F. M. (1993) 'Woman the Toolmaker: Evidence for women's use and
manufacture of flaked stone tools in Australia and New Guinea', in H. du Cros
and L. Smith (eds), Women in Archaeology. A feminist critique (Canberra),
pp. 22-30.
Birmingham, J. (1992) Wybalenna: The archaeology of cultural accommodation in
nineteenth-century Tasmania (Sydney).
Birmingham, J. (1993) 'Engendynamics: Women in the archaeological record at
Wybalenna, Flinders Island 1835-1840', in H. du Cros and L. Smith (eds), Women
in Archaeology. A feminist critique (Canberra), pp. 121-8.
Bowdler, S. (1976) 'Hook, Line and Dilly Bag: An interpretation of an Australian
coastal shell midden', Mankind, 10, pp. 248-58.
Bowdler, S. (1981) 'Hunters in the Highlands: Aboriginal adaptations in the eastern
Australian uplands', Archaeology in Oceania, 16, pp. 99-111.
Bulbeck, C. (1992) 'Third World Women. Dialogues with western feminism',
Meanjin, 51(2), pp. 319-32.
30 Gender, Feminism and Australian Archaeology

Charles, C. (1994) 'Sexual Politics and the Mediation of Class, Gender and Race in
Former Slave Plantation Societies: The case of Haiti', in G. C. Bond and A. Gilliam
(eds), Social Construction of the Past. Representation as power (London and New
York), pp. 44-58.
Choo, C. (1993) 'Aboriginal Women's Lives. Implications for Australian historio-
graphy', in P. Hetherington and P. Maddern (eds), Sexuality and Gender in History
(Perth), pp. 78-95.
Clarke, A. (1994). Winds of Change: An archaeology of contact in the Groote Eylandt
Archipelago, Northem Australia, PhD submitted for examination, Department of
Archaeology and Natural History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies,
Australian National University, Canberra.
Colley, S.M. (1995) 'Gender, Colonialism and Ethnoarchaeology in Australia', paper
presented in the 3rd Australian Women in Archaeology Conference 'Redefining
Archaeology: Feminist perspectives', (Sydney), (3-5 February).
Colley, S. M. and A. Bickford (1995) '"Real" Aborigines and "Real" Archaeology:
Aboriginal places and Australian historical archaeology', in C. E. Orser (ed.),
Current Perspectives on Historical Archaeology, World Archaeological Bulletin, 7.
Davidson, I. (1991) 'Notes for a Code of Ethics for Australian Archaeologists Working
with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage', Australian Archaeology, 32,
pp. 61-3.
du Cros, H. and L. Smith (eds) (1993) Women in Archaeology: A feminist critique
(Canberra).
Engelstad, E. (1991) 'Images of Power and Contradiction: Feminist theory and post-
processual archaeology', Antiquity, 66, pp. 502-14.
Flood, J. (1989) "'Tread Softly for you Tread on my Bones": The development of cul-
tural resource management in Australia', in H. Cleere (ed.), Archaeological Heritage
Management in the Modem World (London), pp. 79-101.
Flood, J. (1995) Archaeology of the Dreamtime (Sydney).
Fourmile, H. (1989) 'Aboriginal Heritage Legislation and Self-determination',
Australian-Canadian Studies, 7, pp. 46-61.
Geering, K. and C. Roberts (1992) 'Current Limitations on Aboriginal Involvement in
Aboriginal Site Management in Centralwest and Northwest New South Wales', in
]. Birckhead, T. de Lacy and L. Smith (eds), Aboriginal Involvement in Parks and
Protected Areas (Canberra), pp. 207-14.
Greer, S. (1995) The Accidental Heritage: Archaeology and Identity in Northem Cape York,
unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, James
Cook University, Townsville.
Hamilton, A. (1980) 'Dual Social Systems: Technology, labour and women's secret
rites in the eastern Western Desert of Australia', Oceania, 51, pp. 4-19.
Huchet, B. M. J. (1991) 'Theories and Australian Prehistory: The last three decades',
Australian Archaeology, 33, pp. 44-51.
Jones, R. (1977) 'The Tasmanian Paradox', in R. V. S. Wright (ed.), Stone Tools as
Cultural Markers (Canberra), pp. 189-204.
Langford, R. (1983) 'Our Heritage - Your Playground', Australian Archaeology, 16,
pp. 1-6.
McBryde, I. (1986) 'Australia's Once and Future Archaeology', Archaeology in Oceania,
21, pp. 13-28.
McDonald, J. (1992) 'The Great Mackerel Rockshelter Excavation: Women in the
archaeological record?', Australian Archaeology, 35, pp. 32-50.
McGrath, A. (1990) 'The White Man's Looking Glass: Aboriginal-colonial gender
relations at Port Jackson', Australian Historical Studies, 24(95), pp. 189-206.
 Sarah Colley 31

McKay, M. (1993) 'A Comment on the WAC Code of Ethics', Australian Archaeology,
37, pp. 50-4.
McKell, S. M. (1993) 'An Axe to Grind: More ripping yarns from Australian pre-
history', in H. du Cros and L. Smith (eds), Women in Archaeology. A feminist critique
(Canberra), pp. 115-20.
Meehan, B. (1982) Shell Bed to Shell Midden (Canberra).
Meehan, B. and R. Jones (1988) Archaeology with Ethnography: An Australian perspective
(Canberra).
Merlan, F. (1988) 'Gender in Aboriginal Social Life: A review', in R. M. Berndt and
R. Tonkinson (eds), Social Anthropology and Australian Aboriginal Studies (Canberra),
pp. 15-76.
Moore, H. L. (1988) Feminism and Anthropology (Oxford).
Moser, S. (1993) 'The Women in Archaeology Conference 1993', Australian
Archaeology, 37, pp. 62-3.
Murray, T. (1988) 'Ethnoarchaeology or Palaeoethnology?', in B. Meehan and
R. Jones (eds), Archaeology with Ethnography: An Australian perspective (Canberra),
pp. 1-16.
Murray, T. (1992) 'Aboriginal (Pre) History and Australian Archaeology: The
Discourse of Australian Prehistoric Archaeology', in B. Attwood and]. Arnold (eds),
Power, Knowledge and Aborigines (Melbourne), pp. 1-19.
Murray, T. (1993) 'The Childhood of William Lanne: Contact archaeology and
Aboriginality in Tasmania', Antiquity, 67, pp. 504-19.
New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NSW NPWS) (1989)
Report of the NSW Ministerial Task Force on Aboriginal Heritage and Culture 1989
(Sydney).
Pardoe, C. (1992) 'Arches of Radii, Corridors of Power: Reflections on current archae-
ological practice', in B. Attwood and J. Arnold (eds), Power, Knowledge and
Aborigines (Melbourne), pp. 132-41.
Pettman, ]. (1992) 'Gendered Knowledges: Aboriginal women and the politics of
feminism', in B. Attwood and]. Arnold (eds), Power, Knowledge and Aboriginals
(Melbourne), pp. 120-31.
Reynolds, H. (1982) The Other Side of the Frontier (Ringwood, Victoria).
Reynolds, H. (1989) Dispossession. Black Australians and white invaders (Sydney).
Robins, R. and D. Trigger (1989) 'A Recent Phase of Aboriginal Occupation in Lawn
Hill Gorge: A case study in ethnoarchaeology', Australian Archaeology, 29,
pp. 39-51.
Stokke, V. (1993) 'Is Sex to Gender as Race is to Ethnicity?', in T. del Valle (ed.),
Gendered Anthropology (London and New York), pp. 17-37.
Taylor, S. (1990) 'Brothers in Arms? Feminism, post-structuralism and the "rise of
civilization'", in F. Baker and J. Thomas (eds), Writing the Past in the Present
(Lampeter, St David's University College), pp. 32-41.
Thomas, N. (1981) 'Social Theory, Ecology and Epistemology: Theoretical issues in
Australian prehistory', Mankind, 13(2), pp. 165-77.
Thomas, N. (1982) 'In Lieu of Critical Self-consciousness - Some comments on
Murray and White's version of the history of Australian archaeology', Australian
Archaeology, 14, pp. 1-5.
Thomas, N. (1994) Colonialism's Culture. Anthropology, travel and govemment
(Cambridge).
Truscott, M. and L. Smith, (1993) 'Some Descriptive Statistics of Permanent
Employment in Australian Archaeology', in H. du Cros and L. Smith (eds), Women
in Archaeology. A feminist critique (Canberra), pp. 217-21.
32 Gender, Feminism and Australian Archaeology

Ucko, P. ]. (1983) 'Australian Academic Archaeology. Aboriginal transformations of

its aims and practices', Australian Archaeology, 14, pp. 1-5.
Walters, I. (1988) 'Fish Hooks: Evidence for dual social systems in southeastern
Australia?', Australimz Archaeology, 27, pp. 98-114.
Wylie, A. (1985) 'The Reaction Against Analogy', Advances in Archaeological Method
and Theory, 8 (New York), pp. 63-111.
3
A Sexist Present, a Human-less Past:
Museum Archaeology in Greece*
Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou

Introduction
The study of the past has largely been an appraisal of androcentrism. Public
awareness of what constitutes gender roles in earlier cultures is inextricably
bound with contemporary social asymmetries. Modern inequalities are pro-
jected into mainstream archaeological explanations via male-biased and
often ethnocentric assumptions which proliferate both in scientific and in
popularized literature. Biased scholarship lays emphasis on the alleged
superiority of men while the status of women is systematically obscured,
played down or even completely ignored. Furthermore, the use of discrimi-
native language in archaeological discourse (Evans, 1990), the prejudiced
professional stereotypes displayed to the public, and the greater chances
often given to male archaeologists for career advancement, as will be
discussed below, all contribute to the reproduction of a sexist past and by
extension, to the justification of a sexist present.
It goes without saying that museum exhibitions specifically of material
culture have promoted such a distorted image (Chabot, 1990; Jones and
Pay, 1990; Pirie, 1985; Porter, 1987, 1988; WHAM! 1984, 1985). Although it
is acknowledged that 'museum objects on public display, with all forms of
accompanying information, should present a clear, accurate and balanced
exposition ... and must never mislead' (Museums Association, 1983, p. 4),
this principle is difficult to apply in practical terms. Museum archaeology,
either unconsciously or deliberately, focuses on those aspects of the histor-
ical heritage and on categories of artefacts that it assumes most members of
the public are really interested in, and on those that reconfirm accepted
cultural values. As has been aptly remarked,

every acquisition (and indeed disposal), every juxtaposition or arrange-

ment of an object or work of art, together with other objects or works of
33
34 Museum Archaeology in Greece

art, within the context of a temporary exhibition or museum display

means placing a certain construction upon history, be it the history of
the distant or more recent past, of our own culture or someone else's, of
mankind in general or a particular aspect of human endeavour. Beyond
the captions, the information panels, the accompanying catalogue, the
press handout, there is a subtext comprising innumerable diverse, often
contradictory strands, woven from the wishes and ambitions, the intel-
lectual or political or social or educational aspirations and preconcep-
tions of the museum director, the curator, the scholar, the designer, the
sponsor- to say nothing of the society, the political or social or educa-
tional system which nurtured all these people and in doing so left its
stamp upon them. (Vergo, 1989, pp. 2-3)

Our visions of the past are never value-free, and any attempt to recreate
it with certainty is equated with what has been described as 'idealist fiction'
(Shanks and Tilley, 1987, p. 13). Reconstructing past human interaction in
a museum, in this case gender roles, unavoidably results in the production
of incomplete or even false images, because the original context of the arte-
facts is altered by means of selection, juxtaposition and display. In the
course of such processes the archaeological record tends to acquire a new
meaning (Horne, 1984; Leone, 1981a, 1981b).
This chapter addresses some issues of Greek museum practice with refer-
ence to gender. From a historical perspective the development of the disci-
pline is first discussed in the context of a pronounced ethnocentrism which
encouraged androcentric biases in data collection and exhibition. Second,
we consider the lack of any explicit gender discourse from both the episte-
mologies and professional practices of Greek archaeologists, as one aspect
only of the largely atheoretical character of archaeology in this country. At
the same time gender tensions are pointed out with regard to career struc-
ture, and are highlighted by means of case studies in museum displays of
material culture. Finally, we suggest alternative strategies which would
involve gender-inclusive representations of the past and aim at an inter-
active museum-public relationship.

Museology in Greece: some remarks

Before setting out to search for gender in Greek museums, it must be made
clear that in Greece museology is just beginning to develop, contrary to
Anglo-Saxon countries where it has already been established as an indepen-
dent branch of the discipline and has begun to incorporate feminist cri-
tique (Glaser and Zenetou, 1994). There are as yet no specialized university
courses and degrees in museology, most studies on museums and education
in Greek literature have appeared after 1980, and it is only during the last
few years that educational programmes and special conferences promoting
new approaches to cultural heritage have been undertaken (Archaiologia,
 Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou 35

16, 1985, 38, 1991, 52, 1994; CECA Annual Conference, 1991; Proceedings
of the First Meeting in Museology, 1987). Moreover, with the exception of
some university collections and private museums, all public archaeological
museums come under the auspices of the Archaeological Service, a state
institution responsible for the excavation, preservation, presentation and
administrative management of all the monuments in the country. In this
way museum policies have always been highly dependent on the needs of
field archaeology, on the one hand, and the ideological priorities of the
state bureaucracy, on the other. At the same time questions of preservation
and exhibition have until very recently been considered less important
than excavation and data collection. This can be understood, though not
thoroughly justified, in a country so overwhelmingly rich in antiquities
that the recovery of the archaeological material from the ground has been
of the most demanding urgency. The Archaeological Service constitutes the
major domain for the practice of the discipline in Greece, indeed the only
work place available apart from the relatively few academic positions that
also exist. It would therefore be helpful to consider gender tensions in the
discipline itself and professional practice of Greek archaeology first, in
order to better understand relevant biases in museology.

An ethnocentric paradigm, an androcentric discipline:

historical and social background
Archaeological research in Greece has shared an international male-centred
academic tradition (Kokkinidou and Nikolaidou, 1993). In the spirit of eth-
nocentrism, as will be outlined below, a scholarly male chauvinism (cf.
Braithwaite, 1982) has been a dominant feature in Greek archaeology. It is
often the case that nationalistic prejudices generate gender biases in that
they overemphasize particular aspects of the past, arbitrarily assigning
them research priority (Conkey and Williams, 1991; Gero and Root, 1990).
In Europe, the association of nationalism and sexism can be traced back to
the emergence of the modern ethnic states (Mosse, 1985) as a result of lib-
eration wars. Under these circumstances the ideal of the triumphant nation
became synonymous with the ideal of strength and masculinity.
In Greece the male-biased tradition of the humanities also has its roots in
the nineteenth century, when the modern Greek state came into being
after the War of Independence in 1821. A national consciousness was then
modelled, based on the concept of the historical continuity of Hellenism
from ancient times, through the Byzantine era and the following period of
Ottoman occupation, to the establishment of freedom (Svoronos, 1981,
pp. 58-69). This idea, in common with so many other variants of ethno-
centrism in post-Napoleonic Europe (Hobsbawm, 1990), relied on histori-
cist presuppositions. The integration of history in the official ideology of
the newly founded state was meant to serve political strategies, specifically,
36 Museum Archaeology in Greece

to justify irredentist claims over the Greek-inhabited lands that were still
under Turkish rule. As part of this tradition, archaeology has been active in
the documentation of cultural descent and continuity, thus contributing
substantially to the construction of an ideal of national community embed-
ded in the concept of 'Greekness' (Svoronos, 1983, p. 62). Within the
context of state patronage (Kokkou, 1977, pp. 39-46; Petrakos, 1982,
pp. 16-19), classical antiquities were soon to acquire major symbolic
significance for the new Greek kingdom. The glorification of a 'powerful
past' (Kotsakis, 1991) vis-a-vis a 'humble' present (Kokkinidou, 1993, p. 54),
inspired by romantic and classicist ideas (Lowenthal, 1990, Morris, 1994;
Tsigakou, 1981), has led to the legitimation of a 'misty' and therefore 'ahis-
torical' (Kokkinidou, 1993, p. 54) past, 'our national heritage'. The research
paradigm was well defined and pointed toward one direction only: that of
diachronic continuity from prehistory to the present. As a consequence
very little attention was paid to any other aspect of material culture than
what was considered to prove the glory of the Greeks (Kotsakis, 1991,
p. 67).
The same principles of unbroken historical continuity permeate the
foundation of the first Greek museums in the nineteenth century which
came under the auspices of the state (Avgouli, 1994; Kokkou, 1977, 1988).
A harmony between the location of a museum and the city's ancient
monuments was obviously sought, and the neo-classical style unanimously
adopted in early museum architecture was in accordance with the
'classical ideal' of the time (Filippidis, 1984, pp. 69-103). The National
Archaeological Museum in Athens, the work of the German architect
Ludwig Lange in 1866 (Andronikos, 1974, p. 19; Avgouli, 1994, p. 254), is a
characteristic example of such aesthetic trends with its porticoed facade
and columned main entrance which imitates that of an ancient Greek
temple. In addition, the arrangement of the displays was designed to
demonstrate the artistic quality of the exhibits, without consideration of
their socio-historical context. The fact that a considerable portion of the
early museum acquisitions came from private collections further encour-
aged emphasis on the exceptional'piece' rather than on context. A histori-
cally meaningful arrangement of the exhibits in the museum was seriously
hampered by the particular preferences of each donor, so that a fragmen-
tary picture was almost inevitable. Moreover, the display of the 'richest'
and 'finest' items collected or excavated reinforced ideas about the political
power of the dominant class and legitimized social structures and national
policies, via the material culture remains selected and promoted.
From the above it becomes clear that the glorified national heritage has
been conceived and reconstructed as a predominantly 'heroic' culture,
whereby the protagonistic roles - be it military acts or political, literary and
artistic accomplishments- have been unquestionably ascribed to men. In
historical-archaeological narratives and in museum galleries there has been
 Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou 37

little space left for everyday life, social interaction, or gender dynamics.
Such questions do not seem to have interested scholars, at least those
responsible for decision-making, for a long titne, probably because they
were seen as unnecessary complications and discomforting deviations from
the sanctioned norm of Greekness. Instead, the ahistorical past has been
created as 'faceless' (Kokkinidou, 1993, p. 54), indeed human-less and,
specifically, it has been gendered androcentric (d. Conkey with Williams
1991, p. 103).

Gender in Greek archaeology?

Before attempting an answer to this question, the idiosyncratic character of
Greek archaeology, as compared to other Western archaeologies, should
briefly be outlined. The rigidly nationalistic spirit of the discipline, as
described above, reinforced by an 'imperialist' (Kotsakis, 1991, p. 66) inter-
national concern for classical or prehistoric antiquities ('the roots of
Western civilization' - Tsigakou, 1981; cf. Gill and Chippindale, 1993,
pp. 647-9) has hardly allowed for any other epistemological possibilities in
analysis and interpretation. Moreover, the tight connection of archaeology
with the state and its political strategies has not promoted independent
developments in archaeological thought. The ethnocentric construct has
been so powerful and self-sufficient that 'it literally legitimized the absence
of any theoretical discussion' (Kotsakis, 1991, p. 68). No wonder, then, that
Greek archaeology has until recently remained indifferent to the theoret-
ical questions that have been monitoring study in other countries, such as
Britain, France and the United States.
Admittedly significant progress has been made since the 1980s, mainly
under the influence of Marxism and processual archaeology (Kotsakis,
1991; cf. Zois, 1990). However, when it comes to engendering and peopling
the past it is clear that Greek archaeology has not yet 'lost its innocence'.
What is perhaps most striking are not gender biases, which no doubt exist,
but rather the complete lack of gender awareness, be it gender as a research
tool or as a guideline for professional ethics and educational strategies. For
example, no standardized term equivalent to the word 'gender' is as yet to
be found in the Greek literature! Because of this conceptual hiatus a gender
critique of Greek archaeology cannot be applied in the same way as it has
been developed in countries like Britain and the United States, where active
feminist archaeology is developing a political profile. Despite the fact that
some early women professionals were openly sympathetic to 'militant' suf-
frage (Nikolaidou and Kokkinidou, 1998), archaeology and feminism have
been leading parallel but incompatible lives. Any official connection of
archaeologists with the feminist movement, which has been active in
the Greek social and political arena for more than a century (Moschou-
Sakoraffou, 1990; Samiou, 1992; Stamiris, 1986), is unknown. It may be the
38 Museum Archaeology in Greece

case that because the feminist movement in Greece has not been as
militant as in other Western countries, nor has it until recently developed
an autonomous and clearly defined agenda, it has not exerted any pro-
found influence on academia as a whole. Anyhow a consciously feminist
discourse has never been formulated by women archaeologists as a group,
which is not surprising given that no courses on gender and women's
studies are taught in the universities (see, for example, Othigos Spoudon,
1994-5). Contrary to the growing interest for the incorporation of gender
in related fields like social and educational history (see Avdela, 1991) and
cultural anthropology (see Papataxiarchis and Paradelis, 1992), feminist
work in archaeology is still extremely rare (see Kokkinidou and Nikolaidou,
1993).
With the above in mind we can discuss gender, or rather the absence of
it, the potential for gender studies to become a worthwhile issue in Greek
archaeology and cultural resource management, and the prospects of
change. For this purpose, it is necessary to demonstrate the various overt or
'underground' ways in which androcentrism has been operating in the
discipline. We are concerned with male biases as experienced both by
professional archaeologists in their work and by the public, via museum
practices.

The archaeology of pioneer women in Greece

A growing number of investigations in Europe and the New World has
strongly supported the empirical observation that archaeology is still a
difficult place for women. Despite the increasing number of female gradu-
ates over the last decades, statistical surveys have pointed to an over-
representation of men in attainment of higher degrees, research, funding,
publishing and job opportunities (Claassen, 1994; du Cros and Smith,
1993; Gilchrist, 1991, pp. 496). In terms of research policies, we can often
observe a task differentiation between the sexes in that men usually accom-
plish the so-called 'basic' fieldwork and women are occupied with 'sub-
sidiary' post-excavation specializations. This practice can be traced back as
early as the nineteenth century (Hinsley, 1989, pp. 88, 94; but see counter-
arguments in Beard, 1994).
No detailed comparative evidence about male and female participation is
as yet available from Greece. Nevertheless, experience shows that in this
country, too, there have been discriminations against women both in the
Archaeological Service and in academia. To begin with, from the founda-
tion of the first state museum in Greece in 1829 until 1960, most ephors
(a rank equivalent to keeper) and curators of antiquities have been men-
93 men versus 22 women (Petrakos, 1982, pp. 98-101). There has been
only one woman ever in the post of the General Director of Antiquities,
and this after 1982 (cf. Petrakos 1982, p. 102). Although the promotion of
the first women to the post of the Ephor of Antiquities as early as 1930 was
 Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou 39

greeted by the prominent activist Avra Theodoropoulou as a 'feminist

victory' (see Avdela and Psarra, 1985, p. 275), these 'victories' were soon to
be terminated by the dictatorship of Metaxas in 1936. In this period a law
was enacted excluding women from the Archaeological Service as part of
general gender discriminations within the public sector (Avdela, 1990,
p. 149). With a few exceptions during the war and early post-war period,
there were no female entrants in the Archaeological Service until the law in
question was eventually abolished in 1955. Act 1947 of 1939 established
that 'Only male graduates of Philology are appointed as curators on the
grade and salary of 1st class Secretary'. The law also provided for the profes-
sional stagnation of those few female archaeologists:

The female contingent already on staff shall continue in the Service but
shall not under any circumstances be permitted to undertake the direc-
tion of museums or ephorates ... Should female members of the acade-
mic staff happen to be married, they must take obligatory retirement
after completing 25 years of public service. (Petrakos, 1982, p. 52)

Nevertheless, legislative inequality and social prejudice did not prevent

early women archaeologists pursuing a noteworthy career, partly as excava-
tors but mainly as museum curators. While their male colleagues were out
on the dig, directing prestigious projects (see Archaiologikon Deltion, 1-15;
Praktika tis en Athinais, Archaiologikis Hetaireias 1920-1950), women
worked hard in the management of major museums, such as the National
Archaeological Museum and the National Museum of Decorative Arts (cur-
rently Museum of Greek Folk Art) and published significant material from
the collections (Nikolaidou and Kokkinidou, 1998). They were also active
in events aiming at the wider public, such as the lectures organized by the
Lyceum of Greek women where Anna Apostolaki, a specialist on ancient
and folk textiles, took part (Ziogou-Karastergiou, 1993, pp. 354, 393-4).
This is an interesting case of how, unconsciously or deliberately, women
managed to subvert from the inside a biased policy that restricted them to
'archaeological housework' (Gero, 1985), and turned Greek museums into
an arena of significant female activity. Most outstanding among the pion-
eers was Semni Papaspyridi-Karouzou, the first woman to be admitted in
the Archaeological Service in 1921 (Petrakos, 1982, p. 100). For many years
she was director of the Pottery Collection of the National Archaeological
Museum in Athens, where she devoted herself to the painstaking task of
identifying, recording and redisplaying this vast material, at the same time
publishing extensively on ancient Greek ceramics (for example, Karouzou
1954, p. 1963). An eminent scholar of humanist education, she was also a
woman of important ethnic and social contribution: it was she and
her husband, Christos Karouzos, the Director of the National Museum,
who during the Second World War took the initiative of burying all the
40 Museum Archaeology in Greece

antiquities of the Museum to protect them, and reorganized the exhibi-

tions after the war (Karouzou, 1984a). Reinstallation was made possible
largely thanks to the careful and detailed records of the Museum's sculp-
tures, bronzes and vases that Semni had earlier compiled (see Karouzou,
1927). Similar 'invisible services' (Karouzou, 1984b, p. 27) in Eretria also
proved valuable for safely burying the objects in those museums. Semni
Karouzou's vivid interest in the educational role of archaeological heritage
is evident, among other things, in several guides of the National Museum
that she wrote (see bibliography in Karouzou, 1984a).

Career structure and work place today

The number of women archaeologists in Greece has been dramatically
increasing since the 1950s. Modern legislation offers equal opportunities to
men and women for pursuing an archaeological career, without any dis-
crimination between the sexes in payment and promotion. In fact the
Archaeological Service is nowadays staffed with a female majority- 274
women out of 359 tenured archaeologists - and many women hold the
posts of curators and ephors (Ministry of Culture, Records of Archaeological
Service Staff, 1994). On the other hand, university positions are less accessi-
ble to women than to men, at least as regards the upper levels of the
academic hierarchy (Nikolaidou and Kokkinidou, 1998). This differentiated
participation should be judged in relation to a basic distinction bet-
ween the two institutions in terms of working conditions and status. The
Archaeological Service, because of its administrative function, is unable to
act as a pioneer in scholarly advance (Kotsakis, 1993). An overwhelming
amount of archaeological material, usually the 'harvest' of rescue excava-
tions conducted with limited funds and under time pressure, is amassed in
the museum storerooms. Often, however, no time or energy is left for sys-
tematic study, let alone for applying 'avant-guard' epistemologies like
gender critique. The tough reality faced by the Service staff also involves a
rigid bureaucracy, not to mention the negative attitude of the public who
frequently see cultural resource management as an obstacle to 'develop-
ment', namely uncontrolled building activity and touristic exploitation. On
the other hand, the university has been the agent of innovations in theory
and practice, since academics can afford more time and facilities for
research field projects and post-excavation analysis. Equally important, aca-
demic jobs are considered more prestigious than work in the Service.
In this respect, one may speak about gender-biased task differentiation in
the archaeological profession: men feature prominently in the more
promising positions, whereas women are more often charged with the
responsibilities of the 'archaeological housework' (Gero, 1985, p. 344; cf.
Clarke, 1993). Certainly the latter is not a minor accomplishment, because
the 'housework' has to run smoothly if more 'advanced' research is to be
carried out effectively. However, it does not always receive enough credit.
 Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou 41

The unequal evaluation of archaeological work conducted in (male-

dominated) academia and in (female-dominated) Archaeology Service,
respectively, may have to do, partly at least, with a marked sex division in
the professional choices of Greeks after the Second World War (for
example, Deligianni-Kouimtzi, 1993). One wonders if it is accidental that
women began to 'populate' the Service when the profession became less
prestigious than it used to be. As a result of the urbanization, 'westerniza-
tion' and technological development that burst out in the country after
the 1950s, tradition became synonymous with conservatism, and the
study of the past an 'unproductive' enterprise. Thus men turned to
sciences and 'modern' money-making jobs, leaving the ground free for
women to study at what soon became known as 'female' faculties, that is
Humanities (including classics and archaeology), Religious Studies,
Education and Social Sciences (Deligianni-Kouimtzi, 1993, p. 314). One
suspects then that, precisely because these fields were from then on con-
sidered as 'second-rank', it became relatively easy for women to join them
in great numbers. Academia remained the only exception, perhaps because
university positions never lost their high prestige and therefore were
keenly sought by men.
In this context, the post-1950s favourable legislative changes did not
automatically result in a balance between the sexes in the archaeological
profession, but rather contributed toward an ambiguous status for the
modern Greek woman archaeologist. While we cannot deny the advantages
of equal opportunities in payment and career advancement, the high male
proportions in academia do perpetuate a gender imbalance in terms of
prestige and scholarly possibilities. Undoubtedly, there are a lot of powerful
women in the Service, and many of them pursue original research. Still,
women's numerical'superiority' in general has to be judged against what is
offered to men, which is usually more. The mere fact that most Service
high officials are women does not say much, since the overwhelming
majority of Archaeology graduates are women. We should rather note that
within the Service itself the number of men in high-ranked positions is still
relatively large - 66 out of 85 men in total (Ministry of Culture, Records of
Archaeological Service Staff, 1994).
In short, women archaeologists in Greece, more than their male
colleagues, are trapped in a double net of gender discriminations. To begin
with, they have as students been introduced to the discipline via an ethno-
centric and androcentric perception of the past which is dictated by male
prejudices in academia (d. Hamilakis, 1993). As professionals, they are fre-
quently subject to overt or covert sexist assumptions and strategies that are
so deeply rooted as to appear self-evident. It would thus come as no sur-
prise that archaeology, via material culture, promotes to the public an idea
of the past that is entirely consistent with our - the archaeologists' and the
public's- biased present.
42 Museum Archaeology in Greece

Museum practice
As has been noted already, archaeological museums in Greece have
functioned primarily as art-historic collections of impressive discoveries
(cf. Papadopoulos, 1986) with emphasis on objects of the classical period
(for example, Nikolaidou and Touloumis, 1993). Most of them, including
the major museums of Athens, Thessaloniki and Herakleion, are still
structured according to nineteenth-century ideas of rigid taxonomies and
classification, whereby it was accepted that artefacts should be explained in
a consistent, unitary and linear manner. The material on display is usually
divided into sculpture, pottery, jewellery and so forth, and accommodated
in category-specific galleries. In this respect, Greek museums have failed to
promote any innovative strategy, namely to employ an explicit interpretive
methodology and facilitate the flow of information through archaeological
exhibits (Chourmouziadis, 1980, 1984; Mavropoulou-Tsioumi, 1991,
pp. 23-4; Pantos, 1985; Tsaravopoulos, 1983, 1985). As a consequence,
little progress has been made toward a viewer-exhibit interaction which
would encourage the public to develop an interest in the museum.
Nevertheless, there are some exceptions. Most remarkable among them
are the prehistoric galleries in the Archaeological Museum of Volos
in Thessaly, organized in the 1970s by the Ephor, Professor George
Chourmouziadis (Chourmouziadis, 1976), the first to adopt current
archaeological theory in Greece (Kotsakis, 1991, pp. 76-80). The finds from
Neolithic sites in the area are arranged in a functional fashion in order to
reconstruct their original setting: for instance, groups of various pots are
placed in household-like shelves rather than being grouped according to a
chronological-typological order, and microlithic blades have been inserted
in modem reproductions of ancient sickles (see also examples in
Theocharis, 1973, Figures 119-20, 245-6, 273). Even in this contextual
display, gender is still missing as a fundamental category of archaeological
analysis and interpretation. This is because in the spirit of New Archaeology
and Marxist discourse which were advocated by Chourmouziadis, the prime
concern has been to illuminate the techno-economic and material infra-
structure of ancient cultures. Indeed social relations and particularly their
symbolic manifestations, were assumed to be inaccessible to archaeological
inquiry, and by extension, uninteresting for the public.
If the Volos Museum has, at least, succeeded in making the prehistoric
record familiar and interesting, in other cases, everyday activities are ren-
dered in a way which in effect reproduces androcentric views regarding
sexual differences and the division of labour. Characteristic of this pattern
is the Petralona Cave in Chalkidiki, one of the earliest Palaeolithic sites in
Greece, where reconstructions of early human behaviour show women
active in food preparation and men consuming the products of hunting. In
Greek museums, as in most exhibitions around the world, representation of
the remote past has essentially been an explicit or implicit celebration of
 Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Niko/aidou 43

the roan-the-toolmaker stereotype (cf. Moser, 1993). At the same time the
activity of the other sex is all too easily dismissed by means of uncritically
applied ethnographic analogies, whereby women's preoccupation with
domestic tasks has already taken the form of male suppression and their
elimination in the household.
The assumptions about women's non-participation in history are even
more striking when it comes to better documented periods, from the Late
Bronze Age onward. For instance, little room has been left for female activ-
ity in the reconstructions of the Mycenaean palace at Pylos which are
exhibited in the Chora Museum and illustrated in the site guide and other
popularized works about the palace (for example, Branigan and Vickers,
1980, pp. 78-9). In the 'megaron' we see the enthroned king surrounded by
male officials only, and in the porticoed court in front of the Throne Room
men move about and interact while some women are just watching from
the galleries of the upper story. On the basis of luxurious toiletry items
fallen from the upper floor, the excavators believed that women's appart-
ments were located upstairs, apart from the official sector (Blegen and
Rawson, 1966, pp. 168-9), and suggested that the ladies of the palace would
watch public events from the distance (Blegen and Rawson, 1966, p. 193).
One is tempted to see in this interpretation, and concomittant illustrations,
a strong influence by modern stereotypes coupled with the Homeric aristo-
cratic 'decorum' prescribing women's and men's dominance in the private
and public spheres, respectively. Such biases also become evident in the
absence from the museum of any information about the archaeological
evidence on the activities of Pylos women, which would counterbalance
the passive image of the 'lady on the balcony'. Visitors should learn that
clay tablets from the palace archives, such as those on display, speak about
powerful priestesses with a pronounced role in communal affairs
(Chadwick, 1976, pp. 77, 114), as well as mentioning extensively the work
of numerous 'humble' women in the flourishing textile industries of the
palace (Chadwick, 1988; Killen, 1988).
Although female images feature prominently in most exhibitions - on
frescoes, glyptic art, pottery scenes and so forth - they make their appear-
ance in an artificially constructed spatial and temporal framework where
the emphasis lies on the aesthetic facets of the culture represented. Several
Mycenaean frescoes depicting attractive females are on display in the
Chora Museum and the Athens Archaeological Museum, but hardly any
comment is to be found on the status of these women or their often puz-
zling postures and actions. While in Mycenaean art men often appear in
scenes easily recognizable by the modern spectator - such as hunting,
chariot races, warfare (for example, Andronikos, 1974, Figure 40)- female
iconography is more ambiguous to our eyes. Are the bejewelled, often bare-
breasted, figures (for example, Andronikos, 1974, Figure 41; Branigan and
Vickers, 1980, p. 86) goddesses, priestesses, prostitutes or ordinary women?
44 Museum Archaeology in Greece

It is in such cases that the public should have the assistance of the
'experts'. It would be interesting to tell people that some powerful female
personage(s) called 'Potnia' ('Lady') occurs frequently on administrative and
religious Mycenaean texts (Chadwick, 1976, pp. 91-3), but her identity is
still problematic. Does the name refer to a goddess/goddesses or to the
queen herself, in which case we have interesting evidence for the active
role of high-ranked women in the socio-economic functions of central
authority (see Chadwick, 1985, p. 195; Shelmerdine, 1985)? Although the
'original' material is in the museum, the public is deprived of the opportu-
nity to find out about the life and ideologies of Mycenaean people as can
be deduced from the splendid artefacts on display. In the galleries of the
National Archaeological Museum which accommodate the finds from 'rich-
in-gold' (Mylonas, 1983) Mycenaean sites, one would with difficulty catch
a glimpse of ancient men, women and children amidst an overwhelming
but decontextualized presentation of gold, finery and emblemic weaponry.
No text explains when, how and why these items were used and by whom
(cf. Lapourtas and Dimitrakaki, 1993, p. 91, Figures 5-6). It is not men-
tioned, for example, that jewellery occurs in male Mycenaean graves as well
(see Graziadio, 1991), so that visitors need to infer from modern experience
according to which men carry weapons and women wear trinkets.
The opportunity to give faces to ancient burials is once more missed in
the exhibition of finds from the rich archaic and classical cemetery at
Sindos, Northern Greece, in the Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum. The
site, systematically excavated in the 1980s by the Curator Katerina Despini,
yielded an exceptionally well preserved and highly variable assemblage of
adult and child burials, male and female. Nevertheless, neither the captions
in the showcases nor the otherwise excellent exhibition catalogue (Sindos,
1985) help us to appreciate the personal preferences or cultural principles
underlying any gender, age or status associations of the grave goods. We
are not told, for instance, that in ancient Greece 'mirrors and even earrings
are not necessarily unmasculine, that adults keep their toys, even that some
women might wash or exercise and use strigils' (Kurtz and Boardman,
1971, p. 209).
The above examples show clearly that the human-less character of Greek
museum displays is not limited to the absence of women only, but also
extends to male or any other genders that may have existed in antiquity,
and certainly does not pay enough attention to children. If throughout our
account we have emphasized the neglect of women, it is because, in our
view, this particular omission echoes biases concerning female 'passivity'
versus male 'hyperactivity' in the course of human history. A last, but not
least, aspect of the (assumed) 'invisibility' of women regards female archae-
ologists whose presence and contribution can hardly be traced in a
museum gallery. Not that the work of the professional, man or woman, in
the process of building up an exhibition from the excavated material
 Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou 45

culture has ever been deemed a subject important enough to reach the
wider public. However, when any mention is made to the 'specialist',
eminent male archaeologists are more easily remembered than eminent
female archaeologists! To give a striking example, Semni Karouzou is not
mentioned in a lavish and quite informative volume on Greek museums
(Andronikos, 1974) while special reference is made to outstanding men,
namely Christos Tsountas and Panagiotis Kavvadias, who played a major
role in the history of the National Museum. Whereas we read about the
burial of the antiquities during the Second World War (Andronikos, 1974,
p. 19), nothing specific is said about Semni Karouzou and her husband
whose patriotic role was internationally recognized. Although we cannot
claim that in every case female achievements are deliberately obscured, the
fact remains that the low-key activity of women is taken for granted by
archaeologists themselves and also by lay people who receive information
from the museum displays and guides written by the archaeologists. In this
way the public forms a sexist impression of archaeological endeavour mod-
elled after the debatable image of 'cowboy archaeologist' (Woodall and
Perricone, 1981). This is such a deeply rooted social assumption that
neither specialists nor their audience seem to be troubled by it.

Alternative strategies: advance and change

Despite its indisputable contribution to the protection and preservation of
the country's monuments, contemporary Greek archaeology as an indige-
nous enterprise has so far fallen behind the original approaches to data
interpretation that have been established in the discipline since the 1960s,
including gender theory. Undoubtedly, reluctance to apply feminist ques-
tioning has been a more general phenomenon: in European and American
archaeologies such issues have been introduced relatively recently (Wylie,
1991), especially in the study of Classical Antiquity (Brown, 1993). It is
therefore important that archaeology on an international scale incorpor-
ates a rigorous, gender-inclusive epistemological framework as a basic tenet
of its theory and practice. This nowadays implies far more than introducing
women to scholars and the wider audience with 'remedial' intentions. The
entire image of the past has to be radically transformed, from a human-less
intellectual construct to the interpretation of an engendered- female, male
or other - historical process. Accordingly, specialists need to revise
parochial museum practices if they are to address the public in terms of a
gender-conscious discourse.
Greek museum archaeology is in a favourable position to meet this chal-
lenge, having available an extremely rich material that largely derives from
systematic excavations and safe archaeological contexts and therefore with
great potential information about ancient social structures, including
gender identities. The high artistic quality of many exhibits, together with
46 Museum Archaeology in Greece

the remarkable stylistic variability - geographical and chronological - in

the material record as a whole, can prove excellent tools for teaching the
audience what the 'reality of art' can tell us about the social environment
in a given historical period. In addition, most archaeological museums
accommodate artefacts covering a considerable time period, from
Prehistory to Late Antiquity, so that a visit to the galleries can become a
fascinating and informative trip throughout human history in this part of
the world. For this purpose the exhibits have to be arranged in such a way
as to illuminate both common underlying principles and cultural plurality
in the contexts of Helladic prehistory and Greek antiquity. In order to
show what can be achieved if museum exhibitions are willing to incorpor-
ate current theoretical approaches and recent interpretive research on
material culture, we have chosen three examples: Minoan and Cycladic
anthropomorphic figurines, the Minoan 'Priest-King' fresco, and Athenian
decorated pottery.

Engendering bronze age figurines

Cretan museums, especially the one in Herakleion, house interesting col-
lections of male and female anthropomorphic figurines, clay and bronze,
which date from the Early Bronze to the end of the Late Bronze Age
(Verlinden, 1984). Several have been found in various contexts within
palaces and other buildings, but the majority come from open-air public
shrines (peak sanctuaries, caves and sacred enclosures), and have therefore
unanimously been interpreted as effigies of votaries. A recent detailed study
of a group of such statuettes, formerly in the Metaxas Collection, dating
from the Protopalatial and Neopalatial periods (ca. 1900-1450 BC) has
pointed to significant stylistic differences between men and women (Pilali-
Papasteriou, 1992). While Protopalatial female figurines exhibit a standard-
ized attire and headdress, males are depicted in a variety of dress and
attributes, such as shoes, jewellery and daggers. It is suggested, then, that
the more or less homogeneous appearance of the female images accentu-
ates some kind of collective identity, which is interpreted as a possible cor-
relate of traditional lineage organization where women might have enjoyed
a prominent position as agents of group cohesion. On the other hand,
emphasis on individual roles, as manifested in the diversified appearance of
men, would make sense in the context of an emergent social stratification
as a result of the foundation of a palatial system. On this basis attention is
drawn to the interplay of long-standing (matrocentric?) traditions and
political innovations in Protopalatial society, as well as to the role of style
as symbolic code for the transmission of important messages regarding
affiliations and gender-related roles (Pilali-Papasteriou, 1992, pp. 167-182).
In contrast, in the Second Palace period both male and female iconogra-
phy focuses on individual differentiations, as can be most characteristically
seen in the highly diverse hairstyles of women. This shift from the collec-
 Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou 47

tive to the individual, and the adoption of what used to be a primarily

'male' visual idiom for the construction of the female image as well, is
interpreted as an indication of sharper social distinctions than before.
Pilali-Papasteriou (1992, pp. 175-7) plausibly argues that in the New Palace
period social cohesion was maintained by means of centralized political
control rather than through ritual activity, and consequently the ideologi-
cal importance of female imagery for the reinforcement of collective feel-
ings seems to have considerably diminished. In the same period the more
frequent occurrence of male images made of bronze (a relatively precious
material), together with the differentiated rendering of male and female
bronzes in terms of posture, attributes and artistic quality, may be indica-
tive of the symbolic negotiation of power between the sexes via material
culture (Hitchcock, 1994). Museum displays of figurines could draw on
such scholarly work in order to help visitors better appreciate not only
these statuettes, but other related categories of artefacts, such as jewellery,
dress or weaponry and, by extension, Minoan society itself.
Stylistic differences between male and female images can also be
observed in Early Cycladic sculpture. Women are rendered in a more stand-
ardized fashion, usually nude in the characteristic 'folded arms' position.
Men, on the other hand, are shown in various postures and carry a whole
array of artefacts ranging from caps and daggers to musical instruments
and vessels. Obviously different aspects of 'womanhood' and 'manhood'
were considered symbolically important and idealized through art, which
has to be explained by reference to the social context in which these
effigies were produced and used (Kokkinidou and Nikolaidou, 1993,
pp. 81-6). Indeed it has been suggested that the 'folded-arms' type may
point to a generalized, archetypical image focusing on the biological quali-
ties of the female body (Wieneke, 1986, p. 85.) In contrast, anatomical fea-
tures are often not depicted in the male 'professional figures' (Getz-Preziosi,
1980). The latter rather display personal, culturally-specific identities,
which may echo a shift of interest from the community to the individual
as a result of the specialization and prosperity that new enterprises brought
to the Early Cycladic seafaring communities (Wieneke 1986, p. 85). From
this perspective Cycladic figurines, apart from their much appreciated aes-
thetic quality, can be of didactic value for questions of gender roles, social
negotiation and the symbolic potential of material culture.

Gender ambiguity: the 'Priest-King' fresco

The famous 'Priest-King' relief fresco has become so well known as to con-
stitute the Minoan symbol par excellence for the visitors of Crete and one of
the sacred emblems of Cretan tourist business! It was found in the Palace of
Knossos by Sir Arthur Evans who reconstructed it in its present form from
three different fragments, revealed in different excavation units. The
restored original fragments are exhibited in the Herakleion Museum, and a
48 Museum Archaeology in Greece

replica of the restoration has been set in the palace. Impressive as the fresco
may be, it is highly problematic (although this is not mentioned in the
brief museum caption). Evans reassembled the fragments into what he
believed was the idealized image of the Minoan 'Priest-King' who ruled
under the protection of the divinity, perhaps King Minos himself. In his
version we see a slender young male wearing an elaborate lily-crown,
moving in an idyllic landscape of flowers and butterflies and probably
pulling a sacred animal, now lost. This reconstruction has at times been
seriously challenged, on the basis of the different archaeological contexts of
the fragments as well as because of the colour and anatomy of the relief
(see Hitchcock, 1996; Niemeier, 1987, and references). The Priest-King has
now been sacrificed in favour of three distinct figures (Niemeier, 1987).
Moreover, the debate is ongoing as to whether the fragments belong to
male or female figure(s) since the light colour of the skin does not conform
to the standard Minoan convention of brown used for men and white for
women. The same problem with the colour code appears in the famous
'taureador frescoes' from the Knossos palace which depict both brown- and
white-skinned figures: are the white ones young athletic women, as Evans
wanted them, or men (Damiani-Indelicato, 1988)? In the latter case we
should consider that the colour code need not exclusively mark sex differ-
ence, but may as well signify higher rank or imply the successive stages of
the game which are frozen in a single two-dimensional panel (Marinatos,
1989).
The above are interesting possibilities which would not only illuminate
different possible ways in which ancient people envisaged and represented
the world around them, but also introduce the public to the problems that
specialists have in deciphering the artistic idioms of the past. What is
equally important to emphasize is the ambiguous impression we get from
these frescoes, as well as from other 'male' Minoan figures executed in
light-coloured material like ivory. Instead of dismissing them as irregular,
we might as well see such 'deviations' from the visual norm as a purposeful
choice of Minoan artists in their attempt to render sexually ambiguous
images for whatever social religious purposes this may have been necessary
(see Hitchcock, 1997). Ritual androgyny, for instance, is not unknown in
Minoan iconography (Kokkinidou and Nikolaidou, 1993, p. 110), so that
the production of 'female-coloured' figures with 'male' anatomy perhaps
indicated an 'androgynous' gender which would be 'legitimate' in the
'liminal' zone of ritual (Nikolaidou, 1995). Or it could more generally
depict 'another' gender which cross-cuts the categories of manhood and
womanhood. Whatever the case might have been, archaeologists should
make their audience alert to alternative interpretations of prehistoric
iconography, instead of spoonfeeding it with simplistic, and therefore
uninteresting, explanations.
 Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou 49

Women in a men's world: female imagery in Athenian vase-painting

The rich collections of Attic decorated pottery in many Greek museums can
provide eloquent testimony about gender relations in ancient Athenian
society, thus complementing literary and archaeological evidence
(Fantham et al., 1994, pp. 68-127). As regards representations of women
specifically, there is a lot to learn about their private lives (in depictions of
household female tasks, wedding and adornment scenes and so forth);
some insight can be gained into their public roles (in scenes of women by
fountains, for example); and current ideals regarding womanhood may be
glimpsed, among others, in the images of industrious ladies involved in
spinning and weaving. We can further speak about the difficulties scholars
often have in determining whether female figures represent mythical
personages, high-rank wives, slaves or prostitutes (Pomeroy, 1975). The
reasons for this ambiguity are to be traced in the male-dominated struc-
tures and the class divisions of the Athenian city. An interesting issue
regards the relative 'invisibility' of respectable women, as opposed to the
frequent occurrence of slaves and prostitutes (for the latter, see Sutton,
1992). It has been suggested that this paradox is possibly due not only to
the 'banquet spirit', that determined much of the pottery production, but
also to the social experiences of the potters, themselves being of the same
low-rank or servile status as those 'undecent' women (Williams, 1993).
Moving away from the simplistic stereotype of the oppressed, home-bound
Athenian woman, pottery collections can illustrate gender interaction by
drawing attention to the selective promotion of social structures in the
artistic medium. Visitors who admire these vases for their beauty should
also learn that, 'after all, Athenian vase painting was essentially a man's
view of a man's point of view' (Williams, 1993, p. lOS). The preferences of
high-class males and females who purchased the pots, the social profile of
'humble' or 'unrespectable' women, and the possible interference of potters
in the iconographic repertoire, are some of the fascinating themes that
could bring the modern public closer to ancient Greek art and craftwork.

Conclusions
Material culture has a significant role to play in presenting alternative gen-
dered views which would help to revise ideas about the past as much as
reorganize artefacts in museum displays with emphasis on archaeological
and historical context. The basic prerequisite is to treat the individual as a
social agent whose active historical role can be illuminated by the social
theory that gender archaeology introduces. The objectives of such a
museum archaeology, which would have an educational orientation
(Gazi, 1990; Hooper-Greenhile, 1991; Stone and Mackenzie, 1990), can be
summarized as follows.
SO Museum Archaeology in Greece

A stimulation of ethnic-historic memory should be a concern in any case,

but so must an appreciation of the different visions and interpretations of
the national past. It is important that archaeology provides its audience
with the capability of making its own assessment and critique of the past
and the present. Furthermore, museum teaching should aim at an evalua-
tion of the relationship between particular events and long-term processes.
This means that archaeological and art-historical narratives need to help
people distinguish between those cultural vestiges that have disappeared,
those that survived over a long period of time and those that perhaps even
continue to date. This can be attained, among other things, by introducing
the public to other societies, so that it both understands those societies and
compares their perspectives with its own. To achieve these goals hard and
demanding work is necessary in advancing field research as well as in organ-
izing museum exhibitions. However, the result, a socially-oriented archae-
ology, presented in regularly visited museums, is more than worthwhile.

Note
* Many thanks to Moira Donald and Linda Hurcombe for inviting us to par-
ticipate in this volume and for their constructive editorial comments. This
chapter has greatly benefited by insightful suggestions offered by Dr Ernestine
S. Elster, Dr Claire L. Lyons and Despoina Tsiafaki. Maria-Christina Georgali
helped with references on museum architecture, and the late Sotiris Kissas
kindly provided us with the Greek Ministry of Culture records which list the
Archaeological Service staff (1994). Any omissions or mistakes remain entirely
our responsibility.

Bibliography
Andronikos, M. (1974) The Greek Museums (Athens).
Archaiologia, 16 (1985) Paidi kai Mouseio (Child and museum).
Archaiologia, 38 (1991) Ekpaideutikes Mouseioskeues (Educational Museum-kits).
Archaiologia, 52 (1994) Oi ekpaideutikoi miloun gia tin Akropoli (Educationalists speak
of the Akropolis).
Archaiologikon Deltion (1920-50) (Archaeological Bulletin) (Athens).
Avdela, E. (1990) Dimosioi ypalliloi genous thilykou: Katamerismos ergasias kata fyla stan
dimosio tomea, 1908-1955 (Civil Servants of Feminine Gender: Division of labour
by sex in the public sector, 1908-1955) (Athens).
Avdela, E. (1991) 'The "History" of Women in Greece', inK. Offen, R. R. Pierson and
J. Rendall (eds), Writing Women's History: International perspectives (London),
pp. 423-7.
Avdela, E. and A. Psarra (1985) 0 feminismos stin E/latha tau
Mesopolemou: Mia anthologia (Feminism in Midwar Greece: An anthology) (Athens).
Avgouli, M. (1994) 'The First Greek Museums and National Identity', in F. E. S.
Kaplan (ed.), Museums and the Making of Ourselves: The role of objects in national
identity (London and New York), pp. 246-65.
Beard, M. (1994) 'Women on the Dig', Times Literature Supplement, 21 (October),
pp. 7-8.
 Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou 51

Blegen, C. W. and M. Rawson (1966) The Palace of Nestor at Pylas in Western Messenia:
The Buildings and their Contents, Part I: Text (Princeton).
Braithwaite, M. (1982) 'Archaeologica chauvinistica: Bare-faced but not naked ape',
Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 1(2), pp. 62-3.
Branigan, K. and M. Vickers (1980) He/las: The civilizations of Ancient Greece (New
York).
Brown, S. (1993) 'Feminist Research in Archaeology: What does it mean? Why is it
taking so long?', inN. S. Rabinowitz and A. Richlin (eds), Feminist Theory and the
Classics (New York and London), pp. 238-71.
CECA Annual Conference (1991) Establishing, Maintaining and Developing Museum
Educational Services, Nafplion-Athens, 9-16 October 1988, Proceedings (Athens).
Chabot, N. ]. (1990) 'A Man called Lucy: Self-reflection in a museum exhibit', in
F. Baker and]. Thomas (eds), Writing the Past in the Present (Lampeter), pp. 138-42.
Chadwick,]. (1976) The Mycenaean World (Cambridge).
Chadwick,]. (1985) 'What do we know about Mycenaean Religion?', in A. Morpurgo
Davies andY. Dyhoux (eds), Linear B: A 1984 Survey. Proceedings of the Mycenaean
Colloquium of the Eighth Congress of the International Federation of the Society
of Classical Studies, Dublin, 27 August-1 September 1984 (Louvain-la-Neuve),
pp. 191-202.
Chadwick,]. (1988) 'The Women of Pylas', in]. P. Olivier and T. Palaima (eds), Texts,
Tablets and Scribes, Supplementos a Minos num. 10 (Salamanca), pp. 43-95.
Chourmouziadis, G. C. (1976) 'Mouseio Volou (Museum of Volos)', Archaiologika
Analekta ex Athilwn (Athens Annals of Archaeology), 9, pp. 1-13.
Chourmouziadis, G. C. (1980) 'Mouseio: Scholeio i naos?' (The Archaeological
Museum in Greece: School or temple?), Themata Chorou kai Technon (Design and
Art in Greece), 11, pp. 38-42.
Chourmouziadis, G. C. (1984) 'Scholia stin elliniki mouseiologia' (Comments on
Greek Museology), Epistimoniki Skepsi (Scientific Thought), 18, pp. 15-20.
Claassen, C. (ed.) (1994) Women in Archaeology (Philadelphia).
Clarke, A. (1993) 'Cultural Resourse Management (CRM) as Archaeological
Housework: Confining women to the ghetto of management', in H. du Cros and
L. Smith (eds) (1993) Women in Archaeology: A feminist critique (Canberra),
pp. 191-4.
Conkey, M. with S. H. Williams (1991) 'Original Narratives: The political economy of
gender in archaeology', in M. di Leonardo (ed.), Gender at the Crossroads of
Knowledge: Feminist anthropology in the postmodem era (Berkeley), pp. 102-37.
Damiani Indelicato, S. (1988) 'Were Cretan Girls Playing at Bull-leaping?', Cretan
Studies, 1, pp. 39-47.
Deligianni-Kouimtzi, V. (1993) '"Mia epitychimeni kariera ki enas kalos syzygos":
Oneira kai prosdokies koritsion efivikis ilikias' (A Successful Career and a Good
Husband': Dreams and expectations of teenage girl), in V. Deligianni-Kouimtzi and
S. Ziogou-Karastergiou (eds), Ekpaideusi kai fylo: Istoriki diastasi kai svnchronos
provlimatismos (Education and Gender: A historical dimension and current
problematising) (Thessaloniki), pp. 311-22.
du Cros, H. and L. Smith (eds) (1993) Women in Archaeology: A feminist critique
(Canberra).
Evans, K. (1990) 'Sexist Language in Archaeological Discourse', Archaeological Review
from Cambridge, 9(2), pp. 252-61.
Fantham, E., H. P. Foley, N. B. Kampen, S. B. Pomeroy and H. A. Shapiro (1994)
Women in the Classical World (New York and Oxford).
Filippidis, D. (1984) Neoelliniki Architektoniki (Modern Greek Architecture) (Athens).
52 Museum Archaeology in Greece

Gazi, A. (1990) 'Skepseis gia tin anaptyxi tis archaiologikis paideias stin Ellada'
(Thoughts on the Development of Archaeological Education in Greece), 'Tomi
301', foumal of Archaeology Graduates of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 1,
pp. 11-25.
Gero, ]. M. (1985) 'Socio-politics and the Woman-at-home Ideology', America11
Antiquity, 59, pp. 342-50.
Gero, J. M. and D. Root (1990) 'Public Representations and Private Concerns:
Archaeology in the pages of National Geographic', in P. Gathercole and
D. Lowenthal (eds), The Politics of the Past, One World Archaeology, 12 (London),
pp. 19-37.
Getz-Preziosi, P. (1980) 'The Male Figure in Early Cycladic Sculpture', Metropolitan
Museum foumal, 15, pp. 5-33.
Gilchrist, R. (1991) 'Women's Archaeology? Political feminism, gender theory and
historical revision', Antiquity, 65, pp. 495-501.
Gill, D. W. ]. and C. Chippindale. (1993) 'Material and Intellectual Consequences of
Esteem for Cycladic Figures', American foumal of Archaeology, 97, pp. 601-59.
Glaser,]. R. and A. A. Zenetou (eds) (1994) Gender Perspectives: Essays on women in
museums (Washington and London).
Graziadio, G. (1991) 'The Process of Social Stratification at Mycenae in the Shaft
Grave Period: A comparative examination of the evidence', American Journal of
Archaeology, 95, pp. 403-40.
Hamilakis, Y. (1993) 'I didaskalia tis archaiologias sto elliniko panepistimio' (The
Teaching of Archaeology in Greek Universities), Archaiologia, 46, pp. 47-50.
Hinsley, C. M. (1989) 'Revising and Revisioning the History of Archaeology:
Reflections on region and context', in A. L. Christenson (ed.), Tracing Archaeology's
Past: The historiography of archaeology (Carbondale and Edwardsville), pp. 79-96.
Hitchcock, L. A. (1999) 'Engendering Ambiguity in Minoan Crete: It's a drag to be
king', Chapter 5 in M. Donald and C. Hurcombe (eds), Gender and Material Culture:
Representations of Gender from Prehistory to the Present (London).
Hitchcock, L.A. (1997) 'Engendering Domination: A structural and contextual analy-
sis of Minoan Neopalatial bronze figurines', in J. M. Moore and E. Scott (eds),
I11visible People and Processes: Writing gender and childhood into European archaeology
(London), pp. 113-30.
Hobsbawm, E. J. (1990) Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, myth, reality
(Cambridge).
Hooper-Greenhill, E. (1991) Museum and Gallery Education (Leicester).
Horne, D. (1984) The Great Museum: The re-presentation of history (London and
Sidney).
Jones, S. and S. Pay (1990) 'The Legacy of Eve', in P. Gathercole and D. Lowenthal
(eds), The Politics of the Past, One World Archaeology, 12 (London), pp. 160-71.
Karouzou, S. (1927) Guide du musee national d'Athenes. Marbres, bronzes et vases
(Athens).
Karouzou, S. (1954) Corpus Vasorum Antiquonun: Grece 2, Athenes- Musee National 2
(Paris).
Karouzou, S. (1963) Angeia tou Anagyrountos (Vases from Anagyrous) (Athens).
Karouzou, S. (1984a) 'To Ethniko Mouseio apo to 1941' (The National Museum since
1941), in Syllogos Ellinon Archaiologon, A' Synedrio, Athina, 30 Martiou-3 Apriliou
1967 (Association of Greek Archaeologists, First Conference, Athens, 30 March-
3 April 1967) (Athens), pp. 52-63.
Karouzou, S. (1984b) 'Viomata kai mnimosyna' (Experiences and Memorials),
HOROC, 2, pp. 1-61.
 Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou 53

Killen, ]. T. (1988) 'Epigraphy and Interpretation in Knossos Woman and Cloth

Records', in J. P. Olivier and T. Palaima (eds), Texts, Tablets and Scribes,
Supplementos a Minos num. 10 (Salamanca), pp. 167-83.
Kokkinidou, D. (1993) 'I koinoniki leitourgia kai o ekpaideutikos charaktiras tis
archaiologias: Scholia stin elliniki pragmatikotita' (The Social Function and the
Educational Character of Archaeology: Comments on Greek reality. 'Tomi 301',
Joumal of Archaeology Graduates of the Aristotle University ofThessaloniki, 7, pp. 52-7.
Kokkinidou, D. and M. Nikolaidou (1993) I archaiologia kai i koinoniki tautotita tau
(ylou: Proseggiseis stin aigaiaki proistoria (Archaeology and gender: Approaches to
Aegean prehistory) (Thessaloniki).
Kokkou, A. (1977) I merimna gia tis archaiotites stin Ellada kai ta prota mouseia (The
Care of Antiquities in Greece and the First Museums) (Athens).
Kokkou, A. (1988) 'Ta prota ellinika mouseia: I provlimatiki gyro apo tin idrysi tous'
(The First Greek Museums: Problems related to their founding), Themata Chorou kai
Techtwn, 19, pp. 16-19.
Kotsakis, K. (1991) 'The Powerful Past: Theoretical trends in Greek archaeology', in
I. Hodder (ed.), Archaeological Theory in Europe: The last three decades (London),
pp. 65-90.
Kotsakis, K. (1993) 'Archaiologiki Ypiresia kai Panepistimio Thessalonikis'
(Archaeological Service and University of Thessaloniki), Archaiologia, 46, pp. 41-4.
Kurtz, D. C. and]. Boardman (1971) Greek Burial Customs (London).
Lapourtas, A. and A. Dimitrakaki (1993) 'Mouseio kai epikoinonia: Peri oron and
orion' (Museum and Communication: On terms and limits), Archaiologia, 48,
pp. 87-94.
Leone, M. P. (1981a) 'Archaeology's Relationship to the Present and the Past', in
R. A. Gould and M. B. Schifer (eds), Modem Material Culture: The archeology of us
(London), pp. S-14.
Leone, M.P. (1981b) 'The Relationship between Artifacts and the Public in Outdoor
History Museums', Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 376, pp. 301-14.
Lowenthal, D. (1990) 'Conclusion, Archaeologists and Others: The politics of official
history in Poland and Greece', in P. Gathercole and D. Lowenthal (eds), The Politics
of the Past, One World Archaeology, 12 (London), pp. 307-8.
Marinatos, N. (1989) 'The Bull as an Adversary: Some observations on bull-hunting
and bull-leaping', Ariathni, S, pp. 23-32.
Mavropoulou-Tsioumi, C. (1991) Mouseiaki ekpaideusi: Panepistimiakes simeinseis
(Museum Education: University lecture notes), Department of Early Childhood
Education, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki).
Morris, I. (1994) 'Archaeologies of Greece', in I. Morris (ed.), Classical Greece: Ancient
histories and modem archeologies (Cambridge), pp. 8-47.
Moschou-Sakoraffou, S. (1990) Istoria tau feministikou kinimatos stin Ellada (A History
of the Feminist Movement in Greece) (Athens).
Moser, S. (1993) 'Gender Stereotyping in Pictorial Representations of Human
Origins', in H. du Cros and L. Smith (eds), Women in Archaeology: A feminist critique
(Canberra), pp. 75-92.
Mosse, G. L. (1985) Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and abnormal sexuality in
Modem Europe (New York).
Museums Association (1983) Code of Conduct for Museum Curators (London).
Mylonas, G. E. (1983) Mycenae Rich in Gold (Athens).
Niemeier, W. D. (1987) 'Das Stuckrelief des "Prinzen mit der Federkrone" aus
Knossos und minoische Goetterdarstellungen', Athenische Mitteilungen, 102,
pp. 65-98.
54 Museum Archaeology in Greece

Nikolaidou, M. (1995) 'The House of the Double Axe': Gender misconceptions in the
study of Minoan religion', paper presented at the Third Australian Women in
Archaeology Conference (Sydney) (3-5 February).
Nikolaidou, M. and D. Kokkinidou (1998) 'Greek Women in Archaeology: An untold
story', in M. Diaz-Andreu and M. L. Stig-Sorensen (eds), Excavating Women:
A history of women in European Archaeology.
Nikolaidou, M. and K. Touloumis (1993) '0 polon tois metritois- o polon epi pisto-
sei: I apousia provolis tis proistorias sti Thessaloniki' (Who Sells in
Cash- Who Sells on Credit: The lack of promotion of prehistory in Thessaloniki',
'Tomi 301', Joumal of Archaeology Graduates of the Aristotle University ofThessaloniki,
6, pp. 18-22.
Othigos Spoudon 1994-Sa 'Tmima Istoria kai Archaiologias, Aristoteleio
Panepistimio Thessalonikis' (Studies Prospectus 1994-5, Department of History
and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) (Thessaloniki).
Othigos Spoudon 1994-Sb 'Tmima Istorias kai Archaiologias, Ethniko kai
Kapodistriako Panepistimio Athinon' (Studies Prospectus 1994-5, Department of
History and Archaeology, National University of Athens) (Athens).
Othigos Spoudon 1994-Sc 'Tmima Istorias kai Archaiologias, Panepistimio
Ioanninon' (Studies Prospectus 1994-5, Department of History and Archaeology,
University of loannina) (Ioannina).
Othigos Spoudon 1994-Sd 'Tmima Istorias kai Archaiologias, Panepistimio Kritis'
(Studies Prospectus 1994-5, Department of History and Archaeology, University of
Crete) (Rethymnon).
Pantos, P. A. (1985) 'Ta ellinika archaiologika mouseia: Merika stoicheia' (The Greek
Archaeological Museums: Some evidence), HOROS, 3, pp. 179-85.
Papadopoulos, S. (1986) 'To mi entyposiako, eurima sto mouseio' (The Non-impres-
sive find in the Museum), Anti, 311, pp. 50-1.
Papataxiarchis E. and T. Paradelis (eds) (1992) Tautotites kai fylo sti synchroni
Ellada: Anthropologikes proseggiseis (Identities and Gender in Modern Greece:
Anthropological approaches) (Athens).
Petrakos, V. C. (1982) 'Dokimio gia tin archaiologiki lwmothesia (An Essay on
Archaeological Legislation) (Athens).
Pilali-Papasteriou, A. (1992) Minoika pilina anthropomorpha eidolia tis syllogis Metaxa:
Symvoli sti meleti tis mesominoikis piloplastikis (Minoan Anthropomorphic Clay
Figurines of the Metaxas Collection: Contribution to the study of Middle Minoan
clay plastic) (Thessaloniki).
Pirie, V. (1985) 'Women Heritage and Museums', Archaeological Review from
Cambridge, 4(1), pp. 117-18.
Pomeroy, S. (1975) Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in classical antiquity
(New York).
Porter, G. (1987) 'Gender Bias: Representations of work in history museum', Museums
Professionals Group Transactions, 22, pp. 11-15.
Porter, G. (1988) 'Putting your House in Order: Representations of women and
domestic life', in R. Lumley (ed.), The Museum Time Machine: Putting cultures on
display (London and New York), pp. 102-27.
Praktika tis en Athinais Archaiologikis Etaireias (1920-1950) (Proceedings of the
Athens Archaeological Society) (Athens).
Praktika tis Protis Synantisis Mouseiologias (1987) To Mouseio sti synchroni koinonia,
Athina, 29-31 Martiou 1984 (Proceedings of the First Meeting on Museology, 1987,
'The Museum in Contemporary Society', Athens, 29-31 March 1984) (Athens).
 Dimitra Kokkinidou and Marianna Nikolaidou 55

Samiou, D. (1992) 'To feministiko kinima stin Ellada (1860-1960)' (The Feminist
Movement in Greece, 1860-1960), in E. Leontidou and S. R. Ammer (eds), I Ellada
ton gynaikon: Diadromes sto choro kai to chrono (Greece of Women: Routes through
space and time) (Athens).
Shanks, M. and C. Tilley (1987) Social Theory and Archaeology (Cambridge).
Shelmerdine, C. W. (1985) The Perfume Industry of Mycenaean Pylas, Studies in
Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature pocket-book, 34, (Goteborg).
Sindos (1985) Katalogos tis Ekthesis (Catalogue of the Exhibition) (Thessaloniki).
Stamiris, E. (1986) 'The Women's Movement in Greece', New Left Review, 158,
pp. 98-112.
Stone, P. and R. Mackenzie (eds) (1990) The Excluded Past: Archaeology in education,
One World Archaeology, 17 (London).
Sutton, R. E., Jr (1992) 'Pornography and Persuasion on Attic Pottery', in A. Richlin
(ed.), Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (New York and Oxford),
pp. 3-52.
Svoronos, N. G. (1981) Episkopisi tis neoellinikis istorias (A Survey of Modern Greek
History) (Athens).
Svoronos, N. G. (1983) Analekta neoellinikis istorias kai istoriografias (Analects of
Modern Greek History and Historiography) (Athens).
Theocharis, D. (ed.) (1973) Neolithic Greece (Athens).
Tsaravopoulos, A. (1983) 'To elliniko periphereiako mouseio' (The Greek Peripheral
Museum). HOROS, 1, pp. 63-6.
Tsaravopoulos, A. (1985) 'To elliniko periphereiako mouseio: Ta apotelesmata tis
ereunas' (The Greek Peripheral Museum: Results of a survey), HOROS, 3, pp. 149-78.
Tsigakou, F.-M. (1981) The Rediscovery of Greece: Travellers and painters of the Romantic
era (London).
Vergo, P. (1989) 'Introduction', in P. Vergo (ed.), The New Museology (London), pp. 1-5.
Verlinden, C. (1984) Les statuettes anthropomorphes cretoises en bronze et en plomb, du
Il/e millelwire au VIle siecle av. f.-C. (Providence and Louvain-la-Neuve).
WHAM! (1984) Women, Heritage and Museums: Proceedings of the 1984 conference
(Bradford).
WHAM! (1985) Working for Women's Heritage: Proceedings of the 1985 conference
(Portsmouth).
Wieneke, M. H. (1986) 'Art and World in the Early Bronze Age', in G. Cadogan (ed.),
The End of the Early Bronze Age in the Aegean (Leiden), pp. 69-92.
Williams, D. (1993) 'Women on Athenian Vases: Problems of interpretation', in
A. Cameron and A. Kuhrt (eds), Images of Women in Antiquity (Detroit).
Woodall, N. ]. and P. ]. Perricone (1981) 'The Archaeologist as a Cowboy: The conse-
quences of professional stereotype', Journal of Field Archaeology, 8, pp. 506-8.
Wylie, A. (1991) 'Gender Theory and the Archaeological Record: Why is there no
archaeology of gender?', in J. M. Gero and M. W. Conkey (eds), Engendering
Archaeology: Women and prehistory (Oxford), pp. 31-54.
Ziogou-Karastergiou, S. (1993) 'Pro ton Propylaion: H exelixi tis anotatis ekpaideusis
ton gynaikon stin Ellada' (In front of the Propylea: The evolution of women's
higher education in Greece), in V. Deligianni-Kouimtzi and S. Ziogou-Karastergiou
(eds), Ekpaideusi kai fylo: Istoriki diastasi kai synchronos provlimatismos (Education
and Gender: A historical dimension and current problematising) (Thessaloniki),
pp. 333-415.
Zois, A. A. (1990) I archaiolagia stin Ellada: Pragmatikotites kai prooptikes (Archaeology
in Greece: Realities and prospects) (Athens).
4
Gender: Enabling Perspective or
Politically Correct Term? An Analysis
of how Gender and Material Culture
are Viewed by 1990s Academia
Mary Baker

Introduction
My work, which I see as primarily women's studies, is set very explicitly in
the present. The past is gone and I work with representations of it which
are written in today's masculinist academic culture. My theoretical perspec-
tive is post-structural feminism (Weedon, 1987; Cixous, 1991) and I locate
my understandings there in the belief that the only way forward for analy-
sis that acknowledges active women in the past is through the creation of
other reference points for status, power and authority, than the phallus and
penis of phallocentrism (Irigaray, 1985; Cixous, 1991) which informs our
thoughts through a symbolic order with phallus/penis as signifier of access
to power (Frye, 1989; Freud, 1965; Cocks, 1989). We must think differently.
At present, oppositional dichotomies dominate interpretive frameworks. I
believe that gender studies perspectives can make obvious the problems
which are implicit in binary oppositions which are based on apparently
natural dichotomies like male/female and have/have not. We can think
instead of differences and possibilities.
I began thinking about the subject of this chapter at the Theoretical
Archaeology Group Conference in December 1993. I had given a paper
about the difficulties of being a feminist archaeologist in the masculinist
environment of academia in which women and their work have been nega-
tively valued and represented, and in the discussion which followed,
gender was equated to political correctness. I began to think how damaging
this 'in' phrase had been to the attempts to understand social relations dif-
ferently and to believe that the full potential of gender studies has not been

56
 Mary Baker 57

realized in part because of the ridicule which now surrounds all things
'politically correct'. Anne Karpf wrote of the explosion of references to P.C.
in British national newspapers: 'And, hooray, it was open season again for
feminist-bashing. The slightest attempt to contest or modify sexist practice
could be mocked with impunity by calling it 'politically correct' shortened
and trivialized as P.C.' (Karpf, 1992, p. 34).

Political correctness, right-on-ness, and misunderstandings

of gender
'Political correctness' has become a term laden with different meanings for
different interest groups. Almost inevitably the meanings for marginal
groups have been undermined by those whose values are more culturally
dominant. This is the effect that Anne Karpf describes above. In academia I
think we are seeing the effects in the way that even though the right words
are used, and the right subjects are discussed, the conceptual depth is
lacking. One is seen to be 'right-on' if the word gender appears in the title
and if 'she' is referred to in the text as well as 'he'. In 1990s' Britain we
have an Equal Opportunities Act and legislation which acknowledges
sexual and racial harassment; these work within a wider cultural acceptance
of the devaluation and degradation of women and people of colour.
The disciplines of both archaeology and history have held many confer-
ences some specifically on gender, like the Gender and Material Culture
Conference itself (Exeter, July 1994.) and some conferences which include
gender sessions. There has also been an upsurge in books about gender the-
ories. This, of course, has been very exciting but there have also been those
in academia who have recognized the potential of being politically correct
(in the original sense of the word) - those who used the words without any
attempt to really conceptualize from them.
Many academic women, for example, have experienced the kind of
tokenism that goes on in university departments- I have had requests for
help with gender language for colleagues' publications and I have seen
gender lectures tagged onto the end of lecture courses. In the last week of
term a colleague commented on what a coincidence it was that we were all
lecturing on gender that week - this was no coincidence. While to some
small extent it is gratifying that terms which are integral to women's
studies are recognized as being important enough for one to be seen as
'right-on' when one uses them- this is not enough; using the terms in this
superficial way has had a negative effect on the development of knowl-
edges which are not androcentric or phallocentric. Consideration of gender
cannot simply be added on. Androcentric and phallocentric frameworks of
knowledge permeate all levels of academic life. Androcentrism has meant
that men are still central and active in accounts of social relations and the
58 Gender: Enabling Perspective?

deeper more complex phallocentrism has informed understandings of

power relations through dichotomous opposition within which the fem-
inine (lacking phallus) terms are defined in relation to the central mascu-
line (with phallus) terms (Whitbeck, 1989; Frye, 1989). These knowledges
which have maleness as the central reference point for authority and status
are limiting our analysis of past ways of life. If gender perspectives are gen-
uinely going to be incorporated into academic archaeology they cannot be
added as an afterthought. Gender understandings necessitate openness to
ideas and to multiple voices; gender studies can enrich our academic pur-
suits but require a change in mind set.
The early practice of political awareness, largely by left-wing groups
dealing with people disadvantaged by insensitive language use, has been
labelled 'political correctness' and held up for ridicule: we have all heard
the jokes about manhole covers and Manchester. This can be seen as a
cynical undermining of the politics of difference and more recently as a
part of the feminist backlash (Faludi, 1991; Braidotti, 1991). The effects of
this cynicism in academia have been disabling for those of us working with
gender studies; we have had to work in an environment of apparent
support which has included 'equal opportunities', 'New Men', a prolifer-
ation of 'women-courses' and more careful use of language. While I
welcome some of the accompanying changes which have 'allowed' me to
teach women's studies, I am frustrated by the limiting effect of apparent
support. There is a complacency which makes the struggle to work with the
ideas of gender perspectives as difficult as ever. Yet if we read the signs, we
could be forgiven for believing that we who study gender will no longer be
marginalized - we have the conferences, the books, the courses and we
have new men. This phenomenon is effectively described by Rowena
Chapman when she describes 'post-penis man':

New man is all about us ... strutting his stuff across posters, calenders,
magazines and birthday cards, peering nonchalantly down from adver-
tising hoardings, dropping his trousers in the launderette. He is every-
where. In the street, holding babies, pushing prams, collecting children,
shopping with the progeny, panting in the ante-natal classes, shuffling,
sweaty palmed in maternity rooms, grinning in the Mother-care cata-
logue, fighting with absentee mums and the vagaries of washing
machines in the Persil ads. (Chapman and Rutherford, 1988, p. 32)

These images and the numerous examples of studies and courses which
address gender are welcome and do reflect some change, but they disguise
an overwhelmingly strong core of antipathy towards any real change and a
still dominant masculist ideology. It is my view that 'political correctness'
in its guise as right-on-ness is too easily a tool for those who defend dom-
inant masculist discourses.
 Mary Baker 59

It was for this reason that I felt so uneasy after my paper at the
Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference, when it was assumed that I
had undertaken gender studies as a project of political correctness. I was
shocked by this superficial understanding of the words I had spoken.
Joanne Coles wrote in The Guardian: 'Political Correctness is simply a new
name for what, in the old days, we used to call good manners' (Cole, 1993,
p. 24), but when I speak of 'gender' I seek a space to think about social rela-
tions differently not to score marks for etiquette. The appropriation of the
meanings of 'P.C.' by the media and by groups who fear change has meant
that by labelling work of this kind as 'politically correct' it can be trivialized
and made powerless. Gender as a perspective of multiple social engage-
ments can decentre the phallus. Gender as a polite gesture can do little.
If we reconsider the past through gender perspectives, we can undercut
the influences of phallocratic frameworks which have limited our scope to
conceive of the possibilities of multiple and contextual social status. When
we approach social relations through a perspective which stresses fabrics of
gender associations we have to think differently or at least question the
pre-judgements which inform interpretations and perpetuate male-centred
accounts (Baker, 1996).
The recognition that 'gender' is conceptually different and more flexible
than 'sex' is relatively new and many academics still appear to feel that it is
enough to say 'gender' when they are actually speaking of binary sexual
division. The term 'gender' allows us to move beyond the either/or of bio-
logical sex and allows us to speak and think about the way people under-
stand masculinity and femininity as contextual social categories. Genders
are by nature relational, and constantly shifting, as analytical tools in the
creation of knowledge about social relations the useful point of engage-
ment is at the site of mediation between the structures of social categories
and the embodied experiences of gender and sex (Butler, 1993; Braidotti,
1991).
It is generally recognized that there are situations in which women take
behavioural roles which are more usually masculine - and men play out
roles which are more usually feminine; interestingly, when women taken
on masculine social identities they become visible and valuable but when
men are effeminate they are 'gender benders', with the implication that
there is a fixed, straight gender from which to bend. In these cases behav-
iour has been measured against a grid of gender oppositions such as
visible/invisible, aggressive/passive, dominant/subordinate, authoritative/
without voice. This level of gender awareness is of a particularly inactive
nature. The social categories exist and people's behaviours are fitted to
them and judged against them. The 'experience' of gender of which I speak
is that embodied knowledge (Cixous, 1991) which is often inexpressible
because it does not fit when measured against the grid of accepted cate-
gories. The 'act of gender' is the interplay between the two when one lives
60 Gender: Enabling Perspective?

in the 'inexpressible' and relates to others from that positioning in a body

defined within social categories. We can call these performed and lived
experiences of gender - 'genderings'. I do not claim that this act of
definition can simplify the way in which we understand social relations in
prehistory- that is not my intention. Genderings are not stable states but
are constantly negotiated relations between persons (Baker, 1993).
Moreover, genderings are themselves relations rather than attributes of
persons. This recognition allows us to frame our questions of the archaeo-
logical evidence differently. Archaeologists should be interested not merely
in the socially established categories of gender, but in the ongoing process
of genderings. These genderings, in their fluidity and kaleidoscopic charac-
ter, will not be reflected by archaeological evidence in any straightforward
way. Approaching these issues requires a creative approach to archaeology.
Gender studies are useful as conceptual tools with which to critique exist-
ing representations of the past and to frame questions which undermine
the centrality of maleness and men's status. To illustrate the points I have
been making about how some uses of the term 'gender' fail to engage with
its subversive and creative possibilities I will look at the chapter by Russell
G. Handsman (1991).

Gender relations in the past and in the present: the case of

Lepinski Vir
This text is about a Mesolithic site which illustrates my concerns about the
more complex phallocratic and oppositional perspectives which inform
some of the well intentioned interpretations of the archaeological record.
Handsman discusses the Mesolithic site, Lepenski Vir in Yugoslavia, in his
article 'Whose Art was Found at Lepenski Vir? Gender relations and power
in archaeology' (Handsman, 1991). In this chapter he criticizes the ethno-
centric and androcentric nature of the 'art' exhibition in which '91 pieces
of monumental sculpture, carved altars and instruments of ritual and
magic' (1991, p. 331) were displayed under the title 'The Art of Lepenski
Vir'. He is critical of both the definition of art and of the way it is presented
as 'male art'.
My instinct was that I should not criticize a text which is explicitly
addressing the androcentric problems in archaeological interpretation and
which is actually discussing gender, but my experience tells me that those
who are seen to address the problems often do so with only a superficial
understanding of the terms. In practice, this leads to a perpetuation of
some of the structures which frame perceptions of phallocentric concepts,
so that these people distort understandings as much as those who are more
obviously androcentric. I was reminded of Jane Miller's words, 'that's not it
... that's still not it' (Miller, 1990, p. 24). At the risk of appearing to be
obdurate- I, too am saying 'That's not it ... that's still not it'.
 Mary Baker 61

Handsman criticizes Srejovice (the author of the original archaeological

report) for describing an architect magician' at Lepenski Vir as 'he' and
questions 'the presumption that men were the artists and architects of
Lepenski Vir, and that women were their subjects' (Handsman, 1991,
p. 335), but I question his assertion that 'The ideology of gender difference'
is responsible for Srejovics's presumptions. Handsman is recognizing the
androcentrism in the report but misrepresenting it as a problem of gender
perspective. In his understanding of gender ideology he subsumes 'gender'
into 'sex' and then accepts all the presuppositions informed by the duality
of sex, the fixed and 'natural' male and female. His reference to difference,
a key concept of gender studies, is little more than lip-service with his
meaning actually contained in a conceptual framework based on binary
oppositions. He first sets up his narrow definition of gender theory and
calls it gender ideology, and then argues against this dichotomous perspec-
tive. He says that in order to 'see how our discourse contributes to the
control, marginalization and silencing of women' we must 'deconstruct the
ideology of gender difference' (1991, p. 334) and

Working against the ideology of gender difference means interrogating

the scientific and social construction, as well as the political effects, of
the wrong-headed idea that gender is a matter of bipolar, essential,
exclusive categories, one male the other female. (1991, p. 335)

It is Handsman's own wrong-headed idea about gender as binary that

requires deconstruction. It is precisely in order to question the rigid opposi-
tional meanings which result from understandings of sexual 'difference'
(that is, biologically defined male or female) that one can use gender per-
spectives. The concept of gender offers many differences, fragmentary and
interactional. Gender offers the possibility to ask questions outside of het-
erosexual, binary, phallocratic realities. Far from accepting that, 'to see
gender as differences is to accept as natural, inevitable and universal the
constant facts that males have power while women have to struggle to get
it' (1991, p. 335), the gender perspective is a tool which enables us toques-
tion this proposition.
Handsman projects his own rigid oppositional perspective onto the
concept of gender and then asks us to work against the ideology. This
binary understanding of life pervades the interpretations of the past:
his(mis)-understanding of 'gender difference' as 'sex' denies the existence
of the two terms and ignores the complexities of 'difference'. It is true that
'gender' has been closely linked to 'sex' in contemporary understandings
(as opposed, to life cycles, age, marital status, etc.) but even this link has
not reduced it to either/or, male/female, in a fixed way. Gender is flexible
and variable and ever-changing with multiple interactions of social
relations.
62 Gender: Enabling Perspective?

While he claims to realize that such narrowness is a misuse of the term

'gender'- 'the wrong headed idea that gender is a matter of bipolar, essen-
tial, exclusive categories, one male the other female' (1991, p. 335)- he
continues to criticize the misuse of it as if it is the only use. By working
from this position Handsman is able to avoid reading the material differ-
ently, he can continue thinking in his masculist way undisturbed by the
conceptual leap that the understanding through multiple and contextual
gender requires. In this way, almost all the usual phallocentric presupposi-
tions remain in place as natural.
In the section headed 'So who made the art of Lepenski Vir: women or
men?', Handsman (1991, p. 339) questions the way materials (artefacts and
texts) have been interpreted and questions the resulting 'stories'. In his
treatment he leaves some assumptions unchallenged. Again I must say,
'That's not it ... that's still not it', because these assumptions represent
understandings which are misguided, producing masculinism through his
right-on-ness, and which seem to me to be saying that men have always
been there and been active and been dominant. For example, I am puzzled
about his assumption that the boulders are understood as male:

The strong association between the ritual placement of men's skulls and
their commemoration by boulders (carved and uncarved) within some
of the stone sanctuaries in Lepenski Vir is matched by the fractional
burial of men's skulls in carefully constructed graves or stone lined
boxes in Vlasac II. In neither 'settlement' are women or their skulls
similarly treated. (Handsman 1991, p. 339).

What makes these boulders male? There is nothing in the evidence that
makes them male. Is it not possible that these 'heads' buried with male
skulls were representing females? Elsewhere Handsman writes that in the
report Srejovic stated, 'the burial of actual skulls - almost exclusively of
men' (1991, p. 349, emphasis mine). They were not, in fact, all men which
can lead us to pose questions. Isn't it more interesting that most of the
skulls buried were men but some were women's? What does this tell us
about gender? Wouldn't the consideration of this paradox from a gender-
studies perspective lead us to ask different questions of the material?
Apparently not, because despite criticizing others for ignoring, 'the clear
signs of the simultaneous presence of hierarchy yet equality; the asymme-
try of men over women yet the expression of women's power and independ-
ence' (1991, p. 340) Handsman then manages to identify male lines of
descent from the evidence. Peeling back the layers of assumptions by drop-
ping the 'almost' from Srejovic's 'almost exclusively of men' when dis-
cussing the burial of actual skulls, and then assuming that the stone heads
are representing the same sex as the actual skulls (which are now all male)
in 'the ritual placement of men's skulls and their commemoration by boul-
 Mary Baker 63

ders', we came to 'men and their heads' and to 'The heads themselves sym-
bolized the vertical links (the lines of descent) which connected the living
leaders of the dominant lineage to their ancestors who were also seen as
the mythical forbears of the entire community'. With these connections,
Handsman has created a society with male leaders and with male lines of
descent. By understanding material culture evidence through the binary
perspective of sex rather than the multiple possibilities of gender, women
have been excluded as active agents of history.
If one is understanding this evidence through perspectives of gender, the
pluralities of women's and men's lived experiences could be recognized
rather than restricted to a duality. Their lives were made up of relationships
between men and women, men and men, women and women, and
children, people of different ages, sizes, physicalities, stages of fertility, etc.
Sex is just one of the relationships involved in understandings of gender
and never the only one. Some men and women were buried together, some
groups were apparently treated with more respect than others, some skulls
were buried in particular contexts - mainly men's but some women's,
heads were carved out of stone - (without sexual features) and put with
these skulls on some occasions and in other 'sacred' contexts at other
times. Some women were buried with ochre on the abdomen area, some
men were buried with ochre on the arms and legs, some women and some
children were buried with ochre covering their whole body. The plurality
of the evidence is then described as 'blurring':

the clarity of sex linkages which sometimes can be identified ... is

blurred or even contradicted by other associated sets of contextual data.
(1991, p. 339)

The 'possibilities' of gendered identities are denied or become problems

when these are understood in Handsman's way only as sex difference. He
uses an illustration (1991, p. 340), which borrows the image of man and
woman more usually seen on the doors to public toilets: the woman has a
skirt, the man no identifiable clothing. This itself offers an interpretive
choice of two, male or female. The multiplicities symbolized by the many
different combinations of burial groupings and the ways ochre is used in
different meaningful ways are confined within Handsman's man and
woman (with skirt!). These symbols are used to show how women were
buried with ochre sprinkled across their abdomen and men with ochre
across their arms and legs and has this caption:

How red ochre was sprinkled across some women and some men at
Vlasac. Women and men are treated differently in some Mesolithic
burials from the Iron Gates Gorge. Men's skulls, not women's, are often
placed in stone lined pits; dissimilar parts of women's and men's bodies
64 Gender: Enabling Perspective?

are painted with ochre at Vlasac. Elsewhere however, women and men
are buried together or their bones are intermingled, blurring explicit
gender differences. This suggests that Mesolithic gender relations are
variable and could be about equality, inequality, independence and
control. (1991, p. 340)

However, far from 'blurring explicit gender differences' as he says, it

seems to me that these variations are representing gender differences and
blurring sex differences. If the children and women who had ochre painted
all over their bodies are added, we can begin to see another, different, rep-
resentation of human/gender identity. The use of the modern focal display,
usually found on the doors of public toilets, to depict a Mesolithic burial
tradition illustrates a more general slippage between present and past
which facilitates the imposition of taken-for-granted tensions between
'genders' which are contemporarily defined as closely linked to 'sex' and to
those modern tensions which are about resistance to ideologies of male
dominance as understood in western, capitalist frameworks. My point is
that this chapter is included in a book about gender and archaeology and
that Bandsman is telling us, both implicitly and explicitly, that he cares
about the representation of women in archaeological texts. But by appar-
ently writing in a way which takes feminism and gender studies seriously
whilst perpetuating assumptions of sexual division and binary oppositions,
I suggest that his work is more damaging than the more obvious and
common phallocentric and androcentric texts. By using the 'right' lan-
guage and by appearing to do a gender critique Bandsman disguises the
fundamental masculist assumptions which continue to inform his work, in
this way androcentric and phallocentric themes are naturalized.
In the section of the chapter entitled 'Will archaeological histories of
gender relations be feminist?', Bandsman says:

there is a puzzling, overlapping and interrupted style in the narrations

some feminist archaeologists write because they are consciously looking
simultaneously at the present and the past. This is in order to trace and
make obvious the connections between archaeological theorising, the
sexual politics embedded within the two disciplines and the academy
outside, and the continuing inequalities between women and men in
science and society. (1991, p. 359)

He goes onto say that, 'by shifting the interpretative and thus political
focus to gender relations, we learn to examine hierarchy instead of equal-
ity, domination instead of difference and resistance instead of acceptance'
(1991, p. 360). This interpretative framework is useless when defined rigidly
and oppositionally. Why are we offered either/or? Why only hierarchy,
domination or resistance? Gender perspectives will gain nothing if these
 Mary Baker 65

terms are understood through the embedded meanings of dichotomous

oppositions - domination/subordination, oppression/resistance which
carry the masculine/feminine valued status of contemporary ideology:

• Hierarchy is expressed as the increasing power of some men: 'the carving

of monumental heads to represent important powerful living individu-
als as well as the ancestors of the now dominant lineage, becomes a
visually compelling materialization of an ideology of ancestral clan' (1991,
p. 340, emphasis in the original). These heads have been made analo-
gous to the skulls which have been (mis)-interpreted as exclusively of
men: 'The heads themselves symbolise the vertical links [the lines of
descent] which connected the living leaders of the dominant lineage'
(1991, p. 348).
• Domination is expressed as increasing male dominance: 'through this art
style, the men of the dominant lineage - by now a patriarchal clan' and
'The Mesolithic men of Lepenski Vir could have written these words;
instead they carved them in their ongoing effort to empower themselves
and to control others' (1991, p. 358).
• Resistance is expressed as women's reaction to their loss of power and
status: 'These almost invisible histories of resistance - histories of
women working against the grain' (1991, p. 356). This implies that
women were always fighting against the naturalized male-dominated
norm. By this conflation of gender into sex, by continuing, despite
himself, to work through masculist interpretative frameworks based
on binary oppositions, Handsman adds a new man gloss to the old
Enlightenment story.

He says that: 'We are seeing social expressions of domination and resis-
tance, ... But we also see a "way of seeing" (Berger, 1977), a male gaze
which, even as it makes women its interpretative object, renders their per-
spectives and histories invisible. The men of Lepenski Vir used this gaze as
they attempted to control women and appropriate their power (1991, pp. 358-9,
emphasis mine). He goes on to say, 'contemporary archaeologists also use
it, consciously or not, often achieving the same political effects' (1991,
p. 359). Unfortunately Handsman, also employs the male interpretive gaze
and does so under the the guise of his (mis)understandings of gender
theory. There is nothing in the evidence to support his arguments which,
rather, spring from his own location within masculist ontologies.

Conclusion
My argument is that 'gender' can be an enabling perspective but has in
many instances been devalued by the effects of different configurations of
P.C. The creation of P.C. terminology was an attempt by the political left to
66 Gender: Enabling Perspective?

empower disadvantaged social groups by using language which did not

carry embedded low social value. Unfortunately 'P.C.' has been appro-
priated in various ways; most recently the media have adopted it as a term
of ridicule and abuse. As Anne Karpf wrote in The Guardian: 'Now its a term
of ideological war. Calling someone or something P.C. is an instantaneous
way of discrediting with the merest whiff of anti-sexism and anti-racism-
the backlash gone rabid' (1992, p. 34). This use has in turn been appropri-
ated by the political right to undermine anti-racist and feminist attempts to
change the status quo. The well meaning intentions of those who created
the concept of P.C. has lived on in some who use the term gender, and this
is where I see work like Russell Handsman's fitting. When gender is applied
with motives of political correctness in the form of right-on-ness in the
way he does, instead of refreshing new interpretations, new ways of think-
ing about social relations, we end up with masculist stories. These stories
underpin and perpetuate images of active, dominant men with high-status
male ancestral lines, created from the archaeological material in ways
which lead the reader to believe in a natural, subordinate condition for
women. Handsman is being seen to do gender archaeology and is still
finding women trying to resist the inevitable male dominance. The work of
gender perspectives can make a difference to the way we understand the
dynamics of men and women's lives only if the analyst is motivated by
political incentive for change, stemming from a belief that the masculist
naturalized norm must be disputed.
To use the full potential of gender perspectives we must ask different
questions. We must question the validity of phallocentric knowledges
which inform oppositional analytical criteria. Without the fixed referential
point of authority and dominance represented by the phallus/penis which
constructs 'woman in relation to man' we can interpret through multiple
and flexible gender possibilities. We can enrich this by thinking of more
than those structures of social categories and envision too the 'genderings'
which people are playing out in their located medications of these cate-
gories and their lived experiences of them. It is only by changing the refer-
ence points to locations which disrupt the taken-for-granted status of
masculist knowledges that we can write about multiple genders rather than
binary sex. By disrupting the power of the phallus we can truly ask ques-
tions which change the face of archaeological research. My use of 'gender'
as an analytical tool is not politically correct, it is not good manners. My
analysis is actively intended to be disruptive and to create discomfort.
joanna Coles wrote about one of the forms of P.C. in The Guardian saying
that: 'In Britain such crude attempts to change attitudes through the
manipulation of language are usually met with laughter' (Coles, 1993,
p. 24). I like to believe this is beginning to be nervous laughter. Irigaray's
description of the struggle expresses the politics of gender studies and
denies the implied alliance with political correctness:
 Mary Baker 67

When women want to escape from exploitation, they do not merely

destroy a few 'prejudices' they disrupt the entire order of dominant
values, economic, social, moral and sexual. They call into question all
existing theory, all thought, all language, in as much as these are
monopolized by men and men alone. They challenge the very founda-
tion of our social and cultural order, whose organization has been
prescribed by the patriarchal system. (Irigaray, 1985, p. 165)

Note
* I would like to thank Malcolm Smith and the Department of History, University
of Wales, Lampeter, for making it possible for me to attend the conference. My
thanks also go to Sue Pitt and Michael Tierney for their help and support.

Bibliography
Baker, M. (1996) in J. Moore and E. Scott, Invisible People and Processes: Writing gender
and childhood into European Archaeology (Leicester).
Berge, J. (1977) Ways of Seeing (London).
Braidotti, R. (1991) Pattems of Dissonance (Cambridge).
Butler, J. (1989) 'Gendering the Body: Beauvoir's philosophical contribution', in
A. Garry and M. Pearsal (eds) Women, Knowledge and Reality. Explorations in feminist
philosophy (London).
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (London).
Butler,]. (1991) 'Imitation and Gender Insubordination', in D. Fuss (ed.) Inside/Out:
Lesbian theories gay theories, (New York).
Butler,]. (1993) Bodies That Matter (London).
Chapman, R. and J. Rutherford (1988) Male Order: Unwrapping masculinity (London).
Cixous, H. (1991) Coming to Writing and Other Essays, ed. D. Jensen (Harvard).
Cocks, ]. (1989) Oppositional Imagination: Feminism, critique and political theory
(London)
Coles, J. (1993) 'Manners Maketh Man Politically Correct', The Guardian (2 July),
p. 24.
Conkey, M. (1991) 'Contexts of Action, Contexts for Power: Material culture and
gender in Magdalenian times', in J. Gero and M. Conkey (eds), Engendering
Archaeology: Women and prehistory (Oxford) pp. 57-92.
Faludi, S. (1991) Backlash: The undeclared war against American women (London).
Freud, S. (1965) Lecture 33. New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, trans
J. Strachey (New York).
Frye, M. (1989) in A. Gary and M. Pearsal (eds), Women, Knowledge and Reality:
Explorations in feminist philosophy (London).
Garry, A. and M. Pearsal (1989) Women, Knowledge and Reality: Explorations in feminist
philosophy (London).
Gero, ]. and M. Conkey (1990) Engendering Archaeology: Women and prehistory
(Oxford).
Handsman, R. (1990) 'Whose Art was Found at Lepinski Vir? Gender relations and
power in archaeology', in J. Gero and M. Conkey (eds), Engendering Archaeology:
Women and prehistory (Oxford), pp. 329-65.
Irigaray, L. (1985) This Sex Which is Not One (Ithaca).
68 Gender: Enabling Perspective?

Karpf, A. (1992) 'The Unbearable Rightness of being PC', The Guardian

(24 September), p. 34.
Miller,]. (1990) Seductions: Studies in reading and culture (London).
Moore, H. (1994) A Passion For Difference (Cambridge).
Whitbeck, C. (1989) 'A Different Reality: Feminist ontology', in A. Garry and
M. Pearsal (eds), Women, Knowledge and Reality: Explorations in feminist philosophy
(London).
Weedon, C. (1987) Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory (Oxford).
Young, R. (1981) Untying the Text (London).
Part II
Social Contexts for Crafts,
Technology and Production
5
Gender and Craft Innovation:
Proposal of a Model*
Louise M. Senior

Conkey and Spector's (1984) clarion call for an archaeology of gender has
been increasingly addressed over the past decade. Stemming from feminist
perspectives, most of these studies concentrate on the role of women in
past and present societies, such that gender can often be read simply as
women. Many of these studies merely 'add women and stir'- they do not
actually go very far beyond traditional approaches or perspectives in
anthropological archaeology. Craft production is one of the most appropri-
ate avenues for investigations of gender and material culture because most
crafts in most ethnographic cultures around the world are practised by a
specific gender- they are gender-linked. Yet 'sex-specificity is not intrinsic to
the manufacture of any craft' (Parezo, Hays and Slivac, 1987, p. 155); the
division of labour in craft production varies by culture and has changed
over time (1987, p. 146). 1 Because of the sexual division of labour intrinsic
to most crafts, gender can provide a window into the way in which pro-
duction is organized and effected.
Such a window is thrown wide open when we choose to examine what
happens when one sex crosses over and begins producing materials for-
merly exclusively produced by the 'other' sex. 2 A simplistic- and possibly
reductionist - model is proposed here. The pattern described below is based
on my own initial observations of pottery production in the southwestern
US Hopi-Tewa villages and Zufti Pueblo, 3 as well Mark Neupert's work in
Paradijon, in the Philippines.
My postulated model is this: when one gender begins to practise 'another
gender's' craft, either the producer will change form or the product will
change form. The conceptual framework, preliminary observations sup-
porting the model, and a retinue of caveats are discussed below. I conclude
with the implications that this model may have for the interpretation of
archaeological remains as well as modern material culture studies and
sociology.
71
72 Gender and Craft Innovation

Background to the model: gender roles in the ethnographic

Southwest United States
Among Native Americans of the Southwestern United States there are well
known traditions linking specific crafts with specific genders: pueblo
women are the potters, pueblo men, the weavers; among the Navajo, the
women are the weavers (although the historical context of this is much
more recent than the Puebloan gendered-crafts). 'Pueblo women produced
and distributed both food and durable goods, and these products were
coded as being female' (Roscoe, 1994, p. 352). Male roles are generally
related to hunting and defence; under specific historical circumstances,
Navajo men were also responsible for raiding parties. Agricultural produc-
tion was essentially a mixed-gender role in both Puebloan and Navajo
groups.
Within these groups, there are also people who cross gender lines -who
assume genders different from their biological sexes. 4 Anthropologists his-
torically referred to these people as 'berdache', 5 but this term is no longer
appropriate in anthropological discourse; 'third' gender, 'alternatively' gen-
dered, or 'two-spirit' are more acceptable terms (Herdt, 1994; jacobs and
Thomas, 1994). Both biological women and men are known to have
become two-spirits in several cultures, but very little has been documented
about the 'female' two-spirit, or any other females, in early North American
ethnographies. 6 For the purposes of this discussion I will refer only to
'male' two-spirits - that is, biological males who take on female gender
roles, usually dress in women's clothes and frequently marry conventional
males in their cultures.
Early ethnographers generally characterized these individuals as transves-
tite, 7 and incorporated them into a Freudian model of gender inversion
(Devereaux, 1937). Some recent surveys of berdache behaviours have not
moved far beyond these views despite their value as comprehensive
reviews. 8
Anthropologists have recently challenged this notion of 'gender inver-
sion': rather than a question of 'either-or' the two-spirit role is now usually
viewed as a third, or even fourth (when women take on traditional men's
roles), gender. 9 This group of anthropologists have criticized their earlier
counterparts as being unable to escape the essentialist confines of Western
sexual dimorphism; they further suggest that we 'must not reduce the
richness and significance of divergent sex/gender categories ... to a one-
dimensional ideology of sexual dimorphism or to the residual category
of homosexuality' (Herdt, 1994, p. 13). Blackwood (1988) offers this
synopsis: 10

The berdache gender ... is not a deviant role, nor a mixture of two
genders, nor less a jumping from one gender to its opposite. Nor is it an
 Louise M. Senior 73

alternative role behavior for nontraditional individuals who are still con-
sidered men or women. Rather, it comprises a separate gender within a
multiple gender system' (Blackwood, 1988, pp. 3-4).

Notions that characterize two-spirits as simply assuming the role of the

opposite sex are thus reductionist and inaccurate (Roscoe, 1994, pp. 370ff.).
Two-spirits should also not be considered homosexual since the Western
category of homosexuality is single-dimensional; it relies only on sexual
persuasion for it's definition (see Midnight Sun, 1988, for greater discussion).
Two-spirit roles, in contrast, are based on a multi-dimensional range of fea-
tures.11 From his overview of the two-spirit literature, Roscoe states that

the key features of male and female berdache roles were, in order of
importance, productive specialization (crafts and domestic work for male
berdaches and warfare, hunting and leadership roles for female
berdaches), supernatural sanction (in the form of an authorization and/or
bestowal of powers from extrasocial sources) and gender variation (in rela-
tion to normative cultural expectations for male and female genders). In
the case of gender variation, cross-dressing was the most common and
visible marker, but it has proven a more variable and less reliable in-
dicator of berdache status than previously assumed. (Roscoe, 1994,
pp. 332-4, emphases in original)

Productive specialization is the focus of this chapter, as this best fits with
interpretation of archaeological materials; in addition, this aspect best
defines southwestern two-spirits and thus seems most appropriate in a dis-
cussion of modern southwestern craft innovations. The heterogeneity of
two-spirit expressions in North America should not be trivialized. Though
the notion of a third/alternative gender is widespread, the terms in which
these genders are defined are specific to the myriad groups involved; they
are particularistically defined and culturally sanctioned. Though two-spirits
may be allied with shamanism and sacerdotal roles in some groups, this is
not universal and may be an artefact of outdated or biased ethnography. 12
As a portion of their gender identity, these individuals master 'women's
work'. Two-spirits are frequently known as

doing women's tasks better than any women could perform them ...
They were almost universally known to be hard workers, doing good
headwork, pottery, weaving, saddlemaking, tanning [cooking, sewing],
and being good providers for their family. (Williams, 1986, p. 58)

Several instances are noted in which a youngster's proclivity towards

women's work was the first indication that the boy would grow up to
become a two-spirit (Williams, 1986, pp. 51, 5 7-66). I do not wish to infer
74 Gender and Craft Innovation

here that only craft production activities specified gender; however, it seems
apparent that if a man became a two-spirit, he certainly took up women's
work. Similarly, most young boys who shunned 'male' hunting and war
games in favour of household play and crafts associated with their mother's
work were labelled two-spirits early in their lives. This proclivity towards
'women's work' has also been interpreted in a spiritual sense:

The inspiration received as a result of the role's singular 'calling' was

reflected in the incumbant's creativity; in recognising the beauty and
utility of the incumbant's products (baskets, pottery, mats etc.) they
acknowledged 'man-woman's connection with the gods. (Fulton and
Anderson, 1992, p. 609)

These individuals were then frequently given female names and did not
complete either the male or female initiation rites (Roscoe, 1988;
Williams, 1986). 13 Among Pueblo groups and the Navajo, the two-spirit
role is sanctioned through tribal myths that acknowledge the creation of
an autonomous cultural category 'much as gender distinctions, kinship
categories and other social statuses are accounted for' (Roscoe, 1994,
p. 352).
Certainly the most famous two-spirit is the Zufti We'wha (1849-96), a
noted potter and an extraordinary individual (Roscoe, 1988, p. 1991).
We'wha was among the first potters at Zufti to produce pottery for sale
(Roscoe, 1991, p. 121) and many of the vessels collected by the Stevensons
for the Smithsonian Institution are probably We'wha's products (Roscoe,
1988, p. 130). As an illustration of the strong gender link that Zufti pottery
production had with women, james Stevenson was forbidden to participate
in a clay-collecting expedition because he was male and it was taboo for
men to visit the clay source (Stevenson, 1902, p. 373); thus, We'wha
accompanied Matilda Stevenson to the source!
Another famous two-spirit is the Navajo Hostiin Klah (1869-1939), prob-
ably also the richest and highest-ranking of all historical two-spirits studied
(even though Klah continually gave away his surplus goods to his extended
family) (Roscoe, 1994, 1988). Born in 1869 'at the onset of the reservation
period, Klah was nonetheless raised as a traditional berdache' (Roscoe,
1994, p. 358):

He became an accomplished weaver and medicine man - prestigious

female and male activities, respectively. By combining these skills he
was able to create an entirely new artifact - large weavings depicting
ceremonial designs. (Roscoe, 1994, p. 358)

Klah's rugs were exceptionally large- so large that he had to build special
looms for them (Rodee, 1981, p. 103) and Roscoe further notes that
 Louise M. Senior 75

Before this time (c. 1920) Navajo weaving was strictly secular, purchased
primarily for use as floor coverings. Traders paid for their work by the
pound. Klah's tapestries, on the other hand, were purchased by wealthy
art collectors and museums, whose interest eventually extended to the
traditional weavings, so that what once was a 'craft' became a 'fine art'.
(1994, p. 358)

Neither Klah nor We'wha were the only known two-spirits in their
respective societies; Willard Hill's ethnographies collected in the 1930s
illustrate that two-spirits were a fairly widespread Navajo phenomenon.
Hill (1935) reported that Navajos welcomed a two-spirit to their house-
holds, and his informants stated:

If there were no nadle (berdache) the country would change. They are
responsible for all the wealth in the country. If there were no more left,
the horses, sheep, and Navajo would all go. They are leaders just like
President Roosevelt.
A nadle around the house will bring good luck and riches.
You must respect a nadle. They are, somehow, sacred and holy. (Hill,
1935, p. 274)

This high praise of Navajo two-spirits may actually stem from the Navajo
origin story which features two two-spirits- the two twins, Turquoise Boy
and White Shell Girl. In the third world, these twins assisted first man and
first woman in farming. One of the twins noticed some clay in his/her
hand and shaped it into the first pottery bowl; next he/she formed a plate,
dipper and pipe. The other twin began to weave reeds into the first basket.
'The message of this story is that humans are dependent for many good
things on the inventiveness' of two-spirits' (Williams, 1986, p. 19). This
link between crossing gender lines and inventiveness will be central later in
this chapter. 14

The southwest today

In southwestern Pueblos today, potters are still generally women and they
generally maintain traditional craft styles and design motifs. However,
young men are taking up the potters' art with greater and greater fre-
quency. In today's climate, these young men do not assume an alternative
gender role in order to manufacture pots. Instead, these young men seem
to be stylistically differentiating their wares from those made by females.
In 'Hopi-Tewa' villages on First Mesa (1992-3), I noted that young men
tended to innovate new forms of pottery (such as ceramic lampshades!) as
well as new decorative techniques. Male potters used lots of carving and
cut-out portions of vessels; these techniques are not typical to traditional
76 Gender and Craft Innovation

Hopi-Tewa pottery production, and may be inspired by typically 'male'

wood-carving pursuits. The young men also sometimes painted their wares in
traditional pigments with traditional yucca brushes, but they concentrated
on highly intricate designs involving more colors and more lines overall than
any of the female potters I noted. Such trends seem to carry over into
ceramic forms offered to the annual Hopi show at the Museum of Northern
Arizona, and can also be noted in most trading posts which carry Hopi 'art'
pottery. Al Qoyanayma, a famous Hopi potter, is also an example of a male
taking up pottery and then innovating; he revived the art of constructing
large, steep shouldered vessels that had been 'lost' to female potters. 15
Scattered published accounts of contemporary male Zufii potters seem to
corroborate the trend identified at Hopi (see especially Hardin, 1983).
Kenagy (1977) notes that some ceremonial vessels were traditionally made
by men, but this point is not noted elsewhere. Pottery production at Zufii,
however, had nearly died out until a high school teacher revived it in the
1970s. Thus the Zufii case is different from Hopi in that potting is taught in
high school; as such, it is equally available to both boys and girls.
Nonetheless, young male potters distinguish themselves by making non-
traditional forms, incorporating three-D sculptures into their wares, and
painting elaborately detailed designs on their pots. Roscoe further
comments on the Zufii situation:

Today, several potters of both sexes are gaining commercial and artistic
recognition. But pottery-making was traditionally a woman's art. What
does a boy's interest in this art signal today, if anything? Many Zunis
themselves are uncertain. While Anglos apply the label 'homosexual'
primarily on the basis of sexual behaviour, the assignment of Ihamana
status had always been based on work preference. (Roscoe, 1991, p. 203)

Males are also taking up pottery in other Pueblo tribes and villages; I hope
to better document these innovations in my future work. 16
These Southwestern examples cannot be viewed outside of their histor-
ical contexts: the Institute for Indian Art in Santa Fe encouraged male
Native American artists in sculpture and easel art but female artists in tradi-
tional pottery craft. The effects of this influence, as well as differing male
and female views of the landscape (see Parezo, Hays and Slivac, 1987),
should be explored in greater depth. Though there may be a strong histori-
cal component, if this phenomenon of gender-crossing and innovation
continues cross-culturally then we can presume that there may be another
explanation for the variability.

Gender-crossing in Philippine pottery production

Neupert, 17 in his study of contemporary potters in Gubat, Paradijon, the
Philippines, has noted a few male potters in what is otherwise an industry
 Louise M. Senior 77

characterized by females. Out of the 25 potting-households he studied,

there are at least two examples of men who are actively involved in pottery
production beyond clay processing and procurement. 18 Male potter 1
makes large flower pots (palmeras) for subsistence. His wares are relatively
poorly made and it is easy to pick out his work among that of other
(female) Paradijon potters. He is also a prolific maker of chimney tubes
(tubas) which are a non-traditional form; he is the only potter in Gubat to
make these. Male potter 1 also made a very large fired clay charcoal oven.
Potter 1 expressed great pride that he was the only potter in Gubat that
could make such an item which is necessary for special occasion-large
events.
Male potter 1 married into Gubat from Palawan; it is perhaps significant
that he married into a potting family, and thus had easy access to potting
technology and materials. His wife makes good paddle and anvil cooking
pots. Male potter 1 is in his early 30s and has been making pottery for a
total of 4 years- 1 year in Paradijon and 3 years in Palawan. This example
shows a male producing pottery of specifically different forms, and also
different quality, than his female potter neighbours and relatives.
Male potter 2, on the other hand, is in his mid 40s-50s and is considered
too old for harder labour. He makes mould-made small flower pots (masat-
era) and is the only potter known to use moulds left by a 1970s' Japanese
extension agent in Gubat. Male potter 2's wife is a prolific producer of
pottery whereas her husband is a relatively light producer and is specialized
in these specific types (used for Bonsai trees).

The gender-shift model of craft innovation

My model is this: when one gender begins to practise 'another gender's'
craft, either the producer will change form or the product will change form.
In this way, gender lines are preserved either through a social institution,
such as the two-spirit, or through material culture. That material culture
may change to create a gender boundary is perhaps only an analytical per-
spective; male and female participants in the contemporary pottery systems
must be asked for their perceptions of any gender links in production. 19
There are many further questions, cautions and caveats to be considered
before we can actually accept this model of material culture variation. One
of the most obvious is the cross-cultural 'problem' of multiple authorship
(Hardin, 1977). Men have become assistants to their wives and mothers in
many instances in the Southwest - Julian Martinez and Tony Da both
painted vessels that their female kin shaped, thereby extending their tradi-
tional duties as mural painters - but who in these cases really is 'the'
potter? 20
In Paradijon, the Phillipines, males have a clearly defined role in pottery
production - clay procurement. The wet clay used by the potters of Gubat
is very heavy and pounding it is hard work; it is considered man's work.
78 Gender and Craft Innovation

Women without mates buy processed clay from other males in the commu-
nity. Males are also responsible for gathering fuels -palm fronds and rice
grass. Men and women share in the firing of pottery, but if there is a male
in the household, it is very likely that he will be in charge of the firing
(M. Neupert, personal communication, 1994, 1995). Older men in couples
occasionally assist their wives in the finishing of pots; this intermittent
help relates only to slipping and burnishing pots. This finishing is
restricted to older couples where the male is not in the cash labour force.
Clearly, if more work is to be done on gender and craft innovation, the role
of multiple authorship of vessels must be disentangled.
The social organization of potters may contribute to variability in how
men and women cross gender lines. The anecdotal information presented
here is entirely gleaned from matrilineal groups. The relative acceptance of
males participating in 'female' work may relate specifically to the position
of women in the society in general. It would be very interesting to observe
any instances of gender-crossing amongst patrilineal peoples. Possibly
Kramer's work with Rajasthani potters may provide a window into this sit-
uation; however, taboos against women touching the potter's wheel in
Rajasthan are very strong (Carol Kramer, personal communication, 1994).
It is noted in Spain, on the other hand, that

in a few cases, brothers work together, and in others, the sons and the
wives of the potters participate in the work; occasionally, a widow will
become the head of a workshop of her late husband, and sometimes she
herself works at the wheel. (Vossen, 1984, p. 361)

Spanish working conditions might be particularly fluid with regards to

gender boundaries since Vossen (1984, p. 361) notes that, 'in Moveros, a
centre in the province of Zamora near the Portuguese border, the potters
are women'; presumably they also work at the wheel like the potters
described elsewhere in Vossen's work.
Is there a difference when men take on women's work versus when
women take on men's crafts? Is such a disparity related to differential
power relations between genders in different cultures? All of the cases dis-
cussed have entailed men taking on women's work; yet women have
become significant participants in the production of textiles in the Rio
Grande (New Mexico) Pueblos where weaving was a male tradition.
However, since they produce textiles for ceremonial uses, the designs have
remained very similar to those formerly produced by males. Intriguingly,
the women are using different technology (different, European-inspired
looms) which is apparent upon closer inspection of the fabrics.
Are there significant patterns of 'within-' versus 'outside-' tradition inno-
vations? Clearly, women innovate as well as men even when women are
the primary producers of pottery. To further consider this model, one will
need to define clearly which innovations are 'within' the traditional pro-
 Louise M. Senior 79

duction system- perhaps expected variations on themes- versus those that

are 'outside' the traditional system. I view the carving, cut-out, and even
turquoise inlay of ceramic vessels as significantly outside the traditional
Hopi pottery tradition; whereas simply producing larger pots than women
is interesting (and may be correlated with young male potters), but this
'innovation' is within the traditional system. The elaboration of painting
on pottery is also essentially within the traditional range of production;
however, young males seem to be more actively pursuing such decorative
arts than young women. The distinction between traditional and non-
traditional innovations will not easily be drawn.
Particular historical conditions must also be evaluated with regard to the
source of innovation. The situation of the Rio Grande weavers, mentioned
above, has a strong historical component since the weaving technology
used by women was introduced by governmental agencies. Similarly,
Parezo, Hays and Slivac might argue that Puebloan male pottery styles owe
more to the painting developed in kiva mural traditions and the emphasis
on such in the Santa Fe Art Institute. However, this may be a very subtle
form of the same process to which I am referring in this 'model'- through
enculturation young boys 'learn' (or absorb) that painting is a role of men;
thus, when they begin to create pottery, they use this technique (sub-
consciously?) to differentiate their wares from women's work.
The distribution network and economic relations of production provide
perhaps the biggest impact on who becomes an innovator and when. It's
obvious that an innovation will eventually die out if there is no suitable
distribution network for the wares. Neupert's banzai pot maker had a very
restricted distribution of his work whereas the chimney tube maker was an
entrepreneur who aggressively marketed his own wares. Despite the
general dominance of women's distribution networks in the region (Stark,
1992), the Paradijon pottery 'market' was large enough and expansive
enough to provide room for an additional entrepreneur's niche. Clearly,
the examples from the American Southwest, where the distribution system
essentially comes to the potters, either in the form of tourists or
traders, allows for a greater range of flexibility in production. Also, the
Southwestern pottery 'market' is strongly affected by the interaction of (at
least) two cultures: Native American and 'Western' - innovations, and
innovators, may prosper in this situation because of a greater value placed
on unique goods than may be placed on them in traditional societies. The
European-American art market values innovation and individuation
expressed as specialized styles in ways that traditional pottery consumers
may not.

Role in archaeology and beyond

This model connects with archaeological interpretations as it provides yet
another reason why style, technology, and/or technological styles could
80 Gender and Craft Innovation

have changed in the past. Stylistic change has also been attributed to
fluctuation in the availability of natural resources; variation in work
efficiency; dietary changes; ritual behaviour or value system transforma-
tion; migrations or contact with other groups of peoples; shift in the status
of potters and in the organization of production as well as fluctuation in
market demand (see Rice, 1984, esp. Table 2). Though sceptics may argue
that one will rarely be able to prove that a past shift in the gender of pro-
ducers has caused a stylistic change, I posit that we have rarely been able to
prove any of the other 'reasons' for change presented previously by archae-
ologists. This is a spoiler theory for analysts who posit ancient migrations
based on stylistic changes in artefacts; rather than being evidence of new
and different groups of people moving into an area, different members of
the same group could have taken part in the manufacture of goods - for
instance, some males could have taken up a craft (such as potting) that was
formerly attributed to women in the society. 21 Situations in which this
could take place would be sudden increases in settlement size or economic
and political changes wherein more producers of a specific good would be
needed to supply a commodity in numbers sufficient to the group.
Prudence Rice (1984) has already postulated this 'change in market' as a
reason why stylistic forms might transform and proliferate, but she did not
specifically mention that the gender of the producers may become variant
at the same time.
I believe that the 'gender-shift' theory proposed here is more than a
spoiler theory for changes formerly based on migration. It may address one
of the most fundamental changes that has occurred in the history of
pottery production worldwide: the development of wheel-made ceramics.
Many have puzzled over the following cross-cultural'truth': ethnographic
pottery production, worldwide, is divided by sex; women are the manufac-
turers of hand-built pots and men use the potter's wheel. 22 I propose that
during an increase in demand for pottery goods in the Ancient Near East, 23
the pottery-consuming market increased enough to attract new producers
to it. Some of these producers could have been males, who then innovated
new ways to form pots. These innovations were partly caused by their
entering as adults; they did not have access to the full range of gender-
based teaching and information-sharing networks. Some of these early
male potters could have developed the potter's wheel. This technique then
spread as a 'male technology'; it was transmitted between males in an alter-
native pottery-learning network. Female potters did not 'go out of busi-
ness', however, they continued to supply large numbers of hand-built
forms. Many archaeological assemblages, even after the introduction of the
potter's wheel, are mixed between hand-built and wheel-thrown ceramics.
It seems plausible that these were made by different groups of potters, and
that these groups could generally have been defined as 'female' and 'male',
respectively. In this scenario, men did not take over a women's occupation,
 Louise M. Senior 81

but rather entered it, innovated, and then continued on a side-by-side basis
with female producers for several millennia.
Evidence for this could be partially examined through analysis of finger-
prints in the earliest known wheel-made pottery items. Such examination
might reveal, within the confines of error of modern dermatoglyphics,
what the sex of early producers were. Comparison of fingerprints between
hand-built and wheel-thrown assemblages would show whether the pro-
ducers varied by sex (unfortunately, gender could probably not be fully
addressed in this way). Similar studies could be conducted on later pottery
assemblages to see if the dichotomy between male-produced wheel ceram-
ics and female-produced hand-built pots continued through time.
This model may perhaps be more pertinent to fields outside of traditional
archaeology. I believe that it could have considerable implications in
modern situations where occupations formerly dominated by men (for
instance, engineering) are now being increasingly taken on by women. If
these occupations produce a 'product' it may be unlikely that the material
will be identical if designed or produced by a person of a different gender.
Rather than this variation being viewed as negative 'noise,' this kind of
variation could lead to successful innovations; in a competitive world
market, such innovations could be very important. These notions may
inform contemporary sociological theories regarding the movement of
women into male professions (such as engineering), as well as movement
of men into traditionally female careers (such as nursing). It may be likely
that crossing traditional gender lines will cause products, as well as work
environments, to change. Rather than viewing these changes as negative
diversity, such increased innovations should be applauded. Since archaeol-
ogy is the only realm of social science devoted to the study of material
culture, this field may be particularly well equipped to make this specific
theoretical contribution to the social and behavioural sciences.
There are many other major points to consider in work on gender and
craft production. Specifically, archaeologists need fuller studies of contem-
porary materially-based gender boundaries on which to build their models.
Analyses of the differential power relations between genders must be
included in such work; it will not be enough to simply assume, for
instance, that gender relations in all matrilineal groups are 'egalitarian',
and that all patrilineal groups are not. Moreover, the social position of
third-gendered individuals in relation to the other genders within ethno-
graphic groups must also be considered. Further investigation of evidence
for actual 'gender' differences, rather than only those based on biological
sex, should also be sought in the archaeological record; this may then yield
a better historical basis for Roscoe's (and others) work on third genders.
That most work in traditional societies is gendered, and that the mainten-
ance of these gender boundaries may play a role in craft innovation, con-
tributes another facet to the eternal archaeological question: why do things
82 Gender and Craft Innovation

change? Thus, most archaeologists should include a consideration of

gender in their research agendas.

Notes
* This work has greatly benefited from many discussions and critiques, especially
those of: Beth Grindell, Adam Smith, Nancy Parezo, Laurie Webster, Kelley Hays-
Gil pin, Andrea Freeman, Mark Neupert, Mike Schiffer, Lea McChesney and
Dunbar Birnie. Mark Neupert generously allowed discussion of Paradijon data. I
thank the editors for their useful and patient advice. Any remaining errors,
omissions or misinterpretations can only, unfortunately, be blamed on the
author.
1. There certainly are worldwide tendencies for men to work with specific materials
(such as wood, metals and stone) and for women to work with others (such as
pottery and textiles). These have been discussed by Burton, Brudner and White
(1977); Crowley (1968); Murdock and Provost (1973). However, as Parezo, Hays
and Slivac (1987), point out, these generalizations do not usually hold true
throughout the Southwest United States.
2. Throughout this chapter, I will use 'sex' to designate a biologically-based entity
whereas 'gender' refers to culturally constructed and maintained societal divi-
sions. Though gender and sex can in some cases be isomorphic, it is important
that archaeologists not continue the Western conflation of these two terms (see
excellent discussion in Whelan, 1991). While stating that male and female are
biologically based, I do not reduce discussion to essentialist, polar 'opposites';
considerable variability exists between these two categories, and they should be
envisioned more as points on a continuum rather than diadic opposites.
3. 'Hopi' and 'Tewa' are distinct ethnic and linguistic groups. Though the Hopi
peoples traditionally made pottery, virtually all pottery which is today consid-
ered 'Hopi' is produced in the Hopi Third Mesa villages of Arizona settled by
Tewa-speaking immigrants from New Mexico in the late seventeenth century.
Because these immigrants intermarried with Hopi, and because their descen-
dants now live on the Hopi reservation in Arizona, their products are here
referred to as 'Hopi-Tewa' (McChesney, 1994). The Zuni reservation is located in
central western New Mexico, United States.
4. People who assumed genders different from their biological sexes were noted
within most Amerindian groups at the time of the European invasion of the new
world. Although the most familiar examples come from North America and the
Arctic, I point out that many 'two-spirits' are known from Central and South
Americas as well (Chinas, 1985; Fry, 1986; Murray, 1987; Roscoe, 1987;
Williams, 1986; among others).
S. 'Berdache' is derived from French 'bardache' (see Courouve, 1982; Fulton and
Anderson, 1992, pp. 603-4; Williams, 1986, pp. 9 ff.) and was used by French
explorers in the New World to describe homosexual and transvestite behaviours
noted among aboriginal inhabitants. The term is originally derived from Persian
and Arabic bardaj ('slave' or 'kept boy'), in which it referred to the passive, usually
younger, partner in male-male sexual unions (Roscoe, 1991, p. S, 1994, p. 331).
Fulton and Anderson (1992, p. 603) make the interesting note that most ety-
mologies neglect the Spanish influence on the word 'berdache'; indeed, it is via
Spanish-speakers that many early accounts of Amerindian two-spirits are known.
Individual cultures have their own words for 'berdaches' - nadles in Navajo,
 Louise M. Senior 83

winktes in Lakota, hades in Crow, Ihamana to the Zuni, hova to the Hopi, Ihrmide
to the Tiwa, kokwimu to the Keres, Kwid6 in Tewa, etc. (Roscoe, 1991, p. 5, 1994;
Williams, 1986). Jacobs and Thomas (1994) reported that 'the preferred term of
Native Americans who are involved in refining understanding about gender
diversity and sexualities ... is "two-spirit"'.
6. Until the twentieth century, 'berdache' referred to males only; there is some
confusion now because women who choose to take non-feminine roles are often
termed 'female berdaches' (see Williams, 1986, pp. 11 ff. for discussion); Roscoe
(1994) refers to them instead as a fourth gender. For in-depth discussions and/or
citations of 'man-like women' or 'women Chiefs/Warriors', see Blackwood (1984,
1986); Callender and Kochems (1983); Foster (1985); Medicine (1983); Roscoe
(1987); and Schaeffer (1965); Schultz (1919); Whitehead (1981).
7. For instance: Denig (1930); Fewkes (1892); Kroeber (1916, 1940); Parsons (1916);
Stevenson (1902).
8. Specific reviews of this literature are Angelino and Shedd (1955); Callender and
Kochems (1983, 1986); Whitehead (1981).
9. See the collected essays in Herdt (1994); also note Blackwood (1986); Jacobs
(1983); Jacobs and Cromwell (1992). The theoretical existence of a third gender
was postulated as early as the 1860s by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (see Roscoe, 1991,
p. 207). In support of greater social tolerance of sex and gender variance, North
American berdaches were cited by Benedict (1934); Carpenter (1914); Karsch
(1911); Westermarck (1906).
10. Note that not all modern discussion is favourably disposed towards conceptual-
izations of multiple genders; Schlegel (1990, p. 39) presents a negative view.
Though I certainly ascribe to the flexibility of the term 'gender' to incorporate
two-spirits and other third/fourth gender categories, I do hope that archae-
ologists will not carry this notion to an illogical extent, conflating social role
with gender and thus considering every permutation of grave goods and mater-
ial objects found in mortuary samples as separate genders.
Status is a term that has been well defined in anthropology, but is frequently
and almost systematically misused by archaeologists. Goodenough (1965)
defines status as 'social role'. All individuals occupy multiple status positions
simultaneously (Goodenough, 1965, p. 7). For instance, one may be first-born,
middle-aged, female and married- thus occupying at least four social identities,
and thus four statuses. Care must be taken to avoid conflating the notion of
social role with gender when dealing only with material culture, such as in mortu-
ary remains, especially when notions of multiple genders are newly raised.
11. The Amerindian two-spirit tradition has frequently been associated with
shamanism and religious specialists. Despite their references to the full range of
empirically-based two-spirit attributes, Fulton and Anderson (1992) insist on ele-
vating the sacerdotal role above other characteristics. This is misleading as they
conflate all instances of the 'Man-Woman' social role into an essentialist tem-
plate, disregarding the particularistic effects of social organization.
12. Though Fulton and Anderson (1992) argue that sacerdotal roles are central
defining characteristics of the two-spirit role, they overlook or minimize the
importance of the diversity of cultural systems in which third gender is manifest
in the Americas. Shamanistic aspects of the role may well manifest in cultures
where religion is a personal, or individually-based phenomenon; however,
amongst Puebloan groups, where religion is highly ritualized and manifested as
a corporate activity, it is doubtful that all two-spirits would have held sacerdotal
positions in the societies in question. See Roscoe (1994) for more discussion of
84 Gender and Craft Innovation

this point. See also Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg (1970) for a psychological/functionalist

explanation.
13. Among the Mohave of the Colorado River region, two-spirits are initiated in a
special ceremony which openly acknowledges their status by giving them
clothes and facial tatoos of the 'opposite' sex, but this is a very unusual case and
is dramatically different from either Puebloan or Navajo examples.
14. Note that the role of the two-spirit is also in the Zuni creation story as collected
by Stevenson; however, according to Roscoe (1988) this may have been biased
by the telling of the creation story to Stevenson by We'wha (a two-spirit) since
this role is not featured in other versions of the myth.
15. The Yellow Ware Road, Exhibit of Hopi Pottery, Arizona State Museum,
University of Arizona, Tucson (1994).
16. Independent of my personal observations, Roscoe chose to comment on the
mixed-gender situation of potters at modern Zuni when he describes the current
evolution of Zuni concepts of gender and sexuality (Roscoe, 1991, pp. 202-3).
The Zuni have derived a new word, Ihalha, to refer to homosexual relations
between men; the word is related to Ihamana (Zuni for 'two-spirit'), but is also
distinctly different. 'This derivation suggests that Zunis perceive both change
and continuity in berdache and homosexual roles' (Roscoe, 1991, p. 203).
17. Mark Neupert is studying the potter's community of Gubat, Paradijon, the
Phillippines. His ethnoarchaeological data will be presented as a PhD thesis,
University of Arizona, Tucson.
18. The traditional male role in pottery production is in clay procurement and
preparation; Neupert reports that there are 11 active males among the 25 potting
households he surveyed in 1991.
19. When directly asked about gender and pottery production during 1995
fieldwork, one of Neupert's male potters stated that producing pottery with tra-
ditional Paradijon 'female' paddle and anvil technique was too much like
women's work of infant and child care because the vessels are worked in one's
lap in a manner reminescent of holding babies. Another potter stated that males
could not produce paddle and anvil pots like the women do because such work
(again, in their laps) was too stimulating to their genitals!
20. Note that Hopi-Tewa potters recognize the person who formed the vessel as the
potter (personal communication, LeaS. McChesney).
21. In part, modern Hopi-Tewa men are taking up pottery because it is a guaranteed
way of making a living; economic opportunities on the reservation are limited,
and the traditional male hunting and farming occupations have only a small
role in today's economy.
22. Though I hesitate to assume that this holds true for all archaeological situations,
see both Kramer (1985, pp. 79-80) and Wright (1991, p. 207 and n. 13, p. 218)
for a cogent discussion of this cross-cultural'regularity.' As Foster (1959, p. 116)
notes, 'the correlation between male potters and the wheel admittedly is one of
the mysteries of history' or 'one of many irrationalities in culture'.
23. Possibly owing to population increases or other processes resulting in increased
urbanization.

Bibliography
Angelino, H. and C. Shedd (1955) 'A Note on Berdache', American Anthropologist, 57,
pp. 121-6.
Benedict, R. (1934) Pattems of Culture (Boston).
 Louise M. Senior 85

Blackwood, E. (1984) 'Sexuality and Gender in Central American Indian Tribes: The
case of cross-gender females', Signs: The foumal of Women in Culture and Society, 10,
pp. 27-42.
Blackwood, E. (1986) 'Breaking the Mirror: The construction of lesbianism and the
anthropological discourse of homosexuality', in E. Blackwood (ed.), The Many Faces
of Homosexuality (New York), pp. 1-17.
Blackwood, E. (1988) 'Book Review of The Spirit and the Flesh', foumal of
Homosexuality, 15, pp. 165-76.
Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, G. (1970) 'Homosexualitat und Transvestitism im
Schamanismus', Anthropos, 65, pp. 189-228.
Burton, M., L. Brudner and D. White (1977) 'A Model of the Sexual Division of
Labour', American Ethnologist, 4(2), pp. 227-51.
Callender, C. and L. M. Kochems (1983) 'The North American Berdache', Current
Anthropology, 24, pp. 443-56.
Callender, C. and L. M. Kochems (1986) 'Men and Not-Men: Male gender-mixing
statuses and homosexuality', in E. Blackwood (ed.) The Many Faces of Homosexuality
(New York), pp. 165-78.
Carpenter, E. (1914) Intermediate Types Among Primitive Folk: A study in social evolution
(New York).
Chinas, B. (1985) 'Isthmus Zapotec "Berdaches", Newsletter of the Anthropological
Research Group on Homosexuality, 7 (May).
Conkey, M. and]. Spector (1984) 'Archaeology and the Study of Gender', Advances in
Archaeological Method and Theory, 7, pp. 1-38.
Courouve, C. (1982) 'The word "Bardache"', Gay Books Bulletin, 8, pp. 18-19.
Crowley, D. (1968) 'Crafts', International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 3,
E. Sils (ed.) (New York), pp. 430-4.
Denig, E. T. (1930) 'Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri: Report to the Honorable
IsaacS. Stephens', in J. N. B. Hewitt (ed.) Forty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of
American Ethnology, 1928-1929 Washington, DC, pp. 375-654.
Devereux, G. (1937) 'Institutionalised Homosexuality Among the Mohave Indians',
Human Biology, 9, pp. 438-527.
Fewkes, ]. W. (1892) 'A Few Tusayan Photographs', American Anthropologist, 5,
pp. 9-26.
Foster, G. M. (1959) 'The Potter's Wheel: An analysis of idea and artifact in inven-
tion', Southwest Journal of Anthropology, 15, pp. 99-119.
Foster, S. W. (1985) 'A Bibliography of Homosexuality Among Latin-American
Indians', The Cabrion and Gay Books Bulletin, 12.
Fulton, R. and S. Anderson (1992) 'The Amerindian "Man-Woman". Gender, liminal-
ity and cultural continuity', Current Anthropology, 33 (5), pp. 603-10.
Fry, P. (1986) 'Male Homosexuality and Spirit Possession in Brazil', in E. Blackwood
(ed.) The Many Faces of Homosexuality (New York), pp. 137-53.
Goodenough, W. (1965) 'Rethinking Status and Role: Toward a general model of the
cultural organization of social relationships', in M. Banton (ed.), The Relevance of
Models for Social Anthropology, Association of Social Anthropologists, Monograph, 1,
pp. 1-24.
Hardin, M. (1977) 'Individual Style in San Jose Pottery Painting: The role of
deliberate choice', in]. Hill and J. Gunn (eds), The Individual in Prehistory (New
York), pp. 109-36.
Hardin, M. (1983) The Gifts of Mother Earth: Ceramics in the Zulli tradition (Phoenix).
Herdt, G. (1994) 'Preface' and 'Introduction: Third Sexes and Third Genders', in
G. Herdt (ed.), Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond sexual dimorphism in culture and
history (New York), pp. 11-81.
86 Gender and Craft Innovation

Hill, W. (1935) 'The Status of the Hermaphrodite and Transvestite in Navaho

Culture', American Anthropologist, 37, pp. 273-9.
Jacobs, S. (1983) 'Comment on "The North American Berdache"', Current
Anthropology, 24, pp. 459-60.
Jacobs, S. and J. Cromwell (1992) 'Visions and Revisions of Reality: Reflections
on sex, sexuality, gender, and gender variance', Journal of Homosexuality, 23,
pp. 43-69.
Jacobs, S. and W. Thomas (1994) 'Native American Two-Spirits', Anthropology
Newsletter, 35(8), p. 7.
Karsch, F. (1911) Das Gleichgeschlechtliche Leben der Naturvolker (reprint, New York,
1975).
Kenagy, S. (1977) Zw1i Pottery Aesthetic 1880-1900: A social, cultural and psychological
study of indigenous aesthetic preferences, MA thesis, California State University, Long
Beach.
Kramer, C. (1985) 'Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology', Annual Review of Anthropology, 14,
pp. 77-102.
Kroeber, A. (1916) 'Thoughts on Zufii Religion', in Holmes Anniversary Volume:
Anthropological Essays Presented to William Henry Holmes in Honor of his Seventieth
Birthday, December 1, 1916 (Washington, DC), pp. 269-77.
Kroeber, A. (1940) 'Psychosis of Social Sanction?', Character and Personality, 3,
pp. 204-15.
McChesney, L. (1994) 'Producing "Generations in Clay": Kinship, markets, and Hopi
pottery', Expedition, 36(1), pp. 5-13.
Medicine, B. (1983) 'Warrior Women- Sex role alternative for Plains Indian women',
in P. Abers and B. Medicine (eds), The Hidden Ha1f(Lanham, MD), pp. 267-80.
Midnight Sun (1988) 'Sex/Gender Systems in Native North America', in W. Roscoe
(ed.) Living the Spirit (New York), pp. 32-47.
Murdock, G. and C. Provost (1973) 'Factors in the Division of Labour by Sex: A cross-
cultural analysis', Ethnology, 12(2), pp. 203-25.
Murray, S. (1987) 'Male Homosexuality in Central and South America', Gai Saber
Monograph, 5.
Parezo, N., K. Hays, and B. Slivac (1987) 'The Mind's Road: Southwestern Indian
women's art', in V. Norwood and J. Monk (eds), The Desert is No Lady: Southwestern
landscapes in women's writing and art (New Haven), pp. 146-73.
Parsons, E. (1916) 'The Zufii La'mana', American Anthropologist, 18 pp. 521-8
Rice, P. M. (1984) 'Change and Conservatism in Pottery-producing Systems', in
S. E. Van der Leeuw and A. Pritchard (eds), The Many Dimensions of Pottery
(Amsterdam), pp. 231-93.
Rodee, M. (1981) Old Navajo Rugs: Their Development from 1900 to 1940
(Albuquerque).
Roscoe, W. (198 7) 'Bibliography of Berdache and Alternative Gender Roles among
North American Indians', Journal of Homosexuality, 14, pp. 81-171.
Roscoe, W. (1988) 'We'wha and Klah: The American Indian berdache as artist and
priest', American Indian Quarterly, 12, pp. 127-50.
Roscoe, W. (1991) The Zw1i Man Woman (Albuquerque).
Roscoe, W. (1994) 'How to Become a Berdache: Toward a unified analysis of gender
diversity', in G. Herdt (ed.), Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond sexual dimorphism in
culture and history (New York), pp. 329-72.
Schaeffer, C. (1965) 'The Kutenai Female Berdache: Courier, guide, prophetess and
warrior', Ethnohistory, 12, pp. 193-236.
 Louise M. Senior 87

Schlegel, A. (1990) 'Gender Meanings: General and specific', in P. Sanday and

R. Goodenough (eds), Beyond the Second Sex: New directions in the anthropology of
gender (Philadelphia), pp. 23-41.
Schultz,]. (1919) Running Eagle: The warrior girl (Boston).
Stark, M. (1992) 'From Sibling to Suki: Social relations and spatial proximity in
Kalinga pottery exchange', foumal of Anthropological Archaeology, 11, pp. 137-51.
Stevenson, M. (1902) 'The Zuni Indians: Their mythology, esoteric fraternities and
ceremonies', in Bureau of American Ethnology (ed.), Bureau of American Ethnology
23rd Report, pp. 1-634.
Vossen, R. (1984) 'Towards Building Models of Traditional Trade in Ceramics: Case
studies from Spain and Morocco', inS. E. Vander Leeuw and A. Pritchard (eds),
The Many Dimensions of Pottery (Amsterdam), pp. 341-406.
Westermarck, E. (1906) The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas (London).
Whelan, M. (1991) 'Gender and Historical Archaeology: Eastern Dakota patterns in
the nineteenth century', Historical Archaeology, 25(4), pp. 17-32.
Whitehead, H. (1981) 'The Bow and the Burdenstrap: A new look at institutionalised
homosexuality in Native North America', in S. Ortner and H. Whitehead (eds),
Sexual Meanings: The cultural construction of gender and sexuality (New York)
pp. 80-115.
Williams, W. (1986) The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual diversity in American Indian culture
(Boston).
Wright, R. (1991) 'Women's Labor and Pottery Production', in J. Gero and
M. Conkey (eds), Engendering Archaeology: Women and prehistory (Cambridge, Mass.,
pp. 194-223.
6
Time, Skill and Craft Specialization
as Gender Relations
Linda Hurcombe

Introduction
Specialized production activities termed 'crafts' have often been linked to
archaeological discussions of social organization and status. With each shift
in archaeological paradigms the study of crafts and products has changed
emphasis. Research has now moved beyond the technical detail to consider
the social contexts of production; the production-exchange relationship,
technological choices, the ecology of production systems, human agency
and social agency (Bradley and Edmonds, 1993; Torrence, 1983, 1986;
Lemonnier, 1989, 1993; Arnold, 1988; Johnson, 1989; Dobres and
Hoffman, 1994; Miller, 1985; Ingold, 1990). This chapter investigates some
of the gendered social contexts of production using the time and the skill
involved in production activities as a means of seeing social relationships.
The theme is explored in a generalized way illustrated with some more
detailed examples. New categories of time and of skill are proposed as a
result.
Some cross-cultural surveys have summarized the associations of gender
and tasks, then used the information to stress the likelihood of particular
activities being performed by a gender (for example, Murdock and Provost,
1973; see also discussion in Hayden, 1992). Other research has chosen a
more detailed investigation of one craft sphere by exploring the complex
scheduling of all activities to try to see why a gender becomes associated
with a task (for example, for pottery, see Arnold, 1988, 1991; Allen and
Zubrow, 1989; Kolb, 1989). Generalized assumptions have been used to
choose two activities likely to be associated with women and two probably
associated with men in order to compare and contrast the nature of the
craft activities in greater detail. The sources are multi-disciplinary compris-
ing archaeological evidence, anthropological films, historical accounts,
ethnography, and contemporary craft traditions. One problem with the
88
 Linda Hurcombe 89

generalized surveys is that many of the societies surveyed are in climates

very different from that of prehistoric temperate Europe. A second problem
is that ethnographic and historical accounts are frequently by male
authors. Women's products may go unmentioned (see Owen, Chapter 12
in this volume) or the prejudices of the commentator may affect differ-
ences in the perceived status of an activity (Hurcombe, 1995, 1997). Two
contrasting views of pottery production make the point. The second is very
dismissive of the skills and status of ceramic production.

Although the earliest pottery may have resulted from the accidental
burning of a clay-lined basket, the manufacture of really satisfactory
containers on this artificial material is an intricate process which
involved a considerable amount of trial and error ... Gradually potters
learnt to temper the clay, mixing in some grit or vegetable matter to
prevent it cracking. Neolithic potters built up their vessels in spiral coils
of clay, or alternatively in successive strips or rings. (Cole, 1961, p. 56)
The potter's craft was altogether of a lower order [than metal-
working]; until the introduction of the wheel it was a woman's job. The
Brigantian woman cooked, and herself made such elementary pots as
she needed for her menial task. She had little enough incentive to
ceramic skill. (Wheeler, 1954, p. 30)

Crafts and specialists may be associated with utilitarian products but from
at least the Upper Palaeolithic there are also objects of ritual or social
significance. Craftwork need not be mundane; it can be associated with
rituals, religions and power (see Helms, 1993), and express transformation
and innovation (Wright, 1993; Leeuw and Torrence, 1989). The status
accorded to crafts may be coloured by the archaeologist's perceptions and
experience. Miller states that 'manufacture creates a "text", which is subject
to reinterpretation' (1985, p. 13), but the problem with crafts such as plant-
working is that often there is no 'text' to be read simply because the mater-
ial so rarely survives. Similarly, the ethnographic 'texts' are lacking because
plantworking to create basketry or fabric is often a female task whereas the
accounts are mostly written by men and they have focused on the actions
of their own gender either for pragmatic reasons, or because they believe
these to be the more important. Basketry and textile items are thus poorly
represented in both the archaeological and ethnographic records with a
consequent lack of discussion in accounts of prehistoric craftwork. For
these reasons this craft sphere is deliberately emphasized here.
Gender associations of tasks are summarized by Petrequin and Petrequin
(1988, p. 228). A survey of SO activities in 185 societies found that in 80 per
cent or more of them the gender associated with the tasks was as in Table 6.1.
This summary is part of a discussion of the later prehistoric finds at
Chalain and Clairvaux (Petrequin and Petrequin, 1988). Two of their points
90 Time, Skill and Craft Specialization

Table 6.1 Gender associations of tasks

Male Crafts Stone, bone, horn, wood, metal

Subsistence Hunting, keeping cattle, land clearance
Female Crafts Pottery and textiles
Subsistence Collecting plants, preparing plant foods, making milk
products, fetching water

Source: Petrequin and Petrequin (1988).

are relevant here; first they comment upon the diversity of organic clothing
items from this prehistoric region; secondly, they see the very fine embroi-
dered and dyed textile panel from Neolithic Irgenhausen (1988, pp. 246-7;
and see Coles and Coles, 1989, Figure 78 for a reconstruction) as part of an
increasing intricacy of textiles and clothing. The assumption is that these
developments are in crafts most often undertaken by women. This empha-
sis is rare. 'The Wetland Revolution' (Coles and Coles, 1989; Coles, 1992)
has seen the rise in wet-site excavations recovering preserved organic arte-
facts which have augmented our knowledge of organic material culture.
Barber (1991, 1994) is now emphasizing clothing and textile crafts, identi-
fying these products with women and there are references dealing with
organic items (Adovasio, 1977; Hurley, 1979; Spindler, 1995; Tyldesley,
1994) but this chapter chooses to stress two neglected aspects: the specialist
processes involved and the social contexts of production. It should be
emphasized that basketry and textile crafts lie within the plantworking
sphere because despite the fact that wool has a better chance of survival
than plant fibres, both the Swiss lake village fibres (Petrequin and Petrequin
1988, p. 246; Barber, 1991, Chapter 4) and early Danish textiles (Hald,
1980, pp. 125-7; Barber, 1991, pp. 19-20) are of plant material.
Consequently, one of the female associated crafts examined here is the pro-
duction of plant fibres, textiles and basketry. The second craft sphere is
pottery, which is much more ubiquitous as an archaeological find and
much discussed as a craft within a social context (for example, Leeuw and
Pritchard, 1984; Rice, 1987).
There are ethnographic examples of the gendered symbolism that may be
attached to pottery and its gendered production (see Barley, 1994,
pp. 89-96; Herbert, 1993, p. 210; Wright, p. 1991). Yet there is a curious
absence of gender in general archaeological discussions of production or
changes in form. Where pottery production is seen as a female activity,
change is attributed to one external cause to which the female producers
passively respond, rather than viewing variation as the result of small
forces with individuals as agencies for change (see Mitchell, 1992). In many
cases, the pottery changes are outlined with very little consideration of who
might be effecting these variations. Bradley (1984, p. 72, Figure 4.2) shows
how a pottery sequence can be interpreted as styles changing their status
 Linda Hurcombe 91

through time, so that what is original has high status but as the style is
more commonly adopted, so it loses its status and new wares take up the
higher-value role. His point with regard to status is well made, but if the
cross-cultural associations hold true, then it is women's labour that is
effecting these developments. If all or some of these pottery traditions are
seen as male, then at some point there is likely to have been a gender
switch. Why would this take place and how could this be recognized?
Senior (Chapter 5, this volume) has addressed these very interesting issues.
For the Bronze Age and Iron Age many theories and interpretations
discuss increasing social complexity and the rise of craft goods. The nature
of these goods is thought to signify part-time specialities. In consequence,
the craft producers must be less involved with producing food. The craft
specialists and upper social ranks are thought to signify the rise of individ-
uals who are not directly or fully involved in producing food, so subsis-
tence production has to increase to cover this non-food producing group.
Discussions have focused on the means of 'exchange'- were craftworkers
producing for themselves, for entrepreneurs, or for patronesses/patrons?
They have also examined the status of craft specialists - did the maker or
owner/wearer gain from more specialist products? In this plethora of theo-
ries, gender is sadly neglected. It is always implicitly assumed that a presti-
gious craft specialist will be male. There is no reason to suppose that there
were not male craft specialists, but they need not have been exclusively so.
There could have been women who were recognized for their craft skills
and a combination of genders may have enacted production forming house-
hold craft specialities. Refreshingly, some authors have pointed out that
crafts may involve more than one gender and involve old and young at dif-
ferent stages in the production process (Herbert, 1993; Kuoni, 1981; Miller,
1985, p. 209) and that social relations, rebellion and innovation may have
a gender dimension (Costin eta/., 1989; Lederman, 1986; Papousek, 1989).
However, using the generalized cross-cultural surveys, there are craft
spheres which are perceived as male activities. Polished stone adze produc-
tion and ironworking have been chosen as examples of crafts likely to be
associated with men.

Comparing craft activities

My purpose here is to focus on the neglected plant/basketry/textile/cloth-
ing sphere of craft production (termed 'plant sphere' for ease of reference)
but to do so via comparisons with other crafts associated with different
genders. Basketry and textile remains are grouped together because some
clothing items can be made using basketry or netting techniques. Brief
examples of the production of metalwork, polished stone and pottery will
be given for comparison to show that many of the features which impart
status to other crafts may also apply to plant products. Investigating the
92 Time, Skill and Craft Specialization

social contexts of craft production highlights the manner in which prag-

matic constraints might interplay with social agency. Craft processes have
been deconstructed into a sequence of actions, different kinds of skill, and
the social contexts of time.
Archaeologists have seen time as a linear, objective entity, when in fact it
is socially constructed (see Damm, Chapter 7 this volume; Gell, 1992,
Gosden, 1994). Craft specialists have also been ascribed status according to
archaeological perceptions. For example, the three-age system tends to
emphasize a novel technology and to imply progression. Polished stone is
seen as an advance by archaeologists, yet in the ethnographic example
given below the activity of 'polishing' is regarded as tedious and involves
the least degree of speciality. Ferrous metallurgy defines the Iron Age and
iron-working is usually regarded by archaeologists as important. Yet, in the
ethnographic record the status of a metalworker can vary considerably
from valued specialist to social outcast, and the specialists may have a dif-
ferent lifestyle from the rest of society (Brown, 1995, pp. 134-5; Herbert,
1993, pp. 26-9; Horne, 1994). Clearly, there is a great deal of variation
between the craft activities and products stressed by archaeologists and the
social perceptions of particular tasks within a society. The component tasks
within a production process may require different levels of skill and knowl-
edge and have different social settings for production. In order to draw
comparisons, a uniform approach to each of the four craft spheres was nec-
essary but the processes of production also have to be disaggregated.
The paucity of organic finds has not encouraged archaeologists to see
major periods of innovation and development in basketry or textile pro-
duction yet these are likely. Virtually all craft processes can be divided up
into common stages: collecting, preliminary processing, storage, pre-
paration, primary product, storage, preparation and secondary product.
Tables 6.2-6.5 use this sequence to give comparable accounts of the time
and skill required for iron-working, making a polished stone axe, producing
pottery and making a basketry or textile item from plant materials. The first
two are normally assumed to be male activities, and the list starts with
the process generally seen as the most specialized - iron-working.
Deconstructing the activities and social contexts revealed the lack of
adequate terms to describe the information gathered. New terms are
created here to describe the social contexts of time and the components of
specialist skills (see Table 6.6).
Tables 6.2-6.5 show time as measured but indicate the social categories
defined in Table 6.6. Note that the chain of operations for any craft is com-
posed of discrete actions and it is these subsections of the sequence which
may be either intermittent or continuous, indicated by I or C respectively.
Time that is part of a collective or partnered activity is labelled P, and D
signifies time that can be doubled up with other activities because once the
process is set up it requires only monitoring. Whilst most craft work is
Table 6.2 Iron-workin g: time and skill required

Stage Process/Activity Time Knowledge/Skill

Collecting Travel to source 1 day c Know location K
Dig ore Recognize ore
Preliminary Bake ore, and crush 4 hours c D Knowledge of woods K
processes Collect wood and make charcoal clays and
Collect clay and make tuyere pyrotechno logy
STORAGE Dry
Preparation Prepare furnace, using layers of c Smelter - very specialist K
ore and charcoal knowledge to stack correctly
Primary Smelt, use tuyere and bellows, 8 hrs c p and maintain the right K E
product Clamp down overnight (1 night) conditions
Chip off slag
STORAGE
Secondary Forge using charcoal, bellows 1 day c p Smith -very specialist K E
product tongs and stone hammer knowledge
Key:
I Intennittent time The process can be interrupted and resumed later
C Continuous time The activity cannot easily be interrupted
P Partnered time Activity requires more than one person
D Doubled time The process is ongoing and monitored but other tasks can be undertaken
K Knowledge Factual details (some aspects could be controlled)
E Experience Builds on knowledge but is a physical skill
Summary: 3-4 days in total is a reasonable estimate. Some activities require more than one person
but only one person need have the specialist knowl-
edge. Several parts of the process require (different) specialist knowledge.
Notes: The estimates are taken from the film The Iron Smelters ofEremi, detailing the methods of
iron working of the Madi in Uganda. Other traditions
will vary the time periods (see Brown, 1995, p. 58, for example).
Assessment: Although the object produced is durable and afforded much attention by archaeologist
s, the operations involved are relatively straightfor- \0
ward with simple time requirements , but knowledge may be restricted. w
 \0

*""

Table 6.3 Making a polished stone axe": time and skill required

Stage Process/Activity Time Knowledge/Skill

Start at c p Know location, suitable K

Collecting Travel to source
selection dawn rocks
return at c p Experience
Preliminary Lever boulders
processes Fire setting 3.00
E
Preliminary flaking
Return from source with preforms
(c, 1 per hour)
STORAGE (Preform is now of value)
20-45 mins I Older, experienced K E
Preparation Final flaking
person required
Primary Polishing 1-3 hours I Anyone may do this for
product themselves
Table 6.3 continued

Stage Process/Activity Time Knowledge/Skill

STORAGE Keep or exchange
Secondary Select tree for wooden haft 1 hour I Experience E
product Heat to harden c
Prepare binding and bind to haft

Key:
I Intermittent time The process can be interrupted and resumed later
C Continuous time The activity cannot easily be interrupted
P Partnered time Activity requires more than one person
D Doubled time The process is ongoing and monitored but other tasks can be undertaken
K Knowledge Factual details (some aspects could be controlled)
E Experience Builds on knowledge but is a physical skill
Summary: 1 day or more of time. Some activities are collective. One part of the process recognizes the services of an expert knapper.
Notes: The information came from the video of Langda people (Papua New Ginuea) making axes, supplemented by Toth, Clarke
and Ligabinel 1992,
who studied the same group. The time spent travelling to the source, or in polishing, could be substantially more than
the estimates here- flint is very
hard and takes a long time to polish, for example.
a The Langda make an artefact which an archaeologist would term an adze because its working edge is transverse in relation
to the haft, but they use
the tool as an axe.
Assessment These objects, which are used in part to define the Neolithic, mostly involve intermittent time and require unskilled
labour for the polish-
ing which is their most marked feature according to archaeological perspectives.

~
CJl
 "'0'-

Table 6.4 Pottery production: time and skill required

Stage Process/Activity Time Knowledge/Skill

Collecting Travel to source of clay and of Usually c Know suitable sources K

temper close, so 2-
Dig out material 8 hours
Preliminary Dry clay, 1 day (to 1 I D
processes powder clay month)
treat temper 1 hour I Understand temper K
(above vary greatly)
STORAGE Drying process requires space
Preparation Mix clay, temper and water and 1 hour I Experience/judgement K E
work together of proportions
Collect fuel ?1 hour
Table 6.4 continued

Stage Process/Activity Time Knowledge/Skill

Primary Form body, decorate ? 1/ 2-1 hour c Skill to shape E
product Additions? experience
Dry (shade/insid e house) 1 day-1 I D
month
Bonfire firing, low temperature s 1-2 hours C/I D Knowledge of K E
OR OR OR pyrotechno logy
Kiln firing, higher temperature s 2-8 hours c D
Key:
I Intermittent time The process can be interrupted and resumed later
C Continuous time The activity cannot easily be interrupted
P Partnered time Activity requires more than one person
D Doubled time The process is ongoing and monitored but other tasks can be undertaken
K Knowledge Factual details (some aspects could be controlled)
E Experience Builds on knowledge but is a physical skill
Summary: 14-15 hours in total. Drying activities may take several days or a month and would
require space and shelter. Shaping and firing require some
specialist knowledge and skill. Firing methods greatly affect the quantity and category of time required.
Bonfire firings would require attention at the
start, then some tending, whereas sustained high temperatures would require longer periods and more
continuous monitoring.
Notes: The account is generalized from several sources (Rice, 1987; Roux and Corbetta, 1989; Rye,
1981; Wright 1991, 1993) but note that the embedded
drying times may affect the gender of the producer (see Arnold, 1988; Kolb, 1989; Allen and Zubrow,
1989).
Assessment: Pottery production is relatively straightforwa rd in outline, but presents myriad variations
according to individual regional resources and
personal choices of temper, manufacture, decoration and firing.

'-I
"'
 ~
00

Table 6.5 Basketry/textile production: time and skill required

Stage Process/Activity Time Knowledge/Skill

Travel to sources 1 hour to 1 c Know location, know K

Collecting
Collect materials day season and age
1 +day I D Knowledge of specific K E
Preliminary Soak
processes Drying (turning) I D plants and plant parts
Pound/split /scrape 1/ 2 hour to
days
1 / 2 hour to I Special knowledge for K
Other processes for dyes might
include boiling or pounding several dye colours and
specific plant species and parts hours sources
STORAGE Space in shade and dry
1+ hours I D Experience E
Preparation Soak
mellow
OR OR OR
1/ 2 hour to Know appropriate K
Comb, break, ret- hatchel fibres"
days treatments
2-3 hours Know processes/p lants K
?Dye and dry
1 /z hour+ I Physical skill, know K E
Primary Weave (basket/hat/ cloak)
product patterns of weaves
OR OR OR
1 / 2 day or I Physical skill E
Spin fibres, possibly ply them
days
Table 6.5 continued

Stage Process/Activity Time Knowledge/Skill

STORAGE
Secondary ?Line basket with clay/pitch 1/ 2 hour I Appropriate treatments E
product OR Set up looms know
Weave textiles 1 / 2 day or I (P) patterns and weaves K E
days
?Embroider /overlay decoration 1+ hours I Know stitches E
Key:
I Intermittent time The process can be interrupted and resumed later
C Continuous time The activity cannot easily be interrupted
P Partnered time Activity requires more than one person
D Doubled time The process is ongoing and monitored but other tasks can be undertaken
K Knowledge Factual details (some aspects could be controlled)
E Experience Builds on knowledge but is a physical skill
Summary: Basketry style products could take 2 1/ 2 hours or several days depending on the size
of the weave and item produced, use of colour, etc. There
may be a further day or more of doubled time. Textiles could take 2 days or more for small items,
but larger pieces or finer weaves could take many
more days; dyeing or embroidery would add further time. The finer products require physical skill,
and the patterns would require specialist knowledge.
Notes: This group of activities is very varied and has many stages. The sources are largely craftwork
texts and ethnographic accounts.
a Retting is a process of destroying the soft tissue via either extended exposure to the elements,
boiling, or soaking in solutions. Hence the time taken
for this activity could be substantial but mostly it could be doubled up with other tasks. On larger
looms where the warp threads need to have equal
tension, the process is best undertaken by more than one person.
Assessment: This is the largest table, indicating the complexity of operations and plethora of variations
contained within this craft sphere.

'D
'D
100 Time, Skill and Craft Specialization

Table 6.6 Categories of time and specialist skills

Categories of Time in a Social Context

Intermittent time: Processes which can be interrupted for periods and pursued on
different occasions are defined as having 'intermittent' time. This term was chosen
in preference to 'discontinuous' because this category needs to be defined in its own
right, not judged against another time category.
Continuous time: Processes which, once started, cannot be interrupted for other
tasks.
Doubled time: Some processes, once set up, can be left untended for blocks of time,
leaving the producer free to perform other tasks. This differs from embedded time
because the time is not saved by doing one thing on the way to engaging in a second
activity, but freed by the potential to do two things at once. The processes which
involve doubled time have a second set of social contexts. They may require space
in the shade or in a dry shelter, or need proximity to water or use pits or large
vessels containing water. These spatial requirements ensure that scheduling such
actions in time and space may be important. In doubled time the producer is free to
do other things but would probably have to visit the drying, soaking or storage area
regularly for monitoring purposes.
Partnered time: There are activities which are best carried out, or only possible, with
more than one person taking part. Only one of the individuals need have specialist
skills, or they may be equally proficient.

Categories of Specialist Skills

Knowledge comprises the details of where and when a resource may be found, and
how to create a given effect.
Experience builds on knowledge but is the physical skill of performing an action and
the practical application of knowledge.
Aptitude is both the tangible capacity to learn knowledge and to acquire physical
skills, but it is affected by innate abilities. In the same way that some individuals
will never draw or sing well no matter how much knowledge and training they
have, so there is the question of aptitude for a particular craft.

simply regarded as 'skilled' or 'specialist', these terms have been broken

down to show where the knowledge (labelled K) is important, versus where
experience (labelled E), i.e. physical skill gained over time, is required.
Some of the stages require a specialist. This may be to save time as in the
case of the polished stone process. Here the expert knapper does the fine
flaking and can save many hours of polishing time. Elsewhere, the special-
ist contributes less to efficiency and more to a finer-quality finished
product. Still other styles of specialists are those with knowledge which
could be kept secret but was deemed essential for a successful project. By
deconstructing some of the terms commonly used and trying to place craft-
work in its social context some new ways of seeing time and skill emerge
and some interesting patterns are revealed.
 Linda Hurcombe 101

Time need not be measured or valued according to contemporary Western

ideas, nor need it directly convey value, yet it is finite. Tables 6.2-6.5 show
that total time is not as variable as the social contexts of that time. The
iron-working required the largest stretches of uninterrupted time, whereas
the creation of plant products, especially fibre preparation and textile
manufacture, had heavy time requirements but once the preliminary
processes were completed, these could be scheduled very flexibly because
they were intermittent time tasks.
The drying and soaking processes associated with ceramic or plant craft-
work may be lengthy, but once begun they need only be monitored.
Pottery and plant craftwork generally involve larger amounts of doubled
time and whilst the time commitment is considerable, there are fewer
instances where the time has to be a continuous block. Tables 6.2-6.5
suggest that measures of time may be less important in the gender associ-
ations than the social contexts of that time. Time spent collecting
resources may involve travel (and in this sense require continuous time)
and may be more conveniently undertaken by several people as a part-
nered activity. Leaving aside the collection phase, the iron-working stands
out within Tables 6.2-6.5 because of the blocks of continuous time.
Partnered time is indicated for plantworking because some looms are
much easier to set up correctly with more than one person. (For example,
Friedl, 1989, p. 163 states that warping a loom and ensuring the threads
are evenly spaced and taut, is best done by three people). Table 6.4 indi-
cates why collecting and digging clay from distant sources might be a
male task with later processes undertaken by female potters. Table 6.4 also
shows that sustained high-temperature firing techniques could change the
characteristic social contexts of time associated with pottery production.
If simple bonfire firings are employed with little to do once the fire is
established, then all of the component tasks can be completed by short
time commitments.
Knowledge, experience and aptitude contribute to craft skills. The first
two may be controlled to some extent, whereas aptitude may be unneces-
sary. Tables 6.2-6.5 indicate which aspects of the processing are undertaken
by specialists, but deconstructing the nature of knowledge, experience and
aptitude draws out further issues. What factors make one person an
acknowledged expert? In the case of iron-working, the assumption is that
details of the process- i.e. knowledge- can be controlled (Herbert, 1993,
p. 217). Only a few people will have the knowledge, and they may well
have learned this at the same time as gaining experience. Knowledge is
passed on deliberately and may be guarded to maintain exclusivity. There is
some sense of these factors in relation to Neolithic pottery production in
France and Switzerland. There are copies of vessels of different shape or
decoration which show that the copiers lacked a full appreciation of the
102 Time, Skill and Craft Specialization

techniques (Petrequin, 1993; Petrequin and Petrequin, 1988, pp. 46-8). The
idea has traversed the cultural boundary, but the knowledge has not. Such
details surely indicate that the ceramic craft knowledge from one area was
not necessarily freely available. In the production of a polished stone axe
(Table 6.3), the finer flaking was undertaken by a person with greater exper-
tise, usually an older person. Their specialist task was due not so much to
their knowledge, but to their experience. Such specialists may have gained
greater experience because of aptitude, but once others started to recognize
their ability, the very fact that they were undertaking more flaking would
enable their experience to develop further. Again, similar physical skills are
recognized within ceramic techniques. Arnold (1988, pp. 205-7, 221-2)
explains that the motor skills employed to produce a ceramic vessel are
learned and that having to learn a new physical skill can be a powerful
reason for novel techniques to be ignored. The lack of 'experience' of a
technique, in the sense of a practised physical skill, can thus have the same
blocking effect as a lack of knowledge.
Discussions of plantworking crafts need to consider issues of the control
of knowledge and the development of experience. The factors which
might be valued in plant craft products are conveyed well in Friedl's dis-
cussion (1989, p. 162) of the desirable products of a contemporary weaver
in an Iranian village. One woman is in demand as a weaver because her
bags are firmer, her patterns more regular and her colours more pleasing
and so her customers will wait several seasons for her to make up their
work. Basketry or textile products that are even and fine will require the
physical skills gained through experience and require a certain amount of
knowledge as indicated in Table 6.5. It might be thought that plantwork-
ing knowledge would not be able to be controlled: virtually anyone could
make a basket in the same way that anyone could make a pot. However,
not everyone was able to make particular kinds of pot (e.g. the flat based
shapes as discussed by Petrequin, 1993). In the same way, it is the elabora-
tions of basketry and textile items which could have proved difficult to
emulate. Particular weaves, patterns, or dye colours could all form con-
trolled knowledge, creating exclusivity, whilst experience and aptitude
could give a fineness of detail or execution that would make the product
of higher value.
Knowledge and experience are not the only fields for exercising control:
access to resources could be restricted. Metallurgical deposits, clay sources
and rock outcrops have all been studied by archaeologists as geographically
limited resources with implications for access. The management or control
of plant resources is much discussed, but only in relation to food. Plants
such as rushes are seen as common and green all year round - i.e. too
ubiquitous for access to be managed let alone controlled. A review of plants
as the raw materials for craft products is long overdue.
 Linda Hurcombe 103

Plants as a resource for craftwork

The evidence for this section does not come from the archaeological liter-
ature which is almost non-existent on such issues, but from con-
temporary craftwork books supplemented by ethnographic and historic
accounts. The issues are when and how plant resources may be collected.
Plants may seem to have a widespread distribution and hence availability,
but in many of the sources there were limits on the timing of their
harvest both in terms of the season and the age of the plant at collection.
Furthermore, local variations in growing conditions might lead to limited
numbers of the best plants for a particular purpose (because of their
height, regularity, etc.).
Many plants which are green for much of the year still have a collecting
season. This is often towards the end of the growing season when the
plants are mature (i.e. at their tallest and strongest), but before the weather
weakens the plant, or threatens the successful drying of the collected
pieces. The plants are spread out and left to dry for at least 15 days before
being stored. Drying and initial processing enable the material to be stored,
sometimes for years, before being used. The harvest and processing of
Scirpus /acustris in Britain is described by Brown (1976, pp. 48-50) and
Gabriel and Goymer (1991, pp. 10-11). The reeds grow 1.8-3 m high in
ponds and marshy areas. Two-year-old plants are cut as far under water as
possible in late July or later if the summer is a wet one. They are dried (and
turned) in the shade and afterwards can be stored as long as they are kept
dry and aired. Rushes stored for two years have been woven successfully. To
use them, they need to be soaked for a few minutes and then wrapped in
cloth, preferably overnight.
This example also indicates that the age of the plant or the period
elapsed since it was last cut are important factors and there are thus man-
agement strategies for such materials. In the above example two-year-old
plants are specified. This seems to be quite common. For example, two-
year-old sea grass plants were harvested; these were preferred because in the
first year growth was weak but by the third year, the plant tufts contained
too many dead stalks Oenkins, 1972, p. 29). Boats may have been used to
harvest the longest stemmed reeds. The following example suggests the
two-year period may also form part of a management cycle:

Harvesting rushes begins in late June or early July, according to the

season and weather. If the rushes are left too late into the Autumn they
become woody and brittle. They should be cut every other year from the
same roots, otherwise they become very thin in growth. Where the
water or river or lake is too deep for wading, a flat bottomed boat is
necessary. (Florance, 1962, p. 11)
104 Time, Skill and Craft Specialization

These discussions all relate to plants such as Scirpus and Juncus (i.e.
reeds/rushes/sedges) and are described for Britain. However, there are other
plants which are known to be used for craftwork in prehistoric Europe.
Esparto plants grow in the Iberian peninsula (Kuoni, 1981, Chapter 13) and
are used to produce cordage, basketry and textile products. The 12-15-year-
old plants are pulled up in the Summer, Autumn or early Winter, depend-
ing upon the climate zone. The plants are dried for 20-30 days and can be
pounded to make them more flexible, though water can also achieve soft-
ening. The material is combed to straighten and split the fibres and it can
then be spun. It is used to make rope, plaits for straps and can become
mats, pack baskets, and many other basketry-style objects. There are finds
of this material from prehistoric contexts which demonstrate its usage for
very finely worked clothing items such as those found at Murcielagos,
Spain (Gongoro, 1859, in Kuoni, 1981, pp. 36-8).
Strategies will vary for different plants. Daugherty (1986, p. 24), writing
about North American practices, says that harvesting of osiers takes place
between November and March-April. The willow patches give the best
stems if the same ones are harvested yearly, encouraging long slender stems
(1986, p. 25). Gabriel and Goymer (1991, p. 14) mention that early growth
in March and April is controlled by grazing cattle as the willow is suscepti-
ble to frost. Obviously, the age of the plant and the comments on the
pattern of collecting over several years will lead to fewer plants being 'avail-
able' than the number growing. In addition, local conditions may cause
plants to vary in size. For example, Juncus effusus is found in slow-flowing
water but 'the rushes grow longest and thickest where the water flows from
the lake ... By the end of June they become 8-10 ft. tall in deep water'
(Florance, 1962, p. 10). These limited tallest reeds might be the most
sought-after.
One of the key features of availability which emerges from this broad
craft survey is that many plants may be seasonally and strategically
exploited even though they are green or extant through much of the year.
In the annual round of prehistoric tasks, the harvesting of plant raw mate-
rials for cordage, basketry and textiles would have been a planned event in
the same way that the harvesting of plant food crops was. Certainly, when
the level of production in these areas of material culture show skill and fine
execution it would be reasonable to assume that people selected the best
plants and harvested them at the optimal time of year. Scheduling, season-
ality and the individual selection of 'best' materials all suggest that the
plant craft resources would be valued, but there is the crucial issue of main-
tenance. Clay, rock and ore deposits are all inevitably depleted by exploita-
tion: this is not true of plant sources and hence there is a management
dimension to their exploitation.
Plant growth may be weakened by annual exploitation, or destroyed by
cutting which damages the rootstock. Although plants like sedges, reeds
 Linda Hurcombe 105

and rushes have a wide distribution, the harvest cycles of two years or more
ensure that the available plants are perhaps SO per cent or less of those
growing, while the relative rarity of the best stands of plants would be
perhaps form a fifth or less of this, at S per cent. The logic is that best
resources would be rare and careless cutting would deplete the following
year's harvest. Such factors could have led to plants being managed
resources with some notion of ownership by individuals, kin groupings or
residential grouping. The best plants may also have needed a trip or specific
collection strategy, as would be the case for other raw materials. The small
and shifting patterns of prehistoric settlement may have provided sufficient
local raw materials for access to such resources to be free, but with increas-
ingly permanent and larger settlements, the local good stands of these
materials may have come under some pressure and have been 'owned'. The
extract cited below reports an observation on the ownership of sea grass
near a Welsh village.

The cutting of grass has been carried on so long by each family, that
now every woman goes to her own particular area of the sand dune and
claims it as her own property, from which no-one else is allowed to cut
any sea reed. (Quoted in jenkins, 1972, p. 29)

The same source suggests that the small village which became famous for
its seagrass working skills did so because of the craft expertise and its trans-
mission; after all, sea grass grew in other places: 'The craft of mat making
required traditional skill, which is either hereditary or acquired in early
childhood.' It was said that 'a girl coming into the village older than 14
years of age could never learn to make the mats as quickly or as well as a
native' Qenkins, 1972, p. 29). These issues are worth stating explicitly, and
they are a new way of looking at the social organization and contexts of
plant craft production.

Crafts as relations (skeuomorphs and political manipulations)

The evidence and concepts discussed above suggests that plant craftwork
could have involved specialists with status. It lays open questions of the
ownership and management of plants, not for subsistence but for craft pro-
duction; basketry and textile plants could have been managed resources in
the Neolithic. Some of the finds from Neolithic and later deposits suggest
very fine and/or elaborate items made from plants. Time, specialist knowl-
edge and experience seem to be involved. To quote some examples, there is
the Spanish textile and basketry items from Murcielagos (Gongoro, 1859, in
Kuoni, 1981, pp. 36-8), the Danish fine plant fibre cloth impression on a
potsherd (Hald, 1980, pp. 125-9) and the circum-Alpine textile remains
(Barber, 1991, pp. 133-44). The material from the Alpine region includes
106 Time, Skill and Craft Specialization

patterned fragments, with woven stripes, patterned headwork, embroidery

and the use of colour. The rich variety of patterns is reflected in the designs
on some of the anthropomorphic stellae (Petrequin and Petrequin, 1988,
pp. 245-8).
Plants may be a plentiful resource but the key feature of such intricate
plant-based textiles and clothing is the investments of time and skill. These
clothing products are as decorative and intricate as some of the stone neck-
laces or metal products and could be seen as specialist craft products. They
could be a valued item in manufacture, and be worn for status as much as
any other finely made items found at this time. The variety of patterns,
styles and colours possible would also create a rich opportunity to encode
social information. Given the frequent association of plantwork, basketry
and textiles with women's work, this craft development would most likely
be a female response or status gambit. Even if in the case of the
Murcielagos material some of the finest materials are found on male as well
as female bodies, is the status for the maker or the wearer, or both if it is a
kin group that the producer is providing with such elaborate finery?
The comparison of craftwork outlined here has suggested differences in
the construction of male and female associated crafts. It may have been
more difficult, or simply not the best arrangement, for the biological sex
responsible for children to conduct specialist craft activities which required
extended blocks of continuous time. This is no restriction to a role as a spe-
cialist craft producer; it has been shown that many of the factors conferring
specialist status in stoneworking and metalworking can also apply to plant-
working. The production of elaborate basketry and textiles can be seen as
specialist craftwork. Increasing the elaboration of decorative patterns (via
weaves and dyes) could have presented opportunities to restrict knowl-
edge, whilst fine and even weaves would require experience. There may
have been an overall increase in production time but the extra time would
lie in processes using intermittent time. It has been argued that the avail-
ability of good-quality plant resources would be restricted in season and
number, and that management strategies would be beneficial. In all these
respects, the archaeological perception of plant resources has been inade-
quate. Plant craft activities need to be seen as a potentially sophisticated
production sphere with past phases of innovation and development await-
ing detailed study. Elaborately decorated textiles are certainly known from
the archaeological record of Europe for the Late Neolithic if not earlier. If
women produced baskets, clothing and pots they quite literally held in
their hands the day-to-day and special symbols of their society. By such
means, women may have been able to contribute to social constructs and
status. They may not have controlled them freely; there may have been
social constraints against radical changes. But they would have been able
to manipulate them to the advantage of the individual, kin group or loca-
tion group. The elaboration of craft products requiring more time and skill
 Linda Hurcombe 107

could have been a powerful mechanism in the negotiation of individual

and gender roles.
The prime conclusion is that the plantworking craft sphere may have
had its own craft specialists. The deconstruction of production processes
suggests that this activity sphere would have utilized the intermittent and
doubled social categories of time which have been defined here and sug-
gested to be characteristic of women's time. It seems likely that female
specialists would have existed and been able to achieve status via their
skills. This chapter concludes that there is a strong argument, supported by
growing archaeological evidence, for specialist plantworking crafts in
prehistory.

Bibliography
Adovasio, ]. M. (1977) Basketry Technology. A guide to identification and analysis
(Chicago).
Allen, K. and E. Zubrow (1989) 'Environmental Factors in Ceramic Production', in
C. Kolb (ed.). Ceramic Ecology, BAR International Series, 513 (Oxford), pp. 61-95.
Arnold, D. E. (1988) Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process (London).
Arnold, D. E. (1991) Domestic Ceramic Production and Spatial Organization
(Cambridge).
Barber, E. J. W. (1991) Prehistoric Textiles: The development of cloth in Europe and the
Near East with special reference to the Aegean (Oxford).
Barber, E. W. (1994) Women's Work: The first 20,000 years. Women, cloth and society
(New York).
Barley, N. (1994) Smashing Pots: Feats of clay from Africa (London).
Bradley, R. (1984) The Social Foundations of Prehistoric Britain (London).
Bradley, R. and M. Edmonds (1993) Interpreting the Axe Trade: Production and exchange
in prehistoric Britain (Cambridge).
Brown,]. (1995) Traditional Metalworking in Kenya (Oxford).
Brown, M. (1976) Cane and Rush Seating (London).
Costin, C., T. Earle, B. Owen and G. Russell (1989) 'The Impact of the Inca Conquest
on Local Technology in the Upper Mantaro Valley, Peru', inS. van der Leeuw and
R. Torrence (eds), What's New? A closer look at the process of imwvation (London),
pp. 107-39.
Coles, B.]. (ed.) (1992) The Wetland Revolution in Prehistory (Exeter).
Coles, B. and]. Coles (1989) People of the Wetlands: Bogs, bodies and lake-dwellers
(London).
Cole, S. (1961) The Neolithic Revolution (London).
Daugherty, R. T. (1986) Splintwoven Basketry (Colorado).
Dobres, M.-A. and C. Hoffman (1994) 'Social Agency and the Dynamics of
Prehistoric Technology', Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 1, pp. 211-58.
Florance, N. (1962) Rush-Work (London).
Friedl, E. (1989) Women ofDeh Koh: Lives in an Iranian village (New York).
Gabriel, S. and S. Goymer (1991) The Complete Book of Basketry Techniques (Newton
Abbot).
Gel!, A. (1992) The Anthropology of Time (Oxford).
Gosden, C. (1994) Social Being and Time (Oxford).
108 Time, Skill and Craft Specialization

Hald, M. (1980) Ancient Danish Textiles from Bogs and Burials (Copenhagen).
Hayden, B. (1992) 'Observing prehistoric Women', in C. Claassen (ed.), Exploring
Gender Through Archaeology (Madison), pp. 33-48.
Helms, M. W. (1993) Craft and the Kingly Ideal: Art, trade and power (Austin).
Herbert, E. W. (1993) Iron Gender, and Power: Rituals of transformation in African
societies (Bloomington).
Horne, L. (1994) 'Itinerant Brasscasters of Eastern India', in B. Allchin (ed.), Living
Traditions: Studies in the ethnoarchaeology of South Asia (Columbia), pp. 265-80.
Hurcombe, L. (1995) 'Our Own Engendered Species', Antiquity, 69, pp. 87-100.
Hurcombe, L. (1997) 'A Viable Past in the Pictorial Present', inJ. Moore and E. Scott
(eds), Invisible People and Processes: Writing gender and childhood into European
archaeology (Leicester), pp. 15-24.
Hurley, W. M. (1979) Prehistoric Cordage. Identification of impressions on pottery
(Washington, DC).
Ingold, T. (1990) 'Society, Nature and the Concept of Technology', Archaeological
Review from Cambridge, 9(1), pp. 5-17.
Jenkins, G. (1972) The Craft Industries (London).
Johnson, M. (1989) 'Conceptions of Agency in Archaeological Interpretation', Joumal
of Anthropological Archaeology, 8(2), pp. 189-211.
Kolb, C. (ed.) (1989) Ceramic Ecology, BAR International Series, 513 (Oxford).
Kuoni, B. (1981) Cesteria Tradicional Iberica (Barcelona).
Leeuw, S. E. van der and A. C. Pritchard (1984) The Many Dimensions of Pottery:
Ceramics in archaeology and anthropology (Amsterdam).
Leeuw, S. E. van der and R. Torrence (1989) What's New? A closer look at the process of
innovation (London).
Lederman, R. (1986) What Gifts Engender: Social relations and politics in Memii,
Highland Papua New Guinea (Cambridge).
Lemonnier, P. (1989) 'Towards an Anthropology of Technology', Man, 24, pp. 526-7.
Lemonnier, P. (ed.) (1993) Technological Choices (London).
Miller, D. (1985) Artefacts as Categories (London).
Mitchell, C. (1992) 'Activating Women in Arikara Ceramic Production', in
C. Claassen (ed.), Exploring Gender Through Archaeology (Madison) pp. 89-94.
Murdock, G. P. and C. Provost (1973) 'Factors in the Division of Labour by Sex:
A cross-cultural analysis' Ethnology, 12, pp. 203-25.
Papousek, D. A. (1989) 'Technological Change as Social Rebellion', in S. van der
Leeuw and R. Torrence (eds), What's New? A closer look at the process ofimwvation
(London), pp. 140-66.
Petrequin, P. (1993) 'North Wind, South Wind', in P. Lemonnier (ed.) Technological
Choices (London), pp. 36-76.
Petrequin, A.-M and P. Petrequin, (1988) Les Neolithiques des Lacs: Prehistoire des Lacs
de Chalain et de Clairvaux (4000-2000 av f. C. (Paris).
Spindler, K. (1995) The Man in the Ice (London).
Rice, P.M. (1987) Pottery Analysis: A sourcebook (Chicago).
Roux, V. with D. Corbetta (1989) The Potter's Wheel: Craft specialisation and technical
competence (New Delhi).
Rye, 0. S. (1981) Pottery Technology: Principles and reconstruction (Washington, DC).
Torrence, R. (1983) 'Time Budgeting and Hunter-gatherer Technology', in G. Bailey
(ed.) Hunter-Gatherer Economy in Prehistory: A European perspective (Cambridge),
pp. 11-22.
Torrence, R. (1986) Production and Exchange of Stone Tools (Cambridge).
 Linda Hurcombe 109

Toth, N., D. Clark and G. Ligabue (1992) 'The Last Stone Ax Makers', Scientific
American, 267(1), pp. 66-71.
Tyldesley, ]. (1994) Daughters of Isis: Women ofAncient Egypt (London).
Wheeler, Sir M. (1954) Stanwick Fortifications, North Riding of Yorkshire (Oxford).
Wright, R. (1991) 'Women's Labor and Pottery Production in Prehistory', in]. Gero
and M. Conkey (eds), Engendering Prehistory: Women and production (Oxford),
pp. 194-223.
Wright, R. (1993) 'Technological Styles: Transforming a natural material into a cul-
tural object', in W. D. Kingery and S. Luber (eds), History from Things: Essays on
material culture (Washington, DC), pp. 242-69.

Visual sources
The Iron Smelters of Eremi, by Michael Crosfield; available through the Royal
Anthropological Institute Film Library, RA21
Langda Polished Stone Adzes in New Guinea, by B. Thery, P. Petrequin and
A.-M Petrequin; available through CNRS Audiovisuel, France.
7
Time, Gender and Production: A
Critical Evaluation of Archaeological
Time Concepts*
Charlotte Brysting Damm

In an article from 1978, which anticipates discussions more than a decade

later, Mark Leone suggests that archaeologists ought to discover how we
think, and more specifically, how we think about time (Leone 1978, p. 36).
Just as archaeologists are becoming aware that gender is a social construct,
so they are beginning to realize that time is a social construct. Too often,
however, we are offered the simple distinction between Western linear time
and the assumed circular or cyclical time of past societies. It is important to
recognize that while we operate with exact years and dates, time in many
other societies is more in accordance with seasonal cycles. However, my
concern here is to demonstrate that modern time concepts go much deeper
than this, and in fact are constituting factors for social and cultural values.
These values are activated when we describe and evaluate gender in the
present, and consequently also in the past. The time perspective affects our
evaluations of various gendered activities and the material products of these.
Time is not easily defined. In fact it is probably true to say that most of
us feel we know what it is, but we would have difficulties describing and
explaining it. Time is for most of us placed in our practical consciousness
(Giddens, 1984), but nevertheless time contributes to forming our experi-
ence of being Qohansen, 1985, p. 112). This is why the effects of time are
perceived as natural and why it is very difficult to imagine other ways of
experiencing time.

Modern time
Let me begin by introducing modern, Western time concepts. Time struc-
tures a great deal of our activities. Time determines when to get up in the
morning, when to start work, when to take your lunch, when to pick up
110
 Charlotte Brysting Damm 111

the children from school, etc. Even our spare time is increasingly structured
by television, sports, etc., all at set hours. Modern time is to a large extent a
disciplinary time that forces us into identical patterns. That time is a social
construct is indicated for instance by the difficulties children have learning
and adjusting to adult time. Still, in order to function in our society, they
must learn time. This more official modern time is linear, constant and
exact and therefore measurable and objective. Time is something that exists
independent of humans, and this time concept is easily linked to ideas of
evolution and development.
This new time perspective was slowly emerging in the early historic
European trade centres Oohansen, 1989, p. 82), but a more general intro-
duction of modern measurable time is said to be closely related to the
industrial revolution (See Chapter 4 in Donald and Hurcombe (eds), Gender
and Maternal Culture in Historical Perspective). Not only was there a need for
organized labour, but also for speed in transportation (Sinclair, 1987,
p. 70). The faster and more efficiently things were done the better, as time
is money! It was no longer the task itself that was important, but the value
of time as it was reduced to money (Thompson, 1967, p. 67). Time in the
form of work hours was, and is still traded on the market. In other words,
time became a resource. Today we are also very keen to emphasize how
busy we are, as this suggests that we are important (Melhuus, 1989, p. 117),
and that we are not wasting our time lazing around or watching TV. Time
has become valuable.

Time and archaeology

In archaeology, time has been seen mainly as an extra dimension, needed
to order artefacts and cultures (see Shanks and Tilley, 1987, p. 120). In
some more recent models, such as multivariate statistics and programming
procedures, time and space are displayed as alternative axes. Time is treated
more or less as a spatial dimension (Bailey, 1983, p. 171), and thus one
attempts to eliminate time, or at least to equate time and space (see also
Fabian, 1983, 1991). Some archaeologists have made special efforts to avoid
subjective, event-based time in order to accommodate the demands of an
archaeology based on positivism. Consider for instance the following
quotation:

the notion of different sorts of time, such as linear, circular, reversible,

directional, cumulative and so on, is really an imprecise way of referring
to different sorts of processes. (Bailey, 1983, p. 168)

This perspective on time is comparable to processualist 1 attempts at

redefinition of the culture-historical term 'migration', where a value-laden,
but non-dismissable concept is redefined into analytical elements in func-
112 Time, Gender and Production

tional processes (Champion, 1990). In fact, when at all concerned with

time beyond dating methods, processual archaeologists have predomi-
nantly been concerned with time and time scales as an analytic component
(Bailey, 1981, 1983; McGlade, 1987), or as a measure for efficiency.
In archaeology, time has been an important measurement - e.g. for site-
catchment analyses, where resources available within 1 or 2 hours' travel-
ling distance from the settlement are recorded in order to evaluate strategic
economic choices. It is considered too costly in terms of time and effort to
exploit resources beyond this limit (e.g. Renfrew and Bahn, 1991, p. 224).
Stone Age monuments are at times compared through the number of
'man'-hours or days invested in their construction (for example, Renfrew,
1973). A hierarchy of monuments is thus created, based exclusively on the
time spent building them, suggesting that time is the most important
resource related to these structures, or at least that any other elements
involved may be converted into time, which is then ultimately used as a
measurement for complexity. In experimental archaeology, a major
concern is the efficiency, generally defined as increased productivity in
relation to time invested, of certain technologies and tools. The notion of
efficiency is here as it is elsewhere. In his experiments with the production
of flint micro-blades Callahan apparently considers time an important
factor. His tests using different techniques on well prepared cores show that
the average time used to produce a micro-blade varies from 1. 74 minutes to
as little as 0.93 minutes (Callahan, 1985).
The following quotation exemplifies the use of modern time concepts in
the study of prehistory:

Time-budgeting and the use of time as a resource to promote the

efficiency of subsistence tasks ... suggests another means of identifying
some of the time structures implicit in prehistoric activities. (Bailey,
1983, p. 187)

Following a similar trend some archaeological studies refer to 'household

time management'! Many other examples could have been chosen. These,
however, serve to illustrate the point: time in prehistoric societies is
described as a resource and a commodity, much as within our own society.
This time perspective is not only a structuring element in archaeological
analyses , it actually constitutes a frame for our research problems: we wish
to study cultural change and development, but these concepts or terms are
formed by our definition of what development and evolution is, namely
increased efficiency caused by innovations or the reorganization of labour.
Indeed, the more efficient the use of time, the more complex and advanced
the society.
This is a very ethnocentric view of time in the past and most certainly
(and this is recognized by Bailey amongst others) an etic view- i.e. a view
 Charlotte Brysting Damm 113

formed by the modern archaeologist that does not necessarily correspond

with the original time perspective.

Task-oriented time
Most of us are, however, aware of another kind of time. We are all familiar
with the feeling that 'time flies' or 'time drags' or we simply forget the
time. Time ceases to exist when we once in a while stop worrying about
work, money, the next deadline, dinner, etc. and actually just live the
moment! This is the time we experience in our 'spare' time, our private
time, distinct from the time that our employer owns. The experience and
the activities structure time. Similar time perspectives are often encoun-
tered in non-industrialized societies and are often termed 'task-oriented'
time. Here things are done 'when necessary', 'when you are ready', 'when
you feel like it'. Time has no independent existence. Efficiency and quan-
tity is of less concern, the focus is instead on getting the job done.
In the Third World it has often proved difficult to socialize workers into
the linear, disciplinary time concept. According to their sense of time the
events structure time, not the other way round. This means that if you
work slowly, time moves slowly, and if you stop, time stops Qohansen,
1985, 1989). As one women from Papua New Guinea said:

If you work and the sun goes fast, then you don't get much work done.
But if the sun goes slowly, you might get quite a lot done. I don't know
why the sun goes fast. Sometimes it goes fast, at other times it goes
slowly. (Smith, 1982, p. 507, my translation from johansen, 1985).

People are not wasting their time when they sit around doing nothing.
Because when they do nothing, they produce no events and consequently
no time either Qohansen, 1985, p. 123). As time, according to this time
perspective, is dependent on the work effort you put into it, you always
produce the same amount per time unit.
Has this task-oriented time perspective in any way influenced archaeo-
logical theory and explanation? Certainly not to any great extent. Bailey
(1983, p. 88) does speak of two separate strands in the present discussion of
time in archaeology: the subjective aspect of time, namely time as experi-
enced by prehistoric people, and the objective aspect, time as it affects our
interpretation of prehistoric behaviour. Welinder (1992, p. 24) goes as far
as to claim that there is no contradiction between scientific, objective time
and human subjective time. Both are aware of the existence of different
time perspectives, but this has no effect on their models. However, studies
that take an interest in time concepts that differ from industrialized time
are emerging. These tend to concentrate on calendrical systems and cyclical
patterns, but may also attempt to analyze the social and political effects of
114 Time, Gender and Production

these (for example, de Montmollin, 1987). Such studies are unfortunately

still few and far between.

Time and gender

What is of interest to me here is not initially the fact that time concepts
vary nor how to discover past concepts of time (see, for example,
Vinnsrygg, 1988; Criado Boado and Penedo Romero, 1993), but rather how
our official, resource oriented time affects also our view of gender in past
societies.
In our society we often associate women with health and care tasks. Not
only do women take care of their own young children and sick and elderly
relatives, but they are in a majority in nurseries and pre-schools, in health
and care institutions and in other jobs where time is more task oriented.
We also know that a majority of the housework is still done by women
(cooking, cleaning, washing, in other words caring for the family). These
are jobs or tasks where one has to relate to time in a very different manner
than in a production-line (Tornes, 1985). These jobs require patience. Of
course care workers have tight schedules, and must hurry on to the next
patient - an oft discussed problem in health services today, but the ideal is
different: these or jobs where quality of life is the issue, not efficiency. This
means that many girls or women are socialized into dealing with two dif-
ferent time perspectives, one where time is a resource, and one more task
oriented (Tornes, 1985, p. 89).
Another important aspect of women's time is that it is often discontinu-
ous or intermittent (see Hurcombe, Chapter 6 in this volume) in relation to
the task. Typically women do several things at the same time: while the
dinner is cooking they look after the children or try to study (Tornes, 1985,
p. 90), and they always have to be ready to leave whatever they are doing
to do go where they are needed immediately. Men are often free to concen-
trate on one task at a time, and may therefore have a different sense of
time. This, however, does not necessarily mean that they are less dom-
inated by the time-as-resource-phenomenon. Efficiency is perhaps
more easily measured when your work effort is not constantly interrupted,
excusing a low production score.
Interestingly, it has been argued in both anthropology and archaeology
that one reason why women cannot participate in what we consider typical
male activities (hunting, metallurgy, etc.) is their child-care responsibilities.
It is regarded as necessary that women's tasks are near the house and may
be interrupted and resumed later (see Rice, 1991, p. 436). Examples that fit
a model can usually be found, but I was still excited to come across a study
of the Mura in Cameroon, in whose rituals male ancestral pots represent
continuity of social time and resources, while female pots represent discon-
tinuity of time and transfer of resources (Lyons, 1991, p. 112). We associate
 Charlotte Brysting Damm 115

men and women and their respective tasks with different types of time, and
it is highly probable that this affects evaluations of past activities. Certainly
in archaeological models, there seems to be a tendency to describe mens
activities in terms of the 'time-as-resource' perspective. This is supported by
my having no difficulty finding detailed information on the amount of
time used to produce complex flint artifacts (for example Hansen and
Madsen, 1983; Madsen, 1984; Callahan, 1985), while it was more difficult
to find records of the amount of time used to produce pots or weave mater-
ial of a certain size. It is most certainly a product of modern time when
authors, such as Callahan (1985), find it necessary to report results in 1/100
of a minute!
If we initially accept that men and women in our society have at least
partly different attitudes to time, then the differences in descriptions and
evaluations of past activities could be caused by the fact that it is predomi-
nantly male archaeologists who have been interested in the reconstruction
of flint technology (see also Gero, 1991a), while it is almost exclusively
women who have dealt with, for instance, weaving. In other words, the
individual archaeologist transfers his or her time perspective onto the
research object. I would, however, consider it more likely that the differ-
ences are due to various tasks having been classified/categorized by archae-
ologists (male and female alike) as being typically male or female and
possibly, therefore, related to different types of time or work organization.
It is certainly typical that increased efficiency is almost exclusively
related to men. We seem to accept too easily that with the event of the
plough, the potter's wheel, the horizontal loom etc. men took over. The
tasks had in our opinion become more efficient, specialized, even profes-
sionalized, and this we associate with men. It is surprising how difficult it is
to find any published works on issues such as 'women and professional-
ism', 'women and innovation', 'women and efficiency', 'women's role in
domestication'. Even in collections of papers dealing with gender issues (for
example, Claassen, 1992; du Cros and Smith, 1993; Walde and Willows,
1991) such topics are unusual, particularly if you are concerned only with
prehistory. The volume Engendering Archaeology is an exception in this
respect (Gero and Conkey, 1991), and I was pleasantly surprised to note a
number of papers on such topics at the Exeter conference, particularly in
the session 'Material culture production' (seeM. Donald and L. Hurcombe
(eds), Gender and Material Culture in Historical Perspective, London, 2000,
Part II).
Why have so few been concerned with women and innovation, and the
efficiency in female tasks? If we accept, for instance, that gathering was pre-
dominantly a female task, why have we not focused more on women's role
in domestication? And if pottery production in so many ethnographic soci-
eties is a female task, why do men take over with the invention of the
potter's wheel? Gero (1991b) suspects that with regard to domestication
116 Time, Gender and Production

this is due at least partly to the fact that female archaeologists identify
seeds, men construct the power-laden models of the origins of agriculture.
In addition, I would suggest that the interpretations are also influenced by
modern concepts of time-distorting evaluations of past production.

Time and pottery production

Several studies have indicated that women do participate in activities con-
sidered typically male. Women do produce complex flint artifacts (Gero,
1991a), and they do contribute to mass production of, for instance,
pottery. A closer examination of pottery production follows: ethnographic
surveys show that women are responsible for pottery production in most
societies (Arnold, 1985, p. 102), but there is a tendency for male participa-
tion to increase in so-called complex societies (Arnold, 1985, p. 108).
With regard to women and intermittent time it is interesting to discover
that female potters among the Tarahuma in Mexico, when asked how
much time was required to make a large pot, answered: 'An entire day.'
This, however, is understood to mean as much time as remains after doing
a variety of household chores, such as grinding corn, washing, cooking,
collecting greens and tending the children (Pastron, 1974, p. 105). In
several other groups pottery production is a more specialized task that only
a limited number of women undertake. Still, for instance among the Al-
Hiba in Southern Iraq, these female potters do not allow potting to inter-
fere with major household tasks (planting, harvesting, gathering reed,
making fuel cakes, etc.) (Ochsenschlager, 1974, p. 150). In the cases where
only some women make pots it is not unusual for these to be mature or
middle-aged women without responsibility for young children (for
example, Krotser, 1974; Ochsenschlager, 1974). At Veracruz in Mexico
there are some spare-time potters who are young mothers, but the quality
of their products is not as good. This is due partly to the fact that they
collect clay as close to the village as possible, rather than the best clays
located further away, and partly to constant interruptions resulting in
badly built pots (Krotser, 1974, p. 133).
One very interesting aspect of pottery production is the tendency for
female potters in societies with little stratification to have high status,
while male potters in societies with a more pronounced hierarchical struc-
ture often have low status (Arnold, 1985, p. 198). One of Arnold's explana-
tions of this phenomenon is that women are not expected to contribute
economically to the household, so their income is extra. This view of
women's participation in production runs throughout the book:

When women are potters and subsistence is based upon agriculture,

efficiency is not important because women's time in the home does not
 Charlotte Brysting Damm 117

contribute economically to agriculture. Thus, time is not viewed as

being part of the production cost. (Arnold, 1985, p. 220)

It is probably true that time is not regarded as being part of the pottery pro-
duction. The key question is whether it is viewed as being part of any other
type of production by anybody but the archaeologist? Furthermore 'gener-
ally their time is not as economically valuable as that of the husband'
(Arnold, 1985, p. 197). In Arnold's view real female tasks are apparently
limited to household responsibilities, while men carry the main economic
burden of the family. He also notes that 'women can easily make pots in
the house in their spare moments' (Arnold, 1985, p. 101, my emphasis).
Female time is clearly not considered as important as male time. Arnold is
most certainly not alone in his views, and he is cited here more to provide
an example than to aim all critique at his work in particular.
There are many other factors involved in the different statuses of female
and male potters, only some related to time concepts. I feel that we are
wrong to focus exclusively on the gender of the potter. The issue here is
not least the differences in social organization. In less stratified societies
time is likely to be more task oriented and the point is not the amount you
produce, but the skill you possess. Male potters are common in strongly
stratified cultures, where pottery production is removed from the house-
hold and has become a livelihood. These potters are efficient and are able
to produce a pot in as little as 2 minutes and 52 seconds (with a standard
deviation of 7.07 seconds!) (Arnold, 1985, p. 209). Thus these potters,
according to modern time concepts, ought to receive recognition for their
efficiency, and Arnold has great difficulties explaining why this is not so. I
would suggest that one reason is that these societies, although they have a
high degree of specialization, do not see time as a resource, and therefore
do not acknowledge increased productivity in the way we would. In addi-
tion, many other occupations would have become specialized, thus reduc-
ing the importance of having a particular skill. Only when a potter's
products are ascribed artistic quality does the status increase again (Arnold,
1985, p. 198).
Our analyses of other societies are distorted by our concepts of time,
which are not necessarily dominant even in so-called complex societies.
Ethnographically, we know that when the potter's wheel is introduced men
have generally taken over the production of pottery. One of the main
virtues of the wheel is the greater productivity. Prudence Rice (1991) gives
some quotations on the efficiency of the potter's wheel:

a professional can shape in ten minutes a vessel that might take a house-
wife ten hours to build by hand. (Childe, 1954, p. 204, quoted in Rice,
1991)
118 Time, Gender and Production

The inventions of the potter's wheel enabled the artisan to make from
ten to twenty vessels in the time formerly required to produce one, thus
introducing mass production in ceramics. (Turney-High, 1949, p. 174,
quoted in Rice, 1991).

Rita Wright summarizes the point this way:

At the heart of this reconstruction is the assumption that labor extensive

activities with low economic yields are engaged in by (all) women,
whereas labor intensive activities are innovative and lead to commercial-
ization, the (exclusive) domain of men. (Wright, 1991, p. 195)

The reasons for this are of course manifold and complex, but one
aspect amongst others is certainly the time perspective employed by
archaeologists.
But as Wright observes (Wright, 1991, p. 199), women are in many soci-
eties 'invisible' producers. They may procure and process the clay, collect
the wood, load the kilns and decorate the finished vessel, but only the
person (generally male) who sits at the potter's wheel is recognized as a
'potter'. Could this be related to the fact that the other tasks involved are
done when convenient, in between other tasks, while the actual process of
forming the vessel is related to a different way of organizing time? You stay
put at the wheel and concentrate on producing 10 pots, rather than make a
pot now and then in between cooking a meal and breast-feeding your baby.
Similarly, historical information demonstrates that European women
contributed in mining, another male domain. They got the ore up from the
galleries with a winch, and afterwards they broke the ore with hammers
(Magnusson, 1991). Again, we see that while men may have done the
forging, women did participate in the process.
Clearly the time-as-resource perspective is active when we evaluate pre-
historic tasks and production. It may be assumed that past societies were
predominantly organized within task oriented time. An evaluation of pre-
historic production from a time-as-resource perspective is therefore bound
to present a distorted picture of the value of individual tasks. There are
indications that this turns out to the advantage of predominantly male
activities, while women's contribution tend to be underestimated, as their
tasks are often organized differently, making direct measurement of time
investment more difficult. In addition our time perspective tends to value a
different type of work organization, namely those that are most efficient.
We cannot assume that other societies will set the same standards, even if
efficiency may be crucial to the economy.
If we are to understand women's contribution to production in society
we must be aware of these differences in time perspective. We must be
aware that many processes of production may be divided into several tasks,
 Charlotte Brysting Damm 119

some of which may be gender-specific and others not, and that each gender
may contribute towards the finished product. And perhaps we must recon-
sider the suggestions in a 'gender-classic': Conkey and Spector (1984) sug-
gested task oriented analyses as the analytical framework for an
archaeology of gender. You identify the tasks performed in a society,
describe the organization of it, the frequency and duration of the task, etc.
A better understanding of the tasks involved in complex production
sequences and possible ways of organizing the work should make the
female contribution to production more visible. This type of approach has
been suggested for investigations of women and metalwork (S0rensen,
1994), and it was in fact demonstrated by Linda Hurcombe (Chapter 6 in
this volume).

Female academics and time

If modern women to a greater extent than men are socialized into task ori-
ented time, does this mean that female archaeologists are better equipped
to understand this kind of time? I fear not!
Although many health and care tasks in the home and in institutions are
ideally task oriented, the women working here are also prey to the time-is-
money concept that structure their surroundings, and provide a measure
for meaningful use of time. First of all a lot of work has to be done at
certain hours: injections at set hours, putting the elderly to bed before the
shift, getting the children to school and other activities on time, etc. More
interesting though is another development. A lot of housework is not
meant to be seen - you notice it only when it has not been done, and
caring for children, the sick and elderly is not so much a job, as a moral
obligation (Tornes, 1985, p. 83). But modern housewives not surprisingly
want recognition for what they do, they want to be able to compare with
ordinary wage-workers. So the housewife has to make sure that everybody
knows how busy she has been (she has not had time to visit an elderly aunt
and that she was invited for tea at the neighbour but had to decline), and
she has to work at odd hours when her busyness is being noticed as her
work is noticed only when she starts to imitate other jobs Qohansen, 1984,
p. 200; Melhuus, 1989). Surveys indicate that technical appliances do not
reduce the work hours of the housewife - only employment outside the
house reduces time spent at housework (Melhuus, 1989). This suggests that
we should not overestimate the effect of the task oriented time for women:
it is clearly losing the battle against time-as-resource.
I really do think that if we are to study gender relations in the past, time
is a structuring element that must not be forgotten. One problem is that
archaeologists evaluate material culture from a modern 'Time is money'
point of view, but in addition gendered activities are related to different
time perspectives. I wish to end this chapter by repeating Leone's appeal:
120 Time, Gender and Production

we must be more observant about how we think, and not least how we
think about time in the past!

Notes
* I am greatly in debt to Anders Hesjedal who introduced me to the topic of time,
and with whom I have had many inspiring discussions on time. This chapter in
particular would not have existed had he not directed me to the paper by Kristin
Tornes (1985). I also wish to thank the participants of the conference, notably
Louise Senior, for encouragement and valuable comments and references. Thanks
to Linda Hurcombe for correcting my English, and for general suggestions and
improvements in the text.
1. Processual archaeology, frequently referred to as New Archaeology, is based on
positivism. It focuses on processes of past societies and generally has a rational,
functionalistic view of human society. In contrast culture-historical archaeology,
which dominated archaeological research in the first half of the twentieth
century, was concerned with the history of groups of archaeological artefacts
(cultures) thought to represent ethnic groups.

Bibliography
Arnold, D. (1985) Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process (Cambridge).
Bailey, G. (1981) 'Concepts, Time-scales and Explanations in Economic Prehistory',
in A. Sheridan and G. Bailey (eds), Economic Archaeology, BAR International Series,
96 (Oxford).
Bailey, G. (1983) 'Concepts of Time in Quarternary Prehistory', Annual Review of
Anthropology, 12, pp. 165-92.
Callahan, E. (1985) 'Experiments with Danish Mesolithic Microblade Technology',
foumal of Danish Archaeology, 4, pp. 23-39.
Champion, T. (1990) 'Migration Reviewed', Journal of Danish Archaeology, 9,
pp. 214-18.
Childe, V. G. (1954) 'Rotary Motion', in P. C. Singer et a/. (eds) A History of
Technology, vol. 1 (London), pp. 187-215.
Claassen, C. (ed) (1992) Exploring Gender Through Archaeology. Selected Papers from the
1991 Boone Conference, Monographs in World Archaeology, 11 (Madison).
Conkey, M. and J. D. Spector (1984) 'Archaeology and the Study of Gender',
Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 7, pp. 1-38.
Criado Boado, F. and R. Penedo Romero (1993) 'Art, Time and Thought: A formal
study comparing Palaeolithic and post-glacial art', World Archaeology, 25,
pp. 187-203.
De Montmollin, 0. (1987) 'Temporal and Social Scales in Prehispanic Mesoamerica',
Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 6 (1), pp. 51-61.
Du Cros, H. and L. Smith (eds) (1993) Women in Archaeology. A feminist critique
(Canberra).
Fabian,]. (1983) Time and the Other. How anthropology makes its object (New York).
Fabian, J. (1991) Time and the Work of Anthropology. Critical essays 1971-1991
(Reading).
Gero, J. M. (1991a) 'Genderlithics: Women's roles in stone tool production', in
]. M. Gero and M. Conkey (eds), Engendering Archaeology (Oxford), pp. 163-93.
 Charlotte Brysting Damm 121

Gero, ]. M. (1991b) 'Gender Divisions of Labor in the Construction of Archaeological

Knowledge', in D. Walde and N. D. Willows (eds), The Archaeology of Gender,
Proceedings of the 22nd Chacmool Conference (Calgary), pp. 96-102.
Gero, ]. M. and M. W. Conkey (1991) Engendering Archaeology (Oxford).
Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society (Cambridge).
Hansen, P. Vemming and B. Madsen (1983) 'Flint Axe Manufacture in the Neolithic',
Joumal of Danish Archaeology, 2, pp. 43-59.
Johansen, A. (1984) Tid iir makt, Tid iir pengar (Trondheim).
Johansen, A. (1985) 'Tid, tvang, teknologi- teori. Om tid som "handlingsskjema" og
"realabstraksjon'", Studier I historisk metode, 18 (Arhus) pp. 108-50.
Johansen, A. (1989) 'Handlingens tid', in Tid og utvikling, NFUs 6.ars konferanse
(Trondheim) pp. 69-114.
Krotser, P. H. (1974) 'Country Potters of Veracruz, Mexico. Technological survivals
and culture change', in C. B. Donnan and C. W. Clewlow Jr (eds),
Ethnoarchaeology, Monograph IV, Archaeological Survey (Los Angeles), pp. 129-46.
Leone, M.P. (1978) 'Time in American Archaeology', in C. L. Redman et. a/. Social
Archaeology. Beyond subsistence and dating (New York), pp. 25-36.
Lyons, D. (1991) 'The Construction of Gender, Time and Space', in D. Walde and
N.D. Willows (eds), The Archaeology of Gender, Proceedings of the 22nd Chacmool
Conference (Calgary), pp. 108-14.
Madsen, B. (1984) 'Flint Axe Manufacture in the Neolithic: Experiments with
grinding and polishing of thin-butted flint axes', Journal of Danish Archaeology, 3,
pp. 47-82.
Magnusson, G. (1991) 'Kvinnor inom jarnhanteringen. En kommentar til nagra aldre
bilder', KAN (Kvinner i Arkeologi i Norge), 12, pp. 127-35.
McGlade, J. (1987) 'Chronos and the Oracle: Some thoughts on time, timescales and
simulation', Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 6(1), pp. 21-31.
Melhuus, M. (1989) 'Tid og utvikling', in Tid og utvikling, NFUs 6.ars konferanse
(Trondheim), pp. 115-20.
Ochsenschlager, E. L. (1974) 'Modern Potters at Al-Hiba. With some reflections on
the excavated Early Dynastic pottery', in C. B. Donnan and C. W. Clewlow Jr (eds),
Ethnoarchaeology, Monograph IV, Archaeological Survey (Los Angeles), pp. 147-57.
Pastron, A. G. (197 4) 'Preliminary Ethnoarchaeological Investigations among the
Tarahuma', in C. B. Donnan and C. W. Clewlow Jr (eds), Ethnoarchaeology,
Monograph IV, Archeological Survey (Los Angeles), pp. 93-114.
Renfrew, C. (1973) 'Monuments, Mobilisation and Social Organisation in Neolithic
Wessex', in C. Renfrew (ed), The Explanation of Culture Change: Models in prehistory,
(London), pp. 539-58.
Renfrew, A. C. and P. Bahn (1991) Archaeology. Theories, methods and Practice
(London).
Rice, P. M. (1991) 'Women and Prehistoric Pottery Production', in D. Walde and
N.D. Willows (eds), The Archaeology of Gender, Proceedings of the 22nd Chacmool
Conference (Calgary), pp. 436-43.
Shanks, M. and C. Tilley (1987) Social Theory and Archaeology (Cambridge).
Sinclair, A. (1987) 'Time and Class. Social aspects of time in 17th and 18th century
England', Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 6(1), pp. 62-74.
Smith, M. F. (1982) 'Bloody Time and Bloody Scarcity: Capitalism, authority and the
transformation of temporal experience in a Papua New Guinea village', American
Ethnologist, 9 (3).
Sorensen, M. L. S. (1994) Women and Metalworkers, paper presented to the WHAM
Conference (London) (May).
122 Time, Gender and Production

Tornes, K. (1985) 'Strukturert tid- kvinners dilemma', Studier i Historisk Metode 18

(Arhus), pp. 77-94.
Thompson, E. P. (1967) 'Time, Work-discipline, and Industrial Capitalism', Past and
Present, 38, pp. 56-97.
Turney-High, H. H. (1949) General Anthropology (New York).
Vinsrygg, S. (1988) 'Archaeology- as if people mattered. A discussion of humanistic
archaeology', Norwegian Archaeological Review, 21 (1), pp. 1-12.
Walde, D. and N.D. Willows (eds) (1991), The Archaeology of Gender, Proceedings of
the 22nd Chacmool Conference (Calgary).
Welinder, S. (1992) 'Scientific Time and Human Time in Archaeology', Tor, 24,
pp. 5-26.
Wright, R. (1991) 'Women's Labor and Pottery Production in Prehistory', in
M. ]. Gero and M. Conkey (eds), Engendering Archaeology (Oxford) pp. 194-223.
8
Who Lights The Fire? Gender and
the Energy of Production*
fenny Moore

Introduction
This chapter results from initial research carried out on an idea - are there
gender associations with types of fire? To expand this original idea, could
gender associations be made with particular types of fire? The hearth is
seen as the provider of heat, light and warmth, cooked food and a social
focus for the community - could women, in the past and the present, be
directly aligned with the fire of the hearth? If women were associated
directly with the hearth, could they be seen to have control of this vital
feature of a society, and how would this empower women? On the other
hand, were men allied with particular types of fire - for example, slash and
burn cultivation. If there are distinct gender affinities with types of fire,
how might this be transferred into a production context? Once these ques-
tions have been examined, it might be possible to see whether the gender
of who lights the fire - who controls the energy of production - then
becomes associated with the items of material culture manufactured with
the aid of fire.
The starting point was a brief investigation of where our perceptions of
gender association with fire might come from. Much of how we interpret
the past is based on what we consciously or unconsciously absorb from the
present. This cursory scrutiny proved revealing. Focus magazine (Anon.
1994), described as 'the magazine of discovery', provided the first indica-
tion, as the frontispiece of a feature included a drawing of a hairy male
figure tending a hearth fire. The text read:

We gaze at the hearth in fascination, just as our ancestors watched the

cave fire. But despite our knowledge of the chemistry of conflagration,
though we no longer worship the sacred flame, an inferno still strikes
fear in our heart. Quly 1994)
123
124 Who Lights the Fire?

An emotive statement, but clearly fire was regarded as capable of drawing

potential readers of a glossy popular science magazine into making a pur-
chase and perusing a 9-page feature. So, 'though we no longer worship the
sacred flame', the perception of at least one magazine editor is that fire can
currently grab people's interest and sell a magazine. Yet the underlying
message from this analysis of fire is that men had use and control of fire.
Women were not involved. At the level of cartoons of prehistoric life
(Larson, 1987, pp. 60, 80), the message continues, with men clearly in
control of the fire of the hearth. Women, if shown at all, are very much on
the periphery. These popular examples underline the attitudes contempor-
ary society brings to the past.
But was this so? And does it matter anyway, who lights the fire? There
still appears to be a great deal of interest in fire, even though combustion
processes are reasonably well understood. Possibly part of the continuing
fascination arises from the fact that for most North European people in the
late twentieth century, fire is an event from which they have been
removed. Few nowadays have regular contact with fire, and those that do
have contact are usually in a situation where the processes of combustion
are given little thought. Fire is now remote, and we have lost touch with its
significance. Contrast this with the following quote from Pliny:

we cannot but marvel at the fact that fire is necessary for almost every
operation. It takes the sands of the earth and melts them, now into
glass, now into silver, or minium or one or other lead, or some sub-
stance useful to the painter or physician. By fire minerals are disinte-
grated and copper produced: in fire is iron born and by fire is it subdued:
by fire gold is purified: by fire stones are burned for the binding together
of walls of the houses . . . Fire is the immeasurable, uncontrollable
element, concerning which it is hard to say whether it consumes more
or produces more. (Pliny in Biringuccio, 1990: frontispiece)

This quotation gives an idea of the value of fire in the past. In the last sen-
tence, categories of fire are becoming discernible. Uncontrollable wildfire,
destructive and frightening, removing all in its path, the consumer of all
before it, and productive fire, the evolution of the fire of the hearth, con-
tained and controllable, the source of heat and light, the transformer of ele-
ments. If categories of fire can be defined in this way, one destructive, the
other productive, is it also possible to show they have particular gender
associations? Do women sometimes light the fire, and is this significant in
material culture terms?

Myths and associations

Mythological references to fire show a remarkable range of ideologies. Fire
can be associated with the Sun, or the Moon, which are allocated genders,
 Jenny Moore 125

but these are not fixed. The Sun can be male or female, as can the Moon. It
is significant, however, that gender associations are made with the per-
ceived source of fire. Fire for human use is often acquired or stolen, and fre-
quently this action is undertaken by a male figure. Many legends refer to a
female keeping possession of fire in their wombs, vaginas, or vulvas, and
often they are tricked out of possession of fire by males.
In Classical mythology (Ferguson, 1980), the fire of the hearth is of such
importance as to be represented by virginal goddesses. The Greek goddess,
Hestia, was the deity of the hearth, and her Roman equivalent was Vesta
who was also associated with the fire of religious ceremonial. Although a
virgin, she was the symbol of maternity, which was construed as being
analogous with nourishing fire. There are Classical male gods aligned with
fire, but not directly the fire of the hearth. The Greek deity, Hephaestus,
was god of smiths and is seen as representing terrestrial fire, or what can be
termed 'wildfire'. Vulcan, the Roman god of smiths, later came to be seen
as controlling fire, which appears to have led to his affiliation with the
hearth.
From mythology, then, fire for human use had to be acquired, often from
a female source. In addition, there seems to be emerging a differentiation
between 'wildfire', the outside fire, associated with the male, and the fire of
the hearth, the inside fire, analogous with the female.
At this stage, the suggestion of gender associations is there, but tenuous.
Ethnography and ethnographic mythology add further components. In The
Raw and The Cooked, Levi-Strauss (1970) examined the mythology of South
American tribes in relation to fire. In Ge myths, the origin of fire is con-
strued as 'constructive' fire, a means of cooking, but in the Chaco myths it
is 'destructive' fire, where it is a funeral pyre. To the Lolaca and Atabaca
Indians, women are associated with the moon and the conviction is that if
the moon really died, all domestic fires would be extinguished.
Cooking fire appears as doubly domesticated, acting as a mediator
between the sky above and the earth below. It manifests the quantities of
celestial fire, but spares humans its violences and excesses. The mediatory
function of cooking fire therefore operates between the Sun (and Moon)
and humanity in two ways. By its presence, cooking fire averts total dis-
junction since it unites the Sun, Moon and Earth, and saves humans from
the world of rottenness in which they would find themselves if the Sun and
Moon really disappeared; but their presence is also interposed, which obvi-
ates the risk of a total conjunction, which would result in a burned world.
Here, typologies of fire are distinguishable, defined by Levi-Strauss (19 70) as
'constructive' and 'destructive', but gender associations, while present, are
not definitive.
The Tukanoan are Colombian Indians, (Hugh-Jones, 1979) and believe in
a female creatress, Romu Kumu, who, in one of their myths, had fire in her
vagina. She was tricked out of possession of fire by her grandchildren and
that was the origin of domestic fire. In this society, domestic fires are
126 Who Lights the Fire?

controlled by women and associated with menstruation. In rituals, men

must avoid fire or the Female Fire Spears might enter their penises and
cause them to have only female children. Further, there is a metaphorical
association between the domestic fire and women's creativity in reproduc-
tion. When men warm themselves by the fire when in close contact with
the ancestors, they will have daughters only. The significance here is that
this is a patrilineal society, and therefore they would be contributing to
female continuity. The menstrual cycle is regarded as the source of
women's life force, and menstrual blood, red paint and fire are clearly
linked. Women undertake the collection of firewood from cultivation sites,
and accordingly this is a female-controlled by-product of men's forest
burning. For the clearing of garden cultivation areas, men fire the forest,
apparently with impunity. There is no connection with this type of fire and
the production of only female children (Hugh-Jones, 1979). So here are not
only clear gender associations with fire, but also with categories of fire.
Convenient ethnography and mythology, some would say, for female asso-
ciations with 'fire of the hearth', and male alignment with 'wildfire'. Yet
this is not always the case; for example, Aboriginal fire usage has blurred
gender associations, both in actuality and myth, although gender associ-
ations are there.
In Aboriginal rituals, fire could be powerful and destructive, averting
the malignancy of evil spirits and the dead. Equally, fire could also be life-
giving and comforting, providing solace to the friendly dead. This ambi-
guity appears in several accounts. The Moon and Sun have male and
female roles, one myth referring to a Sun-Woman with fire hidden in her
womb. In some myths, women keep fire, and in others, men are the only
association. Reports on Aboriginal activity from the nineteenth-century
indicate that women carried out some small-scale firing of the landscape-
outside fire. Larger-scale firing was carried out by men, or in some
instances, men and women together. The reports indicate, however, that
women's firing of the landscape was strictly defined, both spatially and
environmentally. Their burning was likely to be mainly of grassland, but
male burning would be woodland, and in need of greater regulation. The
fire-stick used for lighting both cooking and other fires, seems to have
been within the control of women (Hallam, 1975). So here, the associ-
ation of the female with the fire of the hearth only is not as clear, women
are also involved in firing the landscape - outside fire. Yet, this fire is
clearly defined by gender usage. Whilst women are now involved with
outside fire this is specifically delimited, and men have a distinct associ-
ation with major conflagrations.
For the Lugbara of Uganda, myth and practice link female sexuality and
fire. There is a theme of uncontrolled and wild female sexuality, which is
contrasted with legitimate fertility controlled by men. Like sexuality, once
fire is tamed, it is at the centre of ordered social life. Traditionally, a new
 Jenny Moore 127

village was established by the elder having sexual intercourse with his wife
and making fire on a central hearth, which is a custom found in many
African societies. On death, a woman is buried with the firestones of her
hearth, which, with other items, represent her status while alive
(Middleton, 1982).
The Chukchi and Koryak of Siberia have similar religious concepts and
practices (Ingold, 1986), which appear to present a contradictory picture to
the idea of female associations with the hearth. Every household has its
own fire, and the exchange of fire is strictly forbidden, even to the extent
of using a piece of wood already blackened in another hearth. This rule
applies only to 'genuine fire'- that is the fire generated by means of a bow
drill twisted on a wooden fireboard. When a boy is old enough to receive
his first reindeer, he also receives his fireboard. Both fire and fireboard play
an important part in every sacrifice of reindeer. There is a mystical bond
between the human group, the hearth and the herd, which is reaffirmed in
these ceremonies. This appears to be a society with a male-dominated
hearth, and a hearth which is the sacred centre of the domestic group, but
there could be an alternative interpretation. The connection between fire
and reindeer stems from the legend that the first reindeer was pulled out of
the fire by the Supreme Being Oochelson, 1908, p. 87). One of the factors in
the association between the reindeer and fire may be that they are both
metaphorically outside- i.e. wild. Men are seen as taming both reindeer and
fire, which are brought into the sphere of the domestic group, although
still effectively being categorized as 'wild'.
From the mythological and ethnographic evidence, a link is developing
between women and the fire of the hearth, the 'good' fire, the inside fire,
producing heat, light, cooked food, the socializing focus of the house, the
community. On the other hand, men are aligned with destructive, uncon-
trollable wildfire, the ultimate transformer - outside fire. Frequently, the
hearth is interpreted, ethnographically and archaeologically, purely in rela-
tion to the preparation and cooking of food - 'women's work'. The full
social context and symbolism of the hearth is often glossed over. If the
hearth is, at the very least, the symbol of the control of wildfire, and is
under the direction of women, surely this should have some credence
when evaluating the role of women within a society.

Archaeology, fire, gender and production

In evolutionary terms, the hearth is regarded as having been a major factor
in human development, encouraging socialization and a base for exchange
of information. The Venus figurines of the Palaeolithic (Sandars, 1985) are
often found near hearths in some of the earliest domestic settings. This
necessarily leads to women being seen in the traditional family role, but
also as 'fire-makers' (Ehrenberg, 1989). The emphasis is, however, on the
128 Who Lights the Fire?

hearth and home, women central to perceived family life, rather than as
tamers of the wildfire, powerful providers of a focus of social interaction.
Ian Hodder (1990) examines evidence in the Neolithic for the domus or
house as controlling the wild (agrios) through the organization of domestic
space. Early Neolithic material symbolism is involved in the celebration
and control of the wild, and that control relates to social power through
the representation of male and female (and through the organization of
domestic space). Control of the wild, according to Hodder (1990), is a
metaphor and mechanism for the control of society. In the Early Neolithic
of south eastern Europe in particular, the domus- principally the hearth-
is associated with symbolism and drama while at the same time being the
focus of productive activities. The hearth, then, is a primary feature of the
domus, imbued with considerable symbolism, continuing as a centre of
socialization but also becoming a nucleus for production. Women, in view
of their association with the hearth, symbolic of the domestication of
wildfire, should therefore be central to Early Neolithic society. On Hodder's
own arguments, they should have considerable social power and a medium
for the control of that society. Yet, he suggests women may not have had
any real power in the Neolithic of south eastern Europe, although certain
aspects of being woman were conceptually central. Notwithstanding this,
he sees the underlying theme linking activities and concepts within the
domus as woman, the transformer of the wild into domestic.
The archaeological evidence examined by Hodder (1990) indicates strong
female associations with the hearth. At Hacilar (Mellaart, 1970), pots,
together with female statuettes are found clustered around hearths and
ovens, and this is interpreted as domestic activities, which are central and
visible (Hodder, 1990, p. 17). Rather than reducing this configuration
around the hearth to 'domestic activities', surely here the hearth could
equally be seen as a tangible representation of female mastery of wildfire,
and all that construes, if the ethnographic parallels are applied.
At the Mesolithic site of Lepenski Vir (Srejovic, 1972), hearths are often
found with settings of stones in a V shape. In one, the setting had been
replaced by a human jaw. This was the only occurrence, but as a result the
hearth here became associated with death. Srejovic (1972) reports that one
stone associated with a hearth is carved with the representation of a vulva.
Hodder (1990, p. 25) points out that this carving could be open to alterna-
tive interpretations, but that fire and its transformative capacities in the
hearth were associated with the transformations of both death and birth.
This may be so, the hearth may have many symbolic meanings in any one
society, but the V-shaped stone setting of the hearth has not been fully
considered. The V shape could represent the vulva, where in some mytho-
logical references, women keep fire. The V shape could be seen as represent-
ing women as keepers and controllers of the domestic hearth fire and all it
symbolizes. This idea takes shape from consideration of the fire myths and
 fenny Moore 129

ethnographic examples, and could strengthen ideas about this society, but
only if gender associations are fully evaluated. Archaeologically, female
associations with the hearth appear strong, but often interpretations rel-
egate this association to the domestic sphere, women are not seen as sym-
bolically controlling wildfire, taming the destroyer into the productive. Not
all hearths, however, are associated with the centre of the home, but are
outside houses within settlements. The positioning of such ovens and
hearths is potentially significant in associating gender with material culture
through the energy of production.
Carla Sinopoli ( 1991) refers to ethnographic and historical studies of
pottery-making industries, which show links between the sex of potters
and the organization of ceramic production. When pottery making is
organized at the level of household production, then women are most
often the major potters. When pottery making is a full-time industry,
potters include both males and females, often of a single family working in
a single workshop. In many areas of the world, the use of the potter's wheel
is exclusively a male activity (Sinopoli, 1991, p. 168; see also Chapters 5
and 7 in this volume). There are a number of contexts in which the firing
of ceramics can take place: in open fires, small pits, or ovens and kilns. At
the household level of production, firing frequently takes place at the
hearth. If ceramic production increases, then so does the requirement for
improved production methods, one of which would be permanent firing
facilities such as kilns or ovens.
In the past, women have been linked to the production of pots (Hodder,
1990). The question arising from the above is: why are women associated
with pots in certain contexts and what factors bring about a change in
gender association? There are too many arguments to put forward here, but
one which appears to have received little consideration is the energy of
production. At the household level, women are associated with pots, where
they also seem to be strongly associated with the fire of the hearth, the
energy source for production of the pots. As production and technological
requirements increase, so does the demand for more sophisticated firing
(see also Cox in M. Donald and L. Hurcombe (eds), Gender and Material
Culture in Historical Perspective, Chapter 9). The energy source takes on a dif-
ferent form, requiring special methods of control. Kilns and ovens are con-
structed away from houses, perhaps suggesting a symbolic transformation
of the energy source. Kilns and ovens may now be construed as containing
'wildfire', not fire of the hearth, and accordingly the gender association is
male.
Through ethnographic studies in Africa, traditional iron-smelting is
accompanied by strong sexual symbolism and taboos. There is compulsory
celibacy for smelters, women are excluded from the smelt, yet female
anthropomorphic details are added to smelting furnaces (van der Merwe
and Avery, 1988). The Phoka of Malawi retain elaborate rituals and
130 Who Lights the Fire?

traditions. Theirs is the clearest metaphor, where smelting is processually

fertility, conception and birth. The basic furnace structure is a young
woman ready for marriage, when smelting is under way, the furnace is
referred to as 'our wife' and production is giving birth. The furnace is
metaphorically a woman going through her reproductive cycle, but a fertile
woman, especially a pregnant one, is seen as detrimental to the smelt.
Women are allowed to play some small part in the smelt if they are breast-
feeding or post-menopausal (van der Merwe and Avery, 1988). This tradi-
tion, on which there are variants across Africa, has been interpreted as
women being a contaminating force which would cause the smelt to fail.
Women are actively excluded from the smelt, but the furnace is anthropo-
morphized as female and is symbolically following the female reproductive
cycle, which seems somewhat contradictory.
An alternative hypothesis proposed here is that the fire in the furnace,
critical to the smelt, is engendered. Domestic fire, the 'female' fire of the
hearth has been usurped by men to produce metal. The fire is female,
burning within the anthropomorphized furnace, which outwardly
acknowledges the femininity of the fire. The female fire is inseminated with
ore, and in due course gives birth to metal. Unlike ceramics, metallurgy,
both ethnographically and archaeologically, has a strong male affinity. The
exclusion of women from the smelt, combined with the contradiction of
an anthropomorphized feminine furnace indicates a desire to control some
female aspect of the smelt which is material to the success of the operation.
That aspect, it is suggested here, is the fire. Use of symbolism and ritual is
employed to ensure the fertility of the feminine fire and prevent the
envious feelings of women in the society affecting the smelt.
The lack of consideration of the energy of production and its potential
gender associations obscures the interpretation of material culture. The
control of the energy of production and defining changes in that control
may have considerable relevance in evaluating gender and material culture
through time. Although as North Europeans, we have lost touch with the
full import of fire in the past, our perception of the fire of the hearth is still
that it has considerable significance. This results in a tendency to align the
fire of the hearth with masculine control. The fire of the hearth becomes rel-
egated to the 'domestic' when female associations are too strong to ignore.
Levi-Strauss (1970) makes a powerful assessment of the domestication of
the fire of the hearth. Hearth fire is the mediator between the sky and the
earth, but constrained and confined so that it becomes productive rather
than destructive. Fire undergoes a metamorphosis, from that which devas-
tates a landscape inexorably to becoming a dynamic source of controllable
energy, a socializing focal point, as well as a means of creation. The domes-
tication of wildfire at the hearth has practical and symbolic value, it is a
source of power which is underestimated. Women's association with the
fire of the hearth, the inside fire, is too often demoted to merely domestic
production of cooked food. Yet, the hearth itself is seen as having many
 Jenny Moore 131

functions, producing heat and light as well as cooked food, providing a

socializing focus for the household and community. The female is system-
atically and metaphorically allied with this energy source. Is it then too
great an extrapolation to see feminine control of the hearth and all this
could accord?
Hodder (1990, p. 294) referring to Neolithic societies states: 'The house,
the hearth and the pot were extensively employed in the culturing process
and they became appropriate metaphors for the domestication of society.'
If we allocate female association with these three features, then women
must have played a major part in the culturing process and domestication
of society, considerably empowering the female. Yet Hodder does not think
that women had power in, particularly, the Neolithic of south eastern
Europe. The evidence appears to contradict the interpretation. It is sug-
gested here that through the control of the socializing fire of the hearth,
production of cooked food and pots, women were a dominant force in the
domestication of society. Considerable female power devolved from control
of the fire of the hearth.
To redress this, men had to usurp and dominate female fire. Men are
aligned with outside fire, which is not simply wildfire, but also slash and
burn, fire which transforms the landscape. Over time, however, the female
fire of the hearth had empowered women through production and social-
ization. Kilns came to be positioned away from the house, out of the
domestic setting, on the margins of the settlement. This positioning could
be interpreted as liminal space, between domestic and wildfire, thereby cre-
ating a new domain which may have had male and female associations.
Whilst such a contention may appear to be a predictable feminist asser-
tion, continuing the antagonistic 'male domination of the female' diatribe,
particularly by the use of words such as 'usurp' and 'dominate', other
factors may be involved. Consider the arguments put forward for male
access to continuous time and women being constricted by intermittent
time (Chapters 6 and 7 in this volume). In order to continue the economic
and social development of a society which had progressed under female
supervision, men may have had to align themselves with the essential
energy of production, female fire. This, however, had less to do with 'con-
trolling' women or women's power than the nature of the time available to
each gender, as the scale of production increased. Taking the analogy of
metal production, a task which requires a considerable investment of con-
tinuous time, the male use of female fire may have required very strict pro-
scriptions, not on the basis of excluding the female, but to placate her.

Conclusion
To summarize, the original hypothesis was whether there are gender associ-
ations with particular categories of fire. The limited amount of research
undertaken so far indicates this could be the case, but the significance of
132 Who Lights the Fire?

fire associations with gender within a society has been minimally evalu-
ated, in archaeological terms. Fire has been interpreted as a symbol of sexu-
ality, the fire within, and alternatively the representation of purity, a
cleansing force (Bachelard, 1964). Yet, the development of the symbolism
of fire in the context of gender has not taken place. Is this due to the tacit
assumption that men have always had use and control of fire, starting with
the hearth and continuing into an industrial context? This now appears to
be a simplistic view. Whilst in no way providing the definitive answer to
gender associations with material culture, gender control of the energy of
production as a factor in gender associations with material culture should
not be underestimated. As a field of research, gender and the energy of pro-
duction has considerable scope for development and implications for our
understanding of women's role in past societies, particularly in the context
of material culture associations.

Note
* These ideas developed out of conversations with Lynne Bevan, Roger Doonan,
Mark Edmonds, Martin Evison, Pete Marshall, Karen Meadows-Seymour, and
Mike Parker Pearson. I particularly appreciate the encouragement given to me by
Moira Donald and Linda Hurcombe in preparing this chapter.

Bibliography
Anon (1994) Focus magazine Ouly).
Bachelard, G. (1964) The Psychoanalysis of Fire, trans. A. C. M. Ross (Boston).
Biringuccio, V. (1990) The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio, translated from the
Italian with an introduction and notes by Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach
Gnudi, Dover edn (New York).
Ehrenberg, M. (1989) Women in Prehistory (London).
Ferguson, J. (1980) Greek and Roman Religion. A source book (New Jersey).
Hallam, S. J. (1975) Fire and Hearth. A study of Aboriginal usage and European usurpation
in south-western Australia (Canberra).
Hodder, I. (1990) The Domestication of Europe: Stmcture and contingency in Neolithic
societies (Oxford).
Hugh-Jones, C. (1979) From the Milk River: Spatial and temporal processes in Northwest
Amazonia (Cambridge).
Ingold, T. (1986). The Appropriation of Nature. Essays 011 human ecology and social
relations (Manchester).
Jochelson, W. (1908) The Koryak. Jesup North Pacific Expedition VI, American Museum
of Natural History Memoir, 10 (Lei den).
Larson, G. (1987) The Far Side Observer (Kansas City).
Levi-Strauss, C. (1970) The Raw and the Cooked. Introduction to a science of mythology: 1
Trans from the French by John and Doreen Weightman (London).
Mellaart, J. (1970) Excavations at Haci/ar (Edinburgh).
van der Merwe, N.J. and D. Avery (1988) 'Science and Magic in African Technology:
Traditional iron smelting in Malawi', in R. Maddin (ed.), The Beginning of the Use of
Metals and Alloys (Boston).
 fenny Moore 133

Middleton,]. (1982) 'Lugbara Death', in M. Bloch, and]. Parry (eds), Death and
Regeneration of Life (Cambridge).
Sandars, N. K. (1985) Prehistoric Art in Europe (Harmondsworth).
Sinopoli, C. (1991) Approaches to Archaeological Ceramics (New York).
Srejovic, D. (1972) Europe's First Monumental Sculpture: New discoveries at Lepinski Vir
(London).
Part III
Artifacts and their Social Settings
9
Long Handled Weaving Combs:
Problems in Determining the Gender
of Tool-Maker and Tool-User
Tina Tuohy

Introduction
This chapter explores the relationship between gender and material culture
by taking one artefact class, antler and bone combs, and investigating three
issues: their supposed function as a weaving tool; the assumption that they
are therefore a woman's tool; and the question of who might have made
these artefacts. Long Handled combs of antler and bone have been found
on a number of domestic sites in the British Isles. They are mainly dated to
the Iron Age although a few have been found in Late Bronze Age contexts
on the one hand, and with Roman finds on the other. They normally have
teeth at one end and are frequently decorated (see Figures 9.1-9.3). They
can vary in length from 70-220 mm with a rough average of 150 mm.
Scottish combs are often made of whalebone and differ both in design and
possible use. This chapter will concentrate on the combs found in Southern
Britain which are mainly made from the antlers of red deer, with some
bone examples -usually the shaft bones of ox or horse- and only very rare
examples made from whalebone.
Much of the evidence discussed below comes from the Iron Age settle-
ments of Glastonbury, Meare Village East and Meare Village West in
Somerset. Out of 774 combs studied in Britain nearly 300 come from these
three sites where preservation is very good. Glastonbury Lake Village was a
domestic site where houses and sheltered work areas developed over several
phases and was only accessible by water (Bulleid and Gray, 1911, 1917;
Coles and Minnitt, 1995). The settlements at Meare Village East and West
lay on higher ground only 700 m apart and about 2km from Glastonbury.
Most of the structures in these two settlements were flimsy. Some were
little more than clay spreads with shelters, and some may have been

137
138 The Gender o(Tool-maker and Tool-user

a b c d e

Figure 9.1 Long Handled weaving combs, showing specialized decoration: a-b show
linear styles and come from Meare. c-e show ring and dot decoration and come from
Danebury
Source: Author.

windbreaks or even tents. As such they have been suggested as sites for sea-
sonal craft fairs or trading (Coles, 1987). All three sites are broadly contem-
porary and date to about 2SOBC. Glastonbury went out of use around
SOBC; the settlements at Meare continued till the end of the century when
they were abandoned through flooding, although some sporadic use con-
tinued until the early part of the 1st millennium AD (Coles, 1987; Coles
and Minnitt, 1995).

Function
Traditionally, through their association with spindle whorls and other pos-
sible textile equipment such as bobbins and loom weights, Long Handled
combs have become associated with weaving in wool on a particular kind
of loom known as warp weighted. It is suggested that they were used to
beat up the weft during the weaving of textiles. This type of weaving was
thought to account for wear marks found underneath the teeth (Bulleid
and Gray, 1911; Sellwood, 1984). This assumed use is contradicted by
 Tina Tuohy 139

a b
c
e

Figure 9.2 Amateur decoration and delicate designs: a from Radley, b from Maiden
Castle, c-f from South Cadbury
Source: Author.

further study of these wear marks; this shows striations occurring under-
neath and on the inside only of the outer teeth. This wear pattern suggests
that they are more likely to have been used on a narrow back-strap loom
for the making of braids or ornamental borders. Had they been in use on a
large loom for the making of textiles, wear marks could be expected on the
outside as well as the inside of the outer teeth and this pattern is very rarely
found. The use of braids on domestic sites is manifold and can cover any-
thing from fine work for belts to coarse work for straps and harness.
Evidence from the combs supports this theory as some have fine narrow
teeth with equally fine striations, while others are more coarse. These
combs have thicker teeth and really heavy striations which, in some cases,
almost amount to small pieces of the underside of the teeth being chipped
away. This suggests their use with much coarser yarns such as rough spun
linen or possibly bast (a fibre obtained from bark). Another possibility for
their use is the weaving of decorative panels for garments ornamented with
beads and feathers and woven on a small frame. Pieces of wood found at
Glastonbury and interpreted as parts of a loom bear a strong resemblance
to a tapestry frame and may have been used in this way. Consequently,
140 The Gender of Tool-maker and Tool-user

-
.t ,.':,.·
!
i
!';r-. ,
~;
I''

,I
,'

/,
I .'

·I
,' ~
·,

.
I

o 50mm
E"+3 F=3 F=3

I
I
\

~·
~
Figure 9.3 Pairs of combs: pairs a are from Meare East, pairs b from Viables Farm
Source: Author.
 Tina Tuohy 141

research shows that such combs, although commonly known as 'weaving'

combs, are more likely to be 'braid' combs. The assumed function is wrong
but the association with weaving and textiles holds.
Once accepted as a weaving implement the traditional interpretation, of
the users at least, was of a woman weaving in the home. Two comments on
the site of Glastonbury illustrate this point. To give an extreme example,
Childe (1935, p. 239) even made a case, unfounded in my view, for a mass
migration of Glastonbury weavers to the Western Isles of Scotland. This
was based on the idea that the weavers were women and where the women
of the tribe go so does everybody else! But this picture refers to the weaving
of textiles rather than braids. Where the latter are concerned both fine
work for trade, and coarser work for domestic use, such as harness, carrying
straps and so on, could well have been done by either men or women.
Using ethnographic evidence, women are usually seen as the weavers
(Ling Roth, 1918; Hecht, 1989) and men as the metal workers (Schmidt,
1980). Clarke, (1972, pp. 813-17) had this in mind when discussing
Glastonbury as a model of an Iron Age settlement. He designates certain
huts as mens' areas and others as belonging to women on the evidence of
certain activities. For women he thought these should include combing,
spinning, querning, leather and fur-working and be associated with finds of
beads, bracelets and perforated teeth. Male activities were presented as
bronze and iron working, carpentry and lathework and assumed to be asso-
ciated with finds of iron knives, sickles, billhooks and spearheads, also
buttons. The assumptions about the artefact class 'weaving combs' thus
contributed to a broader set of gender role interpretations. Even if one
accepts the general ethnographic evidence for the gendering of metal
working and weaving, assigning a gender to the users of the other artefacts
is more difficult.
Clarke's assumption that querns were associated with women might be
viable if it is accepted that it is women who would provide the food for
children and household. But there is no evidence to back his suggestion
that beads, bracelets and perforated teeth were necessarily worn by women
as they could equally have been worn by men. Again, even if one accepts
that spears and daggers were a man's prerogative, knives would certainly
have been used by both sexes and probably farm implements such as
sickles and bill hooks as well. It is difficult to believe women did not work
in the fields alongside the men or even instead of them. Clarke also
assumes that carpentry tools would have been among the artefacts associ-
ated with male activities. But some carpentry tools (saws, chisels, rasps,
awls, and hammers) are also used by antler workers and it will be argued
below that not all antler working was done by men. Likewise combs could
have been used by either men or women and spinning may well have been
done by everyone on occasion from children of both sexes to elders. Hand
spinning, even by an expert, is a fairly lengthy process. Even if only one
142 The Gender of Tool-maker and Tool-user

garment was worn per year, and most people probably had something extra
for special occasions or a warm cloak for winter, the yarn required is sub-
stantial. If one takes an average of 2.5 kg of wool to dress one adult and
1.5 kg per child and uses an agreed weaver's estimate for warp calculation
of 1024 m per kilo of handspun wool, (Black, 1980, p. 16), a settlement of
30 adults and 20 children would require 107 520 m of yarn. i.e. 107.5 km
or 66.5 miles! Although high-status households may have had servants for
this task, in a normal farming community this quantity of yarn could
hardly have been produced purely by adult women, or even women and
girls, in between all the other tasks they would have been expected to
perform.
So a review of the evidence versus the interpretations from Glastonbury
shows a number of flaws in the reasoning. The assumption that these
combs were women's weaving tools is functionally inaccurate and ques-
tionable in terms of gender-specific usage.

Evidence for makers

Traditionally comb making has been considered a domestic craft done in
the home for communal use, as and when it could be fitted in between
other tasks (Harding, 1974; Cunliffe, 1991). Had it indeed been possible for
combs to be made out of odd pieces of antler and whittled up for family
use when needed, this might have been an acceptable scenario; however,
the available evidence does not appear to support this.
My research has shown that comb making was in fact a complex process
involving two separate phases of time. The first would cover time taken
away from the settlement and from all other tasks. This would be needed
for the seasonal collection of the antler and could extend intermittently
over a period of 2-3 months. The second phase involves work done on the
settlement either full-time or intermittently with other tasks. This would
cover preparation of the material and comb manufacture. Fresh antler is
preferable for comb making but if not available it has been suggested that
older stock or antler acquired through trade may have been used after
being left to soak, for up to six weeks in a solution of water and oxalic
plants such as sorrel (rumex. sp.) (MacGregor, 1985, p. 63; Tuohy, 1996,
pp. 140-1). The intricate process of manufacture and decoration was more
intensive, involving at least one day of full-time work per comb or two to
three days if part-time work was done (MacGregor, 1985; Tuohy, 1996).
Distribution of the combs would once more involve time taken away from
the settlement and would vary according to the distance travelled during
trade and exchange. If the work was full-time and carried out separately
away from the communal tasks of a self-sufficient group of people, over a
period of time, this suggests that the worker must have been supported by
the other members while this was going on (Tuohy, 1996). If one accepts
 Tina Tuohy 143

that manufacture could be part-time between other tasks, one might well
believe it to be a domestic craft, if it were not for the fact that good lighting
and a specific work area would have been necessary for the making of suc-
cessful tools. This was not likely to be found in the average Iron Age round
house, S-7m in diameter and with no windows. This extra requirement
along with the time element would appear to take this craft out of the
immediate domestic house environment and suggest combs as being made
by a specialist antler worker possibly along with other tools.
Two further points involving decoration of the combs also suggest spe-
cialist work. First, it is quite common to find combs where the teeth have
been recut into the original design (Figure 9.1 a, b, d). This suggests that
the combs were difficult to come by and had been refurbished to prolong
their useful life. This would not have been necessary had they been regu-
larly produced in the family home. Secondly, whereas most decoration
shows a uniformity of style and design, in some cases it is possible to find
examples where the best interpretation is that a 'well made comb' has been
acquired and 'clumsily decorated' by the owners. Figure 9.2a is a well made
comb. This is not mirrored in the decoration and suggests two levels of
skill. A second comb from Maiden Castle, Figure 9 .2b, shows a similar
scenario but with two different levels of decoration. The double line above
the teeth is well cut and evenly spaced, while the other lines are uneven
and only scratched on in a haphazard fashion.
The specialist antler worker may not have been a full-time craftsman or
woman, indeed study of the combination of the two time categories, the
need for a separate work area and the skills necessary for comb making
suggest that not one comb maker but a whole household may have been
involved, as argued below.
Antler is hardwearing and tools once made could last for some consider-
able time. Therefore an antler worker, unless solitary and itinerant, would
need to have a plot of land to provide for the basic needs of their house-
hold and this would involve farm work undertaken by most of its
members. Most antler waste found on site is shed, this means it must be
collected while fresh as antler decays quickly when on the ground and is
vulnerable to being eaten by other animals and even the deer themselves
on occasion. Antlers are shed any time from March to May and though it is
possible to follow the deer and wait for an antler to fall, this takes time as
the migration patterns of deer can cover several miles of forest or heath-
land. In the Spring when most adults in a settlement would be working in
the fields the disappearance of one member for a considerable period would
obviously be undesirable. However if all members of a household were
involved, young adolescent children could be trained to follow the deer to
collect antler for antler worker parents and children might even have been
used to help in the early stages of manufacture. This would include trim-
ming the antler and removing the tines and burr prior to soaking, boiling,
144 The Gender of Tool-maker and Tool-user

splitting and cutting the antler to the required lengths for comb making
(Ambrosiani, 1981; MacGregor, 1985). More expertise would have been
needed to make the teeth which were first cut with a saw and then finished
with a knife. It would be essential that these were made well as any rough-
ness or irregularity in their finish would damage the warp threads, causing
a lumpy and uneven weave or even breakage during braid manufacture.
Next the butt would be shaped with some butts being perforated using an
awl. Finally undecorated combs are simply polished or the decoration is
put on, in the form of either linear (Figure 9.1 a, b) or in ring and dot
designs (Figure 9.1 c, d).
Double lines on Iron Age combs are hardly ever strictly parallel and fre-
quently converge at the edges of the comb. This points to the use of a knife
for this type of decoration. Ring and dot designs appear to be achieved
with the use of a centre bit or scribing tool. In some cases at least two sizes
of scribing tool are used to create double and triple circles (Figure 9.1e). All
in all the manufacturer of a good comb must have taken at least a day to
make, not counting the soaking period which could be up to 3 weeks and
further time spent in trimming, splitting and boiling which could account
for a further half-day. The working of the teeth and the decoration require
a degree of accuracy and good lighting that would not have been available
if the craft was simply domestic or done round the fire at night. If one also
notes that most of the tools used for the basic manufacture can be used in
carpentry and are usually connected with men, one can suggest that this
part of the process at least, points to a male antler worker or comb maker.
However this is not conclusive and other similar assumptions underlie
ideas about the gender of the decorator.
Thoughtful study of the decoration of the combs gives no clear indica-
tion of its being done by either men or women. Figure 9.2c-f shows styles
that are self-confident and the product of comb makers well accustomed to
using their tools on a regular basis, and this would apply to either gender.
Very fine art work such as that produced in metalwork and manuscripts is
often done by men so it would be biased to suggest that only women were
capable of this type of work. Decoration, of whatever sort, could therefore
have been done by either gender in a group of comb makers, depending on
talent. If very detailed work was specifically commissioned, it may simply
have been undertaken by the comb maker most qualified for the task.
Supporting these theories by hard archaeological evidence also has its
problems and the evidence itself is ambiguous. This can be seen in the Iron
Age settlements of Glastonbury and Meare East and West. Dwelling sites in
all three villages are referred to by the excavators as 'mounds' and can
consist of several floors of clay laid one upon the other over a period of
time (Bulleid and Gray, 1911, 1948, 1953). Study of bone and antler waste
in Glastonbury showed that most mounds had at least some, so that it
appeared that antler working was generally a domestic rather than a spe-
 Tina Tuohy 145

cialized craft (Tuohy, 1995). At Meare West, however, Mound 38 has been
suggested by the excavators Bulleid and Gray as a male antler worker's
mound. Their reasoning is questioned below. This mound produced 57
pieces of antler of which only eight were finished articles and the rest
waste. Among the latter were examples of all one would have expected to
find in a comb maker's hut. The antler waste included a base and burr, nor-
mally removed before comb making, and several sawn off tines, among
which was one that had been smoothed and sharpened, making it a useful
tool for splitting. Finished articles included handles for a knife, a saw and
an awl, all antler working tools. There was also evidence for metal working
and fragments of crucibles show traces of both bronze and vitreous glaze
which suggests that beads were also being made. One comb was found; it
had been well used and both outer teeth were broken off. In addition to
ring and dot, its linear decoration is put on with the use of a specialist tool
more commonly used in metalwork (Penney, 1975, pp. 65-6). The antler
remains, plus metal evidence and glass waste, might suggest a working area
for specialist crafts: antler working, bronze smithing, bead making, etc. If
these activities are accepted as male crafts, then the remains could signify a
group of men working together and exchanging ideas and techniques.
However the mound also shows some small evidence for domestic use such
as querns, pottery and six spindle whorls. There is a fibula and a miniature
axe that Bulleid and Gray have suggested could be a child's toy. Two other
alternatives therefore present themselves. A female antler worker or braid
maker may have been working alongside male craftsmen or it could equally
be that this was the work area for a group of artisans with an antler worker
using a subsidiary craft of smithing to provide blades for knife handles.
Another worker may have made the beads and a third used the comb for
braid making, probably simply for domestic rather than commercial use.
The presence of toys and cooking utensils suggests this is a domestic house-
hold production context.
In all of these varied interpretations of the evidence, the gender assump-
tions are based on notions of the roles of each sex in the present. Direct
evidence is lacking. The interpretation of the mound as a male antler
worker's area can be questioned on the basis of either the female-associated
artefacts or on the lack of direct evidence for any gendered interpretation.

Evidence for users

In much the same way the assumptions about the users of the combs might
be challenged. Looking at the combs themselves one could suggest that
decorated combs were used by women and plain ones by men or vice versa.
However, this unfairly assumes decoration is associated with women.
Furthermore pairs of combs, similar in shape, one plain and one decorated,
are sometimes found together suggesting different combs for different uses.
146 The Gender of Tool-maker and Tool-user

Thus plain combs may have been in everyday use and decorated ones could
be seen as gifts, or items kept for special social purposes. In fact decoration
and shape seem generally to relate more to locality than to specific owners.
Butts with perforations are quite common. Wear marks on the sides of
these holes are not pronounced, in the way that one would expect if they
had been in use as an implement (e.g. for cleaning thongs). It is more likely
that they were used to suspend the comb from a belt or to hang it up while
not in use. Frequently combs without perforations have wear marks on the
body of the comb, possibly where the pattern has worn away through the
comb being pushed into a belt. This does suggest their being worn in a
restricted domestic environment rather than during field or farm work
where they would tend to slip out and get lost. Again the evidence can be
argued for different gender associations.
In several instances combs have been found with necklaces and this has
also led to their being associated with women. As jewellery can be worn by
both sexes, it is necessary to determine what other artefacts are found
alongside the combs that could point to male or female usage. On sites
where very few artefacts are found at all, or the comb turns up in a rubbish
pit, or lying around in a yard and out of context, this is difficult, if not
impossible. Some sites can also be seen to have been in use for a consider-
able time, and excavation does not always show to which period the comb
belongs. Thus it is difficult to tell, if more than one comb is found, whether
they are contemporary or with which artefacts they are associated.
Glastonbury and Meare were in use for over 200 years and were finally
abandoned through flooding, which in itself may have dispersed several of
the combs. As it is difficult to tell for how long each of the floors of any
one mound was in existence, dating is not easy to determine although it is
sometimes possible to show combs sealed on one particular floor with
various other contemporary artefacts. Even so, if combs are found in a hut
along with male and female accepted artefacts, one can usually only say
that both men and women inhabited this area but not who was using
which objects.
For instance on the upper floor of Mound 22 in Meare Village East, nine
combs were found along with a very decorative necklace of 41 beads of
local manufacture. Of the combs, one was the fragment of a decorated butt
but the rest were more or less complete. Out of the remaining eight combs,
four can be seen as two sets of one plain and one decorated (HH38 &
HH45, and HH39 & HH46, Figure 9.3a), and three more combs are highly
decorated with round butts and may have been considered as prestige arti-
cles. Other artefacts associated with this floor include pottery, querns,
grinders, needles and 22 spindle whorls, together with a broken axe, used
as a hammer, several knives, a shaft-hole adze and a chisel. There was one
iron and one bronze brooch. Other than the three combs and the jewellery,
which suggest wealth, this is about what one would expect to find in a
 Ti11a Tuohy 147

normal domestic home. However all the teeth on the combs are heavily
worn and 22 spindle whorls suggest the production of yarn. It would
appear, therefore, that braid-making rather than comb manufacture was
going on. Also two paired sets of combs suggest more than one person was
using such items. Nevertheless, one necklace and two brooches are not
really enough to determine the gender of the comb users as all three could
have been worn by men or women.
In Meare Village West, several combs were found in Mound 7. In this
case there had been more than one phase of construction. The mound con-
sisted of several floors and superimposed hearths. On the first of these
floors, three combs were found along with 10 small beads. Bulleid and Gray
considered this to be part of a necklace. The combs were well made and
well used but basically plain. One was reversible and double-ended with
different types of teeth cut at either end, making it in effect two combs.
This suggests a practical use rather than wealth or prestige. According to
Bulleid's plan the combs and beads were found in close proximity. Pottery
and querns were found and so were a dagger and an armlet of Kimmeridge
shale. The latter has an interior diameter of 78mm and this has been sug-
gested as a male artefact. At first sight, it may seem unlikely that the wearer
of the necklace of small beads would be the same as the wearer of the
armlet so that one might say that a woman wore the beads and used the
combs while a man wore the armlet and used the dagger. But this sugges-
tion evaporates in the light of critical assessment. Skeletal evidence for the
period may suggest the height of the average male as 1.68m (Connolly,
1986, pp. 54-6; Leese, 1991, p. 173; Morant and Goodman, 1943,
pp. 337-60) and the female as 1.56m (Millett and Russell, 1982, p. 75;
Leese, 1991, p. 173; Morant and Goodman, 1943, pp. 337-60) but this does
not mean that everyone was this height and also cannot show how heavily
built they were. Thus the armlet may well have been worn by a woman.
Even if it did belong to the man, the necklace being small could just have
easily belonged to a child of either sex or simply been well spaced along a
string. Here all could have used the combs and the assumed interpretations
of gender cannot be substantiated.

Evidence from other sites

Evidence from other sites does seem to suggest that the combs were used by
women and in the first there is a definite female connection. In Viables
Farm in Hampshire, an Iron Age burial was found to contain two female
skeletons, both approximately 1.60m in height (Figure 9.4). In a cist
beneath the head of the primary burial two pairs of combs were found each
having one plain and one decorated comb (Figure 9.3b). In this case there
is no notable difference in the size of the teeth. All the combs showed signs
of use and thus had not been specially made for burial. Each had the
148 Tile Gender of Tool-maker and Tool-user

0 tm

Figure 9.4 Plan of the burial at Viables Farm, showing the position of the pairs of
combs in Figure 9.3b in the cist below one of the inhumations
Source: Based on Millett and Russell (1982).

distinctive square butt of the Danebury region with 'ring and dot' decora-
tion. The burial also included several pieces of unfinished antler artefacts
placed nearer the first inhumation. The excavators' interpretation was that
this individual had been concerned with the manufacture of the antler
goods in the grave. This would mean that not only had both women used
the combs but that one had been involved in the making of them as well
(Millett and Russell, 1982, pp. 69-90).
Three more combs were found in a cenotaph in a barrow at Garton Slack
in Yorkshire. They were all so close in design and execution that it is prob-
able that they were the work of one comb maker. Unlike the combs at
Viables Farm they were unused and may have been grave goods. Antler
 Tina Tuohy 149

toggles decorated with 'ring and dot' design were also found at both
Viables Farm and Garton Slack. As the burial at Viables Farm is known to
be female, the appearance of combs and similar grave goods, such as the
toggles, at Garton Slack suggests the cenotaph was also for a woman.
At Richborough in Kent (Bushe-Fox, 1928, pp. 31-2) a pit deposit was
found relating to a temporary settlement abandoned shortly before the fort
was built and dated by Roman coins to AD43. In it was found the remains
of part of a box containing 'a pair of iron shears to which was held by cor-
rosion a long thin bone comb having a row of fine teeth at one end and cut
diagonally across to form a point at the other' (Bushe-Fox, 1928, p. 31). The
comb was considered by the excavators to have been used in weaving.
Among other items buried in this box were several beads, three bronze
spoons and 'a stone palette part of a lady's toilette and used for paint
mixing' (Bushe-Fox, 1928, p. 31). I have seen an exactly similar comb from
Ham Hill in Somerset which may also have been associated with face
paints. Both the combs have very short, fine teeth. As these are too small
for braidmaking the combs may indeed have had a more personal use.
Although the classical writers, and Diodorus Siculus in particular, refer to
the Celts as back combing their hair with lime to make it stand up to give
warriors a more intimidating appearance, nowhere do they suggest that
make-up was used as well. Some do however refer to Celtic women using it
and Ross quotes the poet Propertius who chided his wife for 'painting her
face like a Celt' (Ross, 1986, p. 35). One could assume therefore that these
combs also belonged to women.
Mound 70 in Glastonbury contained a matching set of three combs decor-
ated all over in a single ring and dot design. One of the combs was only a
fragment but the other two had teeth cut in markedly different sizes- one
broad and the other very fine. All the teeth showed signs of wear (Figure
9.Sa-c). Only one other comb (H291) of exactly this type of decoration
exists elsewhere and this was found in a nearby Mound of the same phase
(Figure 9.Sd). Although the teeth of this comb are now missing a photo-
graph taken by Bulleid and Gray at the time of excavation (Bulleid and
Gray, 1911, Plate LXVIII, p. 472) shows that the original teeth were cut to a
medium length and size and together the combs would have made a com-
plete set with graded teeth, suggesting that they were intended for use with
different weights of yarn. A bone necklace was found with the first three
combs in Mound 70 and decorated in the same matching style. All were
found on the lower floor, an area covered in a layer of fire ash and charcoal
0. 7Sm thick and containing fragments of burnt pottery, wheat, several
loom weights and pieces of burnt clay and wattle. This suggested to Bulleid
and Gray that the house had been destroyed by fire. A charred humerus
was also found, possibly the owner of the combs and necklace, and two
infant skeletons. The positioning of the bones and artefacts appears to
show that these people were trapped in the back of the hut and died in the
150 The Gender of Tool-maker and Tool-user

a b
d
c

Figure 9.5 Combs and a necklace from Glastonbury

Source: Combs drawn by author, necklace based on a drawing by Sprankling in
Bulleid and Gray (1917, Figure 145, p. 406).

conflagration. The house was never rebuilt, although work shelters were set
up nearby in a later phase. It may be that the fourth comb escaped burning
through having been left in another hut for some reason. Although it is
impossible to determine the gender of the owner through one burnt bone
it does seem likely that the matching set of both combs and necklace were
made for an adult woman to mark a significant event.

Distribution
Evidence for comb making exists in both Glastonbury and Meare West but
most of the combs found at both Meare East and West are heavily used and
the evidence thus suggests that it is the goods that they have produced that
are being traded rather than the combs themselves. Both the Meare settle-
ments have been suggested as seasonal centres for specialist craft produc-
tion and summer trading (Coles, 1987). Thus trading for both combs and
braids would have presented no problems for the makers of either product.
But if a larger area was being catered for it would require a certain amount
of travelling and some kind of transport. It would be easy to carry a bundle
of combs, braids or finished antler goods in a bag on one's back ready to
trade, but the items received in return might be more difficult to transport.
This could simply be antler, which would not present problems, particu-
larly if cut up beforehand. But if heavy goods such as grain are accepted in
exchange, the weight alone would necessitate, at the very least, a pony to
 Tina Tuohy 1 51

carry the goods. Lone females might be vulnerable to attack if carrying any-
thing valuable and there could be further complications if children, espe-
cially the very young, accompanied the seller. It might appear, therefore,
that itinerant antler workers were necessarily male. However extended
family groups could solve a lot of these problems. Elder members could
take care of the children and brothers or sons accompany the itinerant
woman to help with transport and protection. Consequently the gender of
the seller is equivocal.

Conclusion
In conclusion, one must take into account that the archaeological evidence
available to determine the gender of both makers, users and traders of Long
Handled weaving combs is frequently ambiguous owing to a lack of
definitive information. No braids, looms or types of yarn have survived in
Britain from this period, although some small portions of ornamental
borders have been found in burial contexts in Yorkshire (Stead, 1991).
Artefacts associated with these tools can often be assigned to either gender.
Variations in the size and weight of the combs and in the length and width
of the teeth suggest that different types of braid were being made for differ-
ent uses which could cover anything from webbing for harness to fine braids
and borders and even ornamental weaves, although there is no conclusive
evidence to associate either men or women with particular types of weaving.
Taken altogether, there is no reason to see maker, user or trader as either
male or female. The makers of the combs could be of either gender and
part of a group of artisans where it seems likely that the younger members
collected and prepared the antler. Manufacture and decoration of the
combs could have been done by either men or women, depending upon
time and talent. Associated burial evidence is linked to females and on
that alone rests the argument for users being women. It seems likely that
the users of combs were women who made and sold braids, borders or
ornamental weaving, although there is no reason why heavier items used
for harness may not have been made or mended by men. Distribution to
trade fairs or among settlements may have been handled by both. Thus
the manufacture and use of these combs could be seen as a complicated
network of different genders and ages contributing to the style and usage
of these tools.

Bibliography
Ambrosiani K. (1981) Viking Age Combs, Comb Making and Comb Makers (Stockholm).
Black, M. E. (1980) The Key to Weaving (New York).
Bulleid A. and H. StGeorge Gray (1911) The Glastonbury Lake Village Vol. I (Taunton
Castle).
152 The Gender of Tool-maker and Tool-user

Bulleid A. and H. StGeorge Gray (1917) The Glastonbury Lake Village Vol. II (Taunton
Castle).
Bulleid A. and H. St George Gray (1948) The Meare Lake Village Vol. I (Taunton
Castle).
Bulleid A. and H. St George Gray (1953) The Meare Lake Village Vol. II (Taunton
Castle).
Gray, H. StGeorge and M. Cotton (1966) The Meare Lake Village Vol. III (Taunton
Castle).
Bushe-Fox, ]. P. (1928) Excavations at Richborough 2nd Report (London), pp. 31-2.
Childe, V. G. (1935) Prehistory of Scotland (London).
Clarke, D. L. (1972) 'A Provisional Model of an Iron Age Society and its Settlement
System', in D. L. Clarke (ed), Models in Archaeology (London), pp. 801-70.
Coles,]. M. (1987) Meare Village East, Somerset Levels Papers, 13.
Coles,]. M. and S. Minnitt (1995) Industrious and Fairly Civilised, Somerset Levels
Project and Somerset County Council Museums Service.
Connolly, R. C. (1986) 'Anatomical Description of Lindow Man', in I. M. Stead,
]. Bourke and D. Brothwell (eds), Lindow Man (London), pp. 54-6.
Cunliffe, B. (1991) Iron Age Communities in Britain (London).
Harding, D. (1974) The Iron Age in Lowland Britain (London).
Hecht, A. (1989) The Art of the Loom (London).
Leese, M. (1991) 'Preliminary Statistical Survey', in I. M. Stead, Iron Age Cemeteries in
Yorkshire English Heritage Archaeological Report 22 (London), pp. 171-8.
Ling R. H. (1918) Studies in Primitive Looms (Bedford).
MacGregor, A. (1985) Bone, Antler Ivory and Hom (Beckenham).
Millett M. and D. Russell (1982) 'An Iron Age Burial from Viables Farm',
Archaeological Joumal, 139, pp. 69-90.
Morant, G. M. and C. N. Goodman (1943) 'Human Bones', in M. Wheeler, Maiden
Castle (Oxford), pp. 337-60.
Penney, S. H. (1975) 'Rolled Graver Technique on a Weaving Comb', Proceedings of
the Somerset Archaeology and Natural History Society, 119, pp. 65-6.
Ross, A. (1986) The Pagan Celts (London).
Schmidt, R. S. (1980) 'Steel Production in Prehistoric Africa: 'Insights from ethno-
archaeology in West Lake, Tanzania', in R. E. Leakey and B. A. Ogot (eds),
Proceedings of the 8th Panafrican Congress of Prehistory and Quaternary Studies,
Nairobi, September 1977 (Nairobi).
Sellwood, L. (1984) 'Objects of Bone and Antler', in B. Cunliffe, Danebury Excavation
Report, vol. 2, CBA Research Report, 52, pp. 371-8.
Stead, I. M. (1991) Iron Age Cemeteries in Yorkshire, English Heritage Archaeological
Report, 22 (London).
Tuohy, C. (1995) 'Bone and Antler Working', in]. Coles and S. Minnitt, Industrious
and Fairly Civilised, Somerset Levels Project and Somerset County Council
museums Service, pp. 143-9.
Tuohy C. (1996) Prehistoric Combs of Antler and Bone, unpublished thesis, University
of Exeter.
10
The Use of Space in a Gender Study
of two South African Stone Age Sites
Lynn Wadley

Introduction
Archaeological literature abounds with uncritical assumptions about the
gendered division of labour in the Stone Age: for example, Man-the-
Hunter, Toolmaker or Artist, and Woman the Gatherer and Artist's Model.
In such gender studies there is a tendency to universalize men and
women's experiences (Handsman, 1991; Conkey, 1993). Thus, gender
studies per se are not new and have not rendered any radical changes to
archaeological interpretations (Hanen and Kelley, 1992; Conkey, 1993).
Even placing the emphasis on women's roles in prehistory need not alter
the situation because women's studies are not inherently feminist (Conkey,
1993), and may do women injustice by homogenizing and fossilizing their
experiences.
In contrast, feminist approaches to gender studies can and do change
views of the past by challenging, not only previous archaeological interpre-
tations, but also perceptions of the present. Feminists embarking on such
inquiries can bring fresh meaning to gender studies by pointing to flaws in
traditional models. Feminists question received views of gender roles (and
even of gender itself) and wrestle with epistemological and methodological
issues that affect interpretations of current as well as ancient societies. Thus
the issue of gendered division of labour in the past has been problematized,
not merely accepted as a premiss (Brumfiel, 1991). Division of labour can
be based on attributes such as skill, age or status and, throughout this
chapter I specify 'gendered division of labour' when I mean gendered tasks.
The inherent nature of archaeological data may influence the visibility or
invisibility of a division of labour- for example, poor organic preservation
may skew representation of plant gathering. I also suggest, however, that
the ancient societies themselves influenced the visibility or otherwise of
their division of labour. They did this through varying their social practices
153
154 The Use of Space

when they altered band composition. Thus, in Stone Age studies, the
archaeologist's task may be complicated by site variability resulting from
the visissitudes of band composition. This point, which is central to my
chapter, will be explained in more detail shortly.
Stone Age researchers have to work with poorly preserved scraps of evi-
dence and this exacerbates the difficulty of making social interpretations.
Apart from Stone Age art, it seems to me that spatial studies offer one of
the most profitable avenues for inquiry. I am aware of the current debates
on the reflexive relationship between space and human action (for a
summary see Parker Pearson and Richardson, 1994) but, for the purposes of
this chapter, I make the simplified suggestion that space is a social con-
struct used by all societies to define and order social relationships (Simek,
1984; Botscharow, 1989) which, in turn, play a critical role in the arrange-
ment of material culture items. Material culture is social production (Tilley,
1989) and its deposition, viewed in the spatial context of archaeological
sites, can profitably be used for making social interpretations of the past. In
this chapter I therefore focus on the relationship between space, material
culture and social relationships in the Stone Age.

Space and gender among San of Southern Africa

It is impossible to interpret anything without analogy (Wylie, 1985), and
archaeologists are obliged to make use of forager ethnographies to provide
analogies for model building. This practice is fraught with problems and
some of these will become obvious as I proceed to use selected southern
African ethnography and ethnoarchaeology as a springboard for my inves-
tigations. I use San ethnography and refer mostly to the !Kung from the
northern Kalahari, but also to Kua and G/wi from the central Kalahari.
The practice of aggregation and dispersal is nearly universal to foraging
societies (Brooks, 1984, p. 42), including the Kalahari San (Barnard, 1992).
Aggregation is the time when households and small bands congregate and
live communally in large camps- !Kung groups may be as large as 100-200
(Lee, 1979, p. 365)- whereas in the dispersal phase individual households
may hive off from the larger band and live in isolation. Aggregation is a
time for group hunting, group collecting of plants, socializing, making and
mending artefacts, making and exchanging gifts, marriage brokering and
ritual. During the dispersal phase the small group works together at subsis-
tence tasks, and manufacturing is either absent or rare (Yellen, 1976, p. 70)
Those ritual activities, such as the trance curing dance, which rely on the
presence of many adults for their effectiveness, are also rare (Lee, 1979,
p. 365).
Spatial patterning in San camp sites is influenced by the different activi-
ties and different degrees of formality during aggregation and dispersal.
!Kung men and women's work is sometimes spatially separated during the
 Lynn Wadley 155

aggregation phase. To some extent this is due to avoidance rules which

affect speech, entering huts, sitting near people such as in-laws, and sitting
on ground where people of the opposite sex have sat (Marshall, 1976,
pp. 249-5 1). Avoidance between !Kung men and women is even visible in
the seating arrangement around the hearth in front of the hut entrance.
The man's side is to the right and the women's side is to the left when an
observer faces the hut entrance (Marshall, 1976, pp. 88, 249). Women build
the stick and grass huts or shelters (Lee, 1979, p. 276), but even if a woman
has not built a shelter, she will put up two sticks to symbolize its entrance
and establish the correct seating position (Marshall, 1976, p. 88). This
seating arrangement is not a generalized San practice, but it does illustrate
the way in which social rules may control the use of space.
!Kung women tend to work together around the hearth of one of the par-
ticipants to make ostrich eggshell beads (Yellen, 1976, p. 69), which are the
most frequently given gifts (Wiessner, 1982, p. 13). !Kung men may jointly
make and poison their arrows (Yellen, 1976, p. 69). Among the G/wi, men
make the large karosses during aggregation and five or six men knead and
peg it (Silberbauer, 1981, p. 224).
Hearths are the foci of many activities and in the large !Kung camps
hearths are placed not only in family areas but also in 'empty spaces' that
form communal areas in the camp centre or outside the hut circle (Gould
and Yellen, 1987, p. 89). Family hearths are at the entrance to huts and
most of the cooking and manufacturing are carried out here whereas com-
munal areas are used for specialized communal activities, such as dancing.
The Kua household pattern is similar but fires in the communal area may
also be used for activities that include straightening bows, arrows or
digging sticks, or the manufacture of quivers (Bartram, Kroll and Bunn,
1991, p. 97).
Food preparation and consumption have an additional spatial compo-
nent in !Kung camps. The debris scatter, confined to the area immediately
surrounding each family hearth, consists of tool-making by-products inter-
mingled with discarded vegetable remains and bones (Yellen, 1977a,
1977b). Vegetables are not shared outside of the immediate family and
roots and fruits are pounded in a mortar at the family hearth. Women are
the main collectors of fruit and vegetables, and also the main processors of
these foods, but there is no prohibition against men collecting plants and
men may help women to collect vegetables (Silberbauer, 1981, p. 199) and
firewood (Marshall, 1976, p. 97) during the dispersal phase. At Kutse in the
Kalahari, where Kua and G/wi are now sedentary, some husbands and
wives forage together (Kent, 1993a, p. 490). This suggests that social change
is an ongoing process and that as archaeologists we must be cautious and
flexible in our approach to the ethnography.
Large animals hunted by !Kung men with bows and poisoned arrows are
shared among all camp members and this is reflected in the dispersal of
156 The Use of Space

bones from an individual animal near all the huts (Yellen, 1977a). In con-
trast small animals such as porcupine belong to the man or woman who
clubbed them or collected them from traps. Such animals are not shared
communally and their bones are found around one hut only (Yellen,
1977a, p. 305). Among the San of Kutse, sharing influences the richness of
faunal taxa around a camp so that the greatest richness occurs in camps
where there is a strong sharing network (Kent, 1993b, p. 376). Although
Marshall (1976) noted that !Kung women never butcher meat, Kent (1993b,
pp. 338-9, 375) observed women at Kutse butchering not only birds and
small animals that they sometimes caught in their own traps (Kent, 1993a),
but also large animals on occasions when their husbands were tired or pre-
occupied. Thus, when the archaeologist is interpreting site contents on the
basis of ethnographic analogy, the bone waste around hearths cannot
always be assumed to be the result of men's hunting or butchering activi-
ties; women may have been responsible.
The composition of individual hearths may differ considerably depend-
ing on the length of time that the camp is occupied. In the northern
Kalahari, in !Kung dispersal camps, evidence of manufacturing activities is
relatively rare because subsistence activities occur daily and proportionately
less time is spent making goods (Yellen, 1976, p. 70). In contrast, aggrega-
tion camps, which are occupied for longer periods of time than the disper-
sal phase camps, foster a great many manufacturing activities that generate
much debris. This accumulates together with items of food debris and
aggregation camps are associated with large, ashy refuse dumps that have
been scraped away from hearths and are often placed behind huts. In the
central Kalahari, in long-term camps at Kutse, debris is plentiful and there
are ash heaps, refuse areas and special manufacturing areas, whereas in the
short-term camps these features are absent (Kent and Vierich, 1989).
Thus in aggregation sites the debris accumulation becomes more diverse
than that in dispersal phase sites because, during aggregation, people man-
ufacture goods not normally made in the dispersal phase sites. One corol-
lary of this activity difference is that separate men and women's
manufacturing areas are not present in dispersal phase camps. Another
corollary is that aggregation sites generate so much activity that household
borders may get confused (Brooks, 1984). Furthermore, aggregation sites are
often reoccupied but never in exactly the same pattern and through time
there is an accumulation of a diffuse scatter of charcoal, tools and bone
over a large area (Brooks, 1984, p. 46). The internal organization features or
debris concentrations are likely to be lost as the centres of hearths drift
across the camp site.
The ethnographic examples show that the use of space and the degree of
gender segregation differ in aggregation and dispersal phases. The first
important point to emerge from this ethnography is that it provides
another case study to illustrate that there is no straightforward way of
 Lynn Wadley 157

classifying gender relationships and a division of labour. Previously, fem-

inist researchers have warned against the danger of universalizing men and
women's role by not taking account of variations that occur between races,
classes or ages. Now it is clear that amongst foraging peoples it may also be
necessary to take account of different behaviour that occurs in aggregation
and dispersal phase camps because these may change when the band's
structure changes. An unwary archaeologist examining a single dispersal
phase site could simplistically conclude that the informal behaviour
reflected there implied symmetry in people's gender roles and perhaps even
a lack of any kind of division of labour.
The second important point to emerge from the San ethnography is that
there is no clear dichotomy between men and women's roles- for example,
men are not the only meat producers and women are not the only veg-
etable collectors. During the dispersal phase, men and women may also
share tasks such as collecting firewood. Such flexibility of the gendered
division of labour amongst the San must caution the archaeologist against
trying to find examples of a clear cut gender division of labour in past
societies.

Archaeological spatial studies at Rose Cottage Cave and jubilee

Shelter
It is almost certain, however, that Stone Age camps, like those of the
modern San, should reflect a relationship between the practice of aggrega-
tion and dispersal, the use of space and a division of labour (in the sense of
specialized manufacturing areas).
Ethnoarchaeological studies of !Kung camps have demonstrated the dif-
ferences between aggregation and dispersal sites partly on the amount and
nature of the associated debris (Yellen, 1977b, pp. 78-82; Brooks, 1984,
p. 46). The modern aggregation camps are most easily recognized because
of discrete and sometimes dense clusters of manufacturing debris. Stone
Age aggregation and dispersal sites have been interpreted in southern
African sites using this type of principle (Wadley, 1987). Notwithstanding
the associated difficulties, the importance of finding aggregation and dis-
persal sites must not be underestimated because these sites are socially con-
stituted and provide different contexts within which gender roles and
gender relations are brought into play (Conkey, 1991, pp. 65-6).
Here, I draw my examples from two South African Stone Age rock shel-
ters: Rose Cottage, near Ladybrand in the Orange Free State and Jubilee
Shelter, in the Magaliesberg of the Transvaal. Both sites have been inter-
preted as aggregation camps for part of their history, largely because of
their rich artefact assemblages and the content of their rock art and other
ornamentation (Wadley, 1987, 1991, Ouzman and Wadley, 1997). Space
does not allow me to describe any of the sites that I have interpreted as
158 The Use of Space

dispersal phase camps but these are dealt with elsewhere (Wadley, 1987,
1989), and it suffices to say that, in all cases, these sites do not have dis-
crete clusters of artefacts or debris and the stone assemblages contain infor-
mal tools.
Both Rose Cottage Cave and Jubilee Shelter have long sequences, prob-
ably dating back to approximately 100 000 years. Here I shall examine only
two occupation horizons from Rose Cottage and one from Jubilee. When
all the analyses are complete it will be possible to examine the spatial pat-
terns in all the Rose Cottage levels; the Jubilee data are already published
(Wadley, 1987).
The youngest Rose Cottage occupation, level Mn, contains some
European artefacts and may be younger than 1SO years ago because the first
whites moved into the area in the late 1830s (Casalis, 1861; Behrens, 1992).
The second Rose Cottage example is drawn from level A, dated to about
600 years ago. The Jubilee Shelter horizon is the oldest example used here
and it dates to about 4000 years ago (Wadley, 1987, 1989).

Rose Cottage Cave (Orange Free State)

This is a large, north-facing cave with almost six metres of deposit that
span about 100 000 years (Wadley, 1991). A great boulder encloses the
front of the cave, leaving a skylight and small eastern and western
entrances. The current excavations follow two previous ones (Malan, 1952;
Beaumont, 1978), which have left only half of the cave's deposit to work
with. I am aware that I am unable to plot all the site's features and that the
spatial information retrieved and presented here is thus painfully
incomplete.
Large-scale excavations of 32m 2 are being undertaken in order to map
features and activity areas in the cave. I now present and discuss the spatial
information obtained from the distribution of features and selected
artefacts and objects (Figures 10.1 and 10.2). The density contours used
have been calculated using unconstrained clustering (Whallon, 1984;
Blankholm, 1991). I look only at the contouring of the density of items in
each square and their clustered or diffuse arrangement within the entire
grid. The numbers marked on the figures are derived from percentages of
items.

Level Mn spatial patterns

In level Mn there are three hearths and a few small pits (Figure 10.1a). A
large area of the occupation floor is covered with compacted clay that seals
the underlying level, A. It is difficult for the archaeologist to be sure that
the spatial patterns observed are real - that is, that they represent past
activity areas rather than random distributions or a variety of site-forma-
tion processes such as stream action or trampling. The association of arte-
facts and other items around features is crucial to spatial studies (Clarke,
 Lynn Wadley 159

QPONMLKJ N M L K J QPONMLKJ
5Q
4 ,ash

~ ~~heanh-____.
l
a Mn features b Glass fragments c Chips

5
4
3
2

d Chunks e Flakes f Grindstone

g Colouring material h Adzes Pottery

5
4
3
2
4

j Ostrich eggshell k Waste bone fragments Bone points and shafts

fr!'lgments
5 1:-o::---~11;"

2 Contour intervals of 5

m Small scrapers
Figure 10.1 Rose Cottage Cave: distribution of features, material culture and other
items in level Mn; the grid is oriented north and the cave entrance is in the north
Source: Author.

1977); when looking at 'real spatial patterns' I expect that artefacts and
food debris are most likely to cluster around features.
In the case of level Mn in Rose Cottage modern glass fragments
(Figure lO.lb) have been introduced into the cave over the last 70 years by
picnickers or people visiting the rock art on the cave walls. The figure
shows that broken glass has a diffuse distribution with no clusters of high
density associated with any of the features (Figure lO.la). This type of
160 The Use of Space

QPONMLKJ ONMLKJ
5
.\h!l~sh ~hearth
F~"'o
4
3
2

a A features b Chips c Chunks

5
4
3
2

d Flakes e Grindstones f Colouring material

5
4
3
2

g Pottery h Waste bone fragments Burnt bone

5
4
3
2

j Rock rabbit k Springbok I Warthog

l'~
2~
Contour intervals of 5
0 5m
~- ~~~~~--~
m Incomplete eggshell n Bone points and shafts
beads
Figure 10.2 Rose Cottage Cave: distribution of features, material culture and other
items in level A; the grid is oriented north and the cave entrance is in the north
Source: Author.

pattern is to be expected where people who discard items are not using an
existing spatial'map'. This observation provides confidence in the poten-
tial for recognizing prehistoric activity areas in level Mn.
Chips and chunks, the waste from stone tool knapping, are clustered
near the north-western entrance to the cave (Figure lO.lc,d), a position
that is particularly well-situated for manufacturing purposes because it is
 Lynn Wadley 161

always well lit. The knapping area is close to the hearth in square P3 and
the ash concentration in Q4. Unretouched flakes, the primary products of
knapping, have their highest cluster in the north-west (Figure 10.1e), over-
lapping the chips and chunks, but the cluster is of low density and flake
distribution is best described as diffuse. Flakes would have been removed
from the knapping area for diverse tasks in other activity areas, and this
probably explains their distribution.
Groundstone work largely comprises upper grindstones and these cluster
near the back of the cave (grid centre) in an area where there is no other
clustering of artefacts or debris (Figure 10.1f). Colouring material (ochre
and haematite) clusters most densely in the west of the grid, where its dis-
tribution overlaps with the knapping area. This position is some distance
from the main grindstone distribution and it seems that the grindstones
were not being used to grind the pigment. A preliminary study of residues
on the grindstones suggests that they were used for grinding plants
(C. Wallace, personal communication). Adzes, pottery, ostrich eggshell frag-
ments and waste bone fragments have their highest densities in the north-
east part of the grid (Figure 10.1g,h,i,j). Waste bone is plentiful: there are
more than 17 000 bone fragments with a mass of about 9 kg. The cluster of
waste bone (Figure 10.1k) is, however, a weak one, suggesting that, while
meat may have been processed and cooked in the north-east, bones were
smashed and meat eaten over a much wider area of the cave. There is no
hearth in the excavation grid close to the highest density of bone but much
of the bone is burnt, suggesting that a hearth may be just outside the grid.
None of the hearths located within the excavation grid appear to have been
especially associated with meat cooking and processing.
Most of the bone points (used as arrowheads by modern San) and shafts
are situated in the north-eastern part of the excavation grid (Figure 10.11),
south of the ostrich eggshell, adze, pottery and bone concentration.
Although not as discrete as the grindstones, the bone point and shaft
distribution overlaps only slightly with the other north-eastern cluster of
artefacts and food waste.
The distribution of artefacts and other items in level Mn shows consider-
able overlap in that many of the items have a low representation throughout
the grid, in addition to having strong clustering in one area. The most dis-
tinctive cluster in this level is that of the upper grindstones at the back of the
cave and the lack of fit between the groundstone and the colouring material
concentrations suggests that the two were not used together, but rather that
the grindstones at the back of the cave were used for plant food processing.
In contrast, the bone point and shaft concentration may represent the area
where hunters made and maintained their hunting equipment.
The north-eastern cluster of pottery, bone and eggshell fragments may
coincide with a meat processing and cooking area, perhaps even involving
the boiling of meat and bones in pots. The eggshell was not being
162 The Use of Space

processed into beads here and the shell fragments may be the remains of
broken water bottles or eggs that were eaten.

Level A spatial pattems

Level A contains a complex of hearths and ash heaps (Figure 10.2a), as well
as five pits. It is rich in chips and chunks and artefacts of all descriptions
and gives the impression of having been occupied for a longer time period
and by a larger group than level Mn.
Chips and chunks are widely spread across the grid, but their main con-
centration is in the east where three hearths and their associated ash heaps
occur (Figure 10.2b,c). Flakes, numbering almost 5000, are also spread
widely across the grid, although their highest densities overlap those of
chips and chunks (Figure 10.2d). The flake distribution in A is like that in
the younger level Mn, suggesting once again that flakes were used for a
wide variety of tasks in all activity areas. Groundstone work is at the front
of the cave (Figure 10.2e) but tends to cluster west of the hearth complex
and west of the chip and chunk concentration, although there is some
overlap with it. Colouring material is fairly widespread but clusters with
and near the grindstones (Figure 10.2f). Pottery clusters around the north-
ernmost hearth in square MS (Figure 10.2g).
An enormous quantity of waste bone (33.6 kg) was recovered from level
A and, like level Mn, the bone has a diffuse distribution in the excavation
grid. The bone has been identified to a wide range of species, including
small and large animals (Plug and Engela, 1992). The highest densities of
bone waste and burnt identifiable bone, as might be expected, occur in the
main hearth complex (Figure 10.2h,i). Here, also, are the highest densities
of both rock rabbit (Procavia capensis) and springbok (Antidorcas marsupia/is)
(Figure 10.2j, k). In each case, the hearth in MS contains the highest
density of both animals. Using a San model we should expect that remains
of hunted animals like the springbok would be far more widely distributed
than animals like rock rabbits, that are caught in traps by both men and
women and usually eaten by family members only. It is possible, however,
that the close proximity of occupation in sites like Rose Cottage cave
prompted people to share even small meat parcels. The techniques of
unconstrained clustering may allow enough detail to identify the butch-
ery/sharing area from which a particular species came. Bone from two
warthog clusters most strongly east of the hearth in squares K4 and L4 and
also in squares N3 and M3 (Figure 10.2 1), which are also the squares in
which the ostrich eggshell bead-making took place.
The most discrete cluster in level A is that of the incomplete ostrich
eggshell beads that were broken in the process of manufacture. These bead
discards cluster in the centre of the cave (Figure 10.2m), and two grooved
headstones (used for polishing the roughhewn beads) were recovered in the
same area, which quite clearly represents the remains of a bead manufac-
 Lynn Wadley 163

turing area. North and east of this is the main concentration of bone points
and shafts (Figure 10.2n) which coincides with the groundstone, pottery
and colouring material clusters and is part of a 'smudging' of artefacts and
debris around the northern hearth, which was repeatedly the focus of
several activities. Notwithstanding this smudging it is noteworthy that the
most dense cluster of hunting weapon manufacturing debris is separate
from the ostrich eggshell bead manufacturing area. This activity separation
is also apparent about 4000 years ago in Jubilee Shelter, more than 500 km
distant from Rose Cottage Cave.

Jubilee Shelter (Transvaal)

In Jubilee Shelter the distributions of bone points and shafts are distinct
from those of ostrich eggshell beads and incomplete beads (Figure 10.3).
They cluster around the hearth near the entrance to the shelter in the
centre of squares C3, C4, B3 and B4. Although there is some overlap in the
distribution of eggshell and bonework, the dense clusters of each are on
opposite sides of the hearth: ostrich eggshell beads concentrated to the
south and east while bonework concentrated to the north and west.

d""~" l
D C B

a Features
D C B

b Ostrich c Bone points

eggshell beads and shafts

Contour intervals of 5
0 3m

Figure 10.3 Jubilee Shelter: distribution of ostrich eggshell beads and bone points
and shafts around the hearth at the shelter entrance; the grid is oriented west
Source: Author.
164 The Use of Space

Discussion
Both Rose Cottage Cave and Jubilee Shelter contain activity areas that show
that spatial organization was planned and of social importance. At both
sites, at widely differing time periods, the data can be interpreted as evi-
dence for discrete activity areas for bead and point manufacturing. At Rose
Cottage there is also a discrete area for pounding vegetables with grind-
stones. In addition, at Rose Cottage, there are stone knapping areas, often
close to hearths, where other activities took place involving, for example,
scrapers, colouring material and pottery. Refuse tends to cluster near
hearths and these either have enormous or small quantities of bone and
material culture items. The first type of hearth can be likened to the San
family hearth whereas some of the second kind can be interpreted as
special-purpose hearths because they seem to have specialized tasks next to
them and they do not appear to have had meals eaten close to them.
The hearth complex in level A is associated with huge accumulations of
ash containing large quantities of diverse refuse. These may be refuse
dumps that formed when ash was scraped away from the central part of the
hearth. Not only is there a wide variety of material culture items in the ash
but also a wide variety of small and large animals represented in the bone
debris. I have already mentioned that small game are caught and butchered
by both San men and women but that the wide distribution of a variety of
large game animals suggests wide sharing of large game in aggregation
camps. Furthermore, Bartram, Kroll and Bunn (1991, p. 142) interpret bone
clusters comprising diverse elements from diverse taxa as secondary dis-
posal areas. The fragmented nature of the bone supports this interpretation
because Ohel (1977) suggests that areas of meat consumption are character-
ized by concentrations of bone splinters, whereas meat butchery and prep-
aration areas have few bone splinters.
All of the data summarized here support the interpretation of Rose
Cottage and Jubilee as aggregation sites that are remarkably similar to con-
temporary San aggregation camps. At Rose Cottage, where the occupations
examined date to the last 600 years, it is reasonable to expect this similar-
ity. Nonetheless, we must be prepared to accept that change could have
taken place even during this short time span. Not to accept this possibility
would be to perpetuate the tendency, associated with early feminist studies,
to ignore historical change (Dobres, 1988).
At Rose Cottage there are at least two examples of spatial patterns that
reflect differences between this group of Stone Age people and the Kalahari
foragers. The first example is that of the cluster of grindstones at the back
of the cave, in the Mn level. This may represent a discrete plant food pro-
cessing area for several people and, if this is the case, this implies behaviour
that is different from modern !Kung and other San who tend to process
their plant foods around their own family hearth. The second example is
 Lynn Wadley 165

that of the ash concentrations in level A. These ash refuse heaps have been
allowed to remain next to their associated hearths and they were not
removed some distance as is the case in San aggregation camps today. To
some extent the change reflected in the Rose Cottage grindstone and refuse
areas may result from the physical constraints of living in a shelter where
camp boundaries are restrictive for people wishing to remain inside. This
constraint does not, however, have implications for another new inter-
pretation, this time involving the distribution of stone flakes.
Many archaeologists would interpret the stone knapping area at the
western entrance in level Mn as a male working area because they assume
that men are the stone knappers. Gero (1991) has argued convincingly that
Stone Age women are unlikely to have waited passively for men to produce
tools for them and that they are most likely to have produced their own
flakes. The Rose Cottage evidence can neither support nor refute this claim,
but it can contribute to the debate in another way. In Rose Cottage the
products of stone knapping, the flakes, do not cluster with the knapping
by-products, instead they have diffuse distribution across the excavation
grid. Thus, regardless of who was making unretouched flakes, the flake dis-
tribution is so wide that flakes may have been used in all the activity areas
- that is, by both men and women.
Thus far my interpretation of the Rose Cottage and Jubilee data has pro-
vided a new approach to Stone Age studies by showing the importance of
linking the widespread forager practice of aggregation and dispersal to
spatial studies in archaeology. It has also shown that there were separate
activity sets, perhaps even a division of labour but, what is not yet resolved
is whether there was a gendered division of labour in these Stone Age
camps. Were the ostrich eggshell bead-makers and processors of vegetables
women? Were the bone point-makers men? Do the discrete activity areas
represent gender segregation of tasks of the kind seen in San aggregation
camps? The San ethnography outlined at the beginning of this chapter sug-
gests that all these questions could be answered in the affirmative. Such
affirmation would provide a logical and satisfying interpretation but, even
so, such an interpretation can be challenged on several grounds. By accept-
ing that the division of labour - and, specifically, the gendered division of
labour- in the two Stone Age camps was the same as that of modern San,
we are in danger of supporting the concepts, criticized at the beginning of
this chapter, of a Universal Man and a Universal Woman. We should be
particularly wary of interpreting the past in terms of a binary, gendered
division of labour. The San examples showed that gender roles can some-
times be flexible: not only does women's gathering sometimes include the
hunting of small game but men are also collectors of vegetables. We cannot
assume that hunting weapons (perhaps including tools such as the Rose
Cottage and Jubilee points) and the presence of bone are necessarily indica-
tive of the presence of men. I mentioned earlier that the butchering of
166 The Use of Space

game also cannot be considered only a male task, so butchering areas also
cannot be categorically assigned to men.
Then, in the same way that we can no longer assume that stone tools
were used by men alone, we should not assume that bead-making was nec-
essarily an exclusively female task. We have to allow for the possibility that
the activity sets interpreted at sites like Rose Cottage and Jubilee may have
come about as the result of differences in age or ability, and that they may
have little to do with gender roles. For archaeologists who seek interpretive
closure this is a frustrating situation. For feminist archaeologists, however,
there is a growing tendency to question the current 'scientific' paradigm
and to make a plea, as Dobres (1988; p. 40) does, for an epistemology
capable of accepting ambiguity between alternative interpretations. To
admit that more than one interpretation may be applicable to archaeologi-
cal data is honest rather than dilettante.

Bibliography
Barnard, A. (1992) Hunters and Herders o(Southem Africa (Cambridge).
Bartram, L. E., E. M. Kroll and H. T. Bunn (1991) 'Variability in Camp Structure and
Bone Food Refuse Patterning at Kua San Hunter-gatherer Camps', in E. M. Kroll
and T. D. Price (eds), The Interpretation of Archaeological Spatial Patterning (New
York), no. 77-148.
Beaumont, P. B. (1978) 'Border Cave', unpublished MA dissertation, University of
CapeTown.
Behrens, ]. (1992) 'European Artefacts from Rose Cottage Cave', South African
Archaeological Bulletin, 47, pp. 13-15.
Blankholm, H. P. (1991) Intrasite Spatial Analysis in Theory and Practice (Denmark).
Botscharow, L. ]. (1989) 'Sites as Texts: An exploration of Mousterian traces', in
I. Hodder (ed.), The Meaning of Things (Cambridge), pp. 50-5.
Brooks, A. (1984) 'San Land-use Patterns, Past and Present: Implications for Southern
African prehistory', in M. Hall, G. Avery, D. M. Avery, M. L. Wilson and A.]. B.
Humphreys (eds), Frontiers: Southern African archaeology today (Oxford), pp. 40-52.
Brumfiel, E. M. (1991) 'Breaking and Entering the Ecosystem: Gender, class and
faction steal the show', paper presented at the 90th Annual Meeting, American
Anthropological Association (Chicago).
Casalis, E. (1861) The Basutos, or Twenty-Three Years in South Africa (London).
Clarke, D. (1977) 'Spatial Information in Archaeology', in D. Clarke (ed.), Spatial
Archaeology (London).
Conkey, M. W. (1991) 'Contexts of Action, Contexts for Power: Material culture and
gender in Magdalenian times', in]. M. Gero and M. W. Conkey (eds), Engmdering
Archaeology: Women and prehistory (Oxford), pp. 57-92.
Conkey, M. W. (1993) 'Making the Connections: Feminist theory and archaeologies
of gender', in H. du Cros and L. Smith (eds), Women in Archaeology (Canberra),
3-15.
Dobres, M.-A. (1988) 'Feminist Archaeology and Inquiries into Gender Relations:
Some thoughts on universals, origin stories, and alternating paradigms',
Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 7, pp. 30-44.
 Lynn Wadley 167

Gero, ]. M. (1991) 'Genderlithics: Women's roles in stone tool production', in

]. M. Gero and M. W. Conkey (eds), Engendering Archaeology: Women and prehistory,
(Oxford), pp. 163-93.
Gould, R. A. and J. E. Yellen (198 7) 'Man the Hunted: determinants of household
spacing in desert and tropical foraging societies,' Journal of Anthropological
Archaeology, 6, pp. 77-103.
Handsman, R. (1991) 'Whose Art was Found at Lepinsky Vir? Gender relations and
power in archaeology', in J. Gero and M. W. Conkey (eds), Engendering Archaeology:
Women and prehistory (Oxford), pp. 329-65.
Hanen, M. and J. Kelley, ]. (1992) 'Gender and Archaeological Knowledge', in
L. Embree (ed.), Metaarchaeology, (Dordrecht).
Kent, S. (1993a) 'Sharing in an Egalitarian Kalahari Community', Man, 28,
pp. 479-514.
Kent, S. (1993b) 'Variability in Faunal Assemblages: The influence of hunting skill,
sharing, dogs and mode of cooking on faunal remains at a sedentary Kalahari
community', Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 12, pp. 323-85.
Kent, S. and H. Vierich, H. (1989) 'The Myth of Ecological Determinism: Anticipated
mobility and site organization of space,' in S. Kent (ed.), Fanners as Hunters: The
implications ofsedentism (Cambridge), pp. 97-130.
Lee, R. B. (1979) The !Kung San: men, women and work in a foraging society
(Cambridge).
Malan, B. D. (1952) 'The Final Phase of the Middle Stone Age in South Africa',
Proceedings of the Pan-African Cmzgress on Prehistory, 1947 (New York), pp. 188-94.
Marshall, L. (1976) The !Kung ofNyae Nyae (Cambridge).
Ohel, M. J. (1977) 'Patterned Concentrations on Living Floors at Olduvai, Beds I and
II: Experimental study', Journal of Field Archaeology, 4, pp. 423-33.
Ohzman, S. and L. Wadley (1997) 'A History in Paint and Stone from Rose Cottage
Cave, South Africa, Antiquity 71, pp. 386-404.
Parker Pearson, M. and C. Richards, (1994) 'Ordering the World: Perceptions of
architecture, space and time', in M. Parker Pearson and C. Richards (eds),
Architecture and Order: Approaches to social space (London), pp. 1-37.
Plug, I. And R. Engela, (1992) 'The Macrofauna! Remains from Recent Excavations at
Rose Cottage Cave, Orange Free State', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 47,
pp. 16-25.
Silberbauer, G. B. (1981) Hunter and Habitat in the Central Kalahari Desert
(Cambridge).
Simek, J. F. (1984) 'Integrating Pattern and Context in Spatial Archaeology', Journal
of Archaeological Science, 11, pp. 405-20.
Tilley, C. (1989) 'Interpreting Material Culture', in I. Hodder (ed.), The Meaning of
Things (London), pp. 185-94.
Wadley, L. (198 7) Later Stone Age Hunters and Gatherers of the Southern Transvaal
(Oxford).
Wadley, L. (1989) Legacies from the Later Stone Age, South African Archaeological
Society, Goodwin Series 6, pp. 42-53.
Wadley, L. (1991) 'Rose Cottage Cave: Background and a preliminary report on the
recent excavations', South African Archaeological Bulletin, 46, pp. 125-30.
Wadley, L. (1992) 'Rose Cottage Cave: The Later Stone Age levels with European and
Iron Age artefacts,' South African Archaeological Bulletin, 47, pp. 8-12.
Whallon, R. (1984) 'Unconstrained Clustering for the Analysis of Spatial
Distributions in Archaeology', in H. Hietala (ed.), Intrasite Spatial Analysis in
Archaeology (Cambridge), pp. 242-77.
168 The Use of Space

Wiessner, P. (1982) 'Risk, Reciprocity and Social Influences on !Kung San

Economies', in E. R. Leacock and R. B. Lee (eds), Politics and History in Band Societies
(London), pp. 61-84.
Wylie, A. (1985) 'The Reaction against Analogy', Advances in archaeological Method
and Theory, 8, pp. 63-111.
Yellen,]. E. (1976) 'Settlement Patterns of the !Kung: An archaeological perspective',
in R. B. Lee and I. DeVore (eds), Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers: Studies of the !Kung San
and their neighbours (Cambridge), pp. 47-72.
Yellen, J. E. (1977a) 'Cultural Patterning in Faunal Remains: Evidence from the !Kung
Bushmen,' in D. Ingersoll, J. E. Yellen and W. Macdonald (eds), Experimental
Archaeology (New York).
Yellen,]. E. (1977b) Archaeological Approaches to the Present (New York).
 11
Gender, Material Culture, Ritual and
Gender System: a Prehistoric
Example Based on Sickles
Catherine fohnsson, Karolina Ross and Stig Welinder

Introduction
Modern, or rather post-modern, archaeology has deconstructed its basic
concepts during the last 10-15 years. Apparently self-evident concepts like
artefact, landscape and time have been meticulously discussed. Likewise
obviously complex concepts like culture, society and type have become
hopelessly complex. Sex is an apparently self-evident concept, which has
turned hopelessly complex - and accordingly interesting.
The dichotomy of one female and one male sex was introduced into nine-
teenth century prehistoric archaeology. Today classifications of artefacts and
assemblages, and their inherent associations with work tasks and roles, are
discussed in relation to two or more genders. Alternatively, the inadequacy
of the gender concept is discussed (Arwill-Nordbladh, 1991; Hjorungdal,
1994). We will contribute to this discussion by asking the straightforward
question: 'who used the sickles in the annual harvest of the corn crop in
Scandinavia during the last two millennia before the Birth of Christ?' We
have thus to analyze the use of the gender concept within prehistoric archae-
ology at the same time as we use it ourselves to answer an explicit question.
The common textbook image presents one or a few women working with
sickles (Figure 11.1 shows the tools) in a cornfield. Figure 11.2 represents a
skilfully drawn image (the original is by Flemming Bau, 1979) of women of
various ages taking part in the harvest. It is unusually correct as concerns
details. The dresses of the adult women conform with that of the teenage
girl, buried in the late summer of 1370 BC in a hollow oak trunk beneath a
turfmound at Egtved in Denmark (Randsborg, 1993). The main question
raised by this image is why the drawing contains women and solely women
working in the corn field.

169
170 Material Culture, Ritual and Gmder

Figure 11.1 Sickles from the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age: a flint, b bronze, c iron
Sources: After Montelius (1917); Cullberg (1973).

Norweign archaeologist Gro Mandt in her review of the proceedings from

the 22nd Chacmool Conference on the Archaeology of Gender states:

it appears that the study of sexual division of labour is impossible

without the use of analogies based on enthographic and ethnohistoric
data and historic records. (Mandt, 1994, p. 123).

This pessimistic view is correct. The various work tasks of the two, or more,
genders in the course of the farming year cannot be reconstructed from the
archaeological record consisting of the cowsheds and fields themselves.
Individuals are not linked to the tools, and thus reasonably to the work
done with the tools, in the settlement site garbage or in the fossil remains
of the cultivated landscape. Individual graves, on the other hand, contain
 Catherine fohnsson, Karolina Ross and Stig Welinder 171

Figure 11.2 The common textbook image: women harvesting the crop using
sickles during the Bronze Age
Source: Original drawing by Flemming Bau.

the skeleton or the cremated bones of just one person and objects associ-
ated with that person. That is why many of the best gender studies within
the discipline of prehistoric archaeology use grave data (Dommasnes, 1982,
1992; Stig Sorensen, 1992).
Graves with sickles are the unquestionable starting point when dis-
cussing our question: 'who used the sickles during the annual harvest?' In
these graves, not only are the deceased individually related to the sickles,
they may also be sexed from their skeletons or cremated bones. This is the
quandary of using the gender concept within prehistoric archaeology. The
analytical basis of discussing gender will have to be either analogies, as
stated in the above quotation, or the biological sex of bones. It is doubtful
if there are realistic alternatives. We will try the physical anthropological
analysis of the bones, which is itself may be a problematic mixture of an
unambiguous scientific classification and an idea of what two or more sexes
should look like, - i.e. a gender conception moulded by the classifying
scientist (cf. Sigvallius, 1994).
Ethnographic or historical analogies will not be explicitly used in the fol-
lowing discussion. Although it may be a futile hope, we will also do our
best not to use them implicitly. Instead, central to our discussion will be
the contextual analysis of graves with sickles associated with other kinds of
objects: tools, dress ornaments, weaponry and other objects.
172 Material Culture, Ritual and Gender

We will present three sets of grave data from South Scandinavia from the
timespan 1800 BC-AD 200 (the dates used in this chapter refer to the cali-
brated radiocarbon timescale with the exception of the above dating of the
Egtved burial, which is a tree-ring dating of the oak trunk). At the end of
the third millennium before the Birth of Christ, farming became the dom-
inant kind of subsistence economy in South Scandinavia. The harvest of
the arable land became of vital importance in addition to, and most proba-
bly ahead of, cattle-breeding and fishing, at least from a strictly economical
point of view. This suggests that power, ideology and ritual were related to
the control of the arable land, the harvest and the harvesting workforce-
i.e. the sickles and the persons using them.

Sickles in Bronze Age graves

During the Late Bronze Age of South Scandinavia slightly curved bronze
sickles were used (Figure 11.1b), although they were not often deposited in
graves. Table 11.1 summarizes the types of tools associated with sexed
bones in 61 graves. These graves are drawn from a number of different
burial grounds from several provinces in South Sweden, dating from
approximately 1000-500 BC. There are of course many more burials
without tools. All in all, there are five graves with a sickle.
Most graves contain cremations. There are 10 female graves, 22 male
graves and 29 unsexed graves. Table 11.1 displays the numbers of graves

Tables 11.1 The numbers of graves with bronze or stone tools during the Late
Bronze Age

Artefact types Sex of

associated with grave
burials Female Male Unsexed
Sickles s
Fishhooks 1
Arrowheads 2 7
Axes 2
Prickers 7 12 s
Scrapers 2 10
Awls 1
Wetstones 1 2 1
Strike-a-lights 1 2 7
Total number
of graves 10 22 29

Note: There may be more than one tool type deposited in a grave. The sexing of the graves is
based on skeletal data.
Sources: Data from Stjernquist (1961); Darnell (1971); Lundborg (1972); Stromberg (1975).
 Catherine fohnsson, Karolina Ross and Stig We/inder 173

along with the various kinds of tools found in them. Our analytical basis is
thus the physical anthropological sex of the deceased persons.
There are difficulties inherent in the sexing of cremated bones. Rarely
more than one adult out of 10 can be assigned a sex. Individuals younger
than about 15 years cannot be sexed (Sigvallius, 1994). In addition, sex and
gender are not the same. Our analysis starts by dividing the graves into
groups corresponding to the female and male biological sexes. A third part,
the unsexed graves many of which contain subadult individuals, is set aside
and left outside the analysis. After that the contextual analysis will reveal
the gender roles of these two sexes. This is taking the scientific
classification for granted and equalizing biological and social sex - i.e. sex
and gender. If the gender classification in the South Scandinavian Late
Bronze Age society cross-cut biological sex, we will be in difficulties. The
alternative is to omit the physical anthropological data and start with a
multi-variate classification of the material culture contents of the graves.
Any reasonable grouping emerging from the classification may be inter-
preted in terms of gender, or in other terms- e.g. age groups, clans, totem
groups, ethnic groups. Perhaps this can be done without introducing
ethnographic and historical analogies, but probably not according to the
quotation given at the start. In the next example we have no data on sexed
skeletons available. We will thus to some extent try the latter strategy- i.e.
to group objects according to an already settled gender model.
The difference between the contents of tools in the Late Bronze Age
female and male graves is small (Table 11.1). The most conspicuous diver-
gence, in fact, is the occurrence of sickles in some of the male graves and
their total absence in the female graves.
What about the Early Bronze Age data? During this period, 1800-1000
BC, bronze sickles of the same kind as during the Late Bronze Age were
occasionally deposited in graves, as were crescent flint sickles (Figure
11.1a). The graves in South Scandinavia during the Early Bronze Age are
predominantly individual inhumation graves in stone cists or oak trunks
below turf mounds with 10 or so graves in each of them. The skeletons are
rarely preserved, although a few exceptionally well preserved Danish graves
show that the deceased were buried in their dresses with their display orna-
ments and weaponry, and occasionally with containers, furniture and
tools. Among the latter are a few sickles. There are all in all 20 sickles found
in 19 graves in the archaeological record of the South Swedish Early Bronze
Age. Table 11.2 lists all the bronze objects found together with these sickles
in the graves.
We have subdivided the kinds of objects deposited in the graves into
three groups. They are tentatively meant to correspond to a classification of
the graves according to two genders, females and males (Table 11.2). The
graves of the former gender are indicated by primarily display ornaments
belonging to the female dress. The graves of the latter gender are indicated
174 Material Culture, Ritual and Gender

Table 11.2 The number of occurrences of sickles together with other objects in
Early Bronze Age graves

Item No.

(a) Pins 1
Beads 2
Sewing-needles 1
Bracelets 4
Belt-discs 2
Tubes for cord skirts 2
Total 12
(b) Knives 5
Prickers 2
Buttons 6
Daggers 3
Fibulae 2
Total 18
(c) Swords 2
Axes I
Spearheads 1
Arrowheads 3
Razors 3
Tweezers 3
Chisels 1
Total 14

Note: The artefact types are subdivided into (a) presumed female, (b) presumed male and
(c) non-gender-characteristic objects.
Source: Data from Oldeberg (1974).

primarily by weaponry. A third group of bronze objects containing, for

example, daggers, knives and fibulae, is known from the graves of both
females and males.
This gender classification is the start of treading on thin ice. There are
obviously two distinct groups of graves characterized by swords and
display dress ornaments like belt-discs, respectively, but there are also
graves with no or few objects, or objects that are found together with
alternatively weapons and display ornaments. The two groups of objects
supposedly characterizing female and male graves, respectively, make
sense, even common sense, but it can seriously be argued that the group-
ing of the Early Bronze Age graves into two bipolar genders is a
simplification of a much more complex reality. The graves with well pre-
served woollen dresses and wooden artefacts suggest the presence of at
least three genders in the Early Bronze Age society of West Denmark (Stig
Sorensen, 1991).
 Catherine fohnsson, Karolina Ross and Stig Welinder 175

Our classification of the bronze artefacts may be problematic, or unfit,

perhaps even improper- e.g. the notorious sewing-needles (d. Hjorungdal,
1994, pp. 144-S) which we have classified as female tools in the same way
as was done by the nineteenth century bourgeois mentality, and contem-
porary archaeology, when decent, and idle, middle-class women were sup-
posed to occupy themselves with embroidery. The boundary between
sound reason and prejudice may be difficult to see.
Our point, however, is that sickles in Early Bronze Age graves are found
together with ornaments, tools and weapons alike. The sickles were most
probably characteristic of both the female and male genders, if not still
other more problematic genders.
Thus, the image of Bronze Age women harvesting the corn crop with
sickles receives no support from the present grave data set. Does this mean
that the image is not correct? To try to answer this question is again tread-
ing thin ice. This is the kind of predicament where prejudice concerning
gender roles may be expected to come to the fore.

Analogies and context

The ethnographic and historical analogies are meant to expand the human
experience of the scholar, to make visible more of human variation than
experienced in her or his own daily life. The ethnographic and historical
record also contains the lives of humans very different to that of the
scholar, who most often is a modern Occidental, and within Swedish
archaeology today, is more often a young woman than a middle-aged man.
Modern Occidentals do not harvest with sickles. According to ethnographic
cross-cultural data, women and men are approximately equally often
responsible for the harvesting around the world. Women take this role
slightly more often than men. On a scale where 100 denotes total domi-
nance of a task by men, and 0 denotes total dominance by women, the
value for harvesting is 45. Similarly for crop planting and crop tending, the
indices are 54 and 45, respectively (Murdock and Provost, 1983, Table 1).
This is not of much help in answering our question concerning harvesting
during the Bronze Age in South Scandinavia.
The ethnographic record has to be used in another way, not as ethno-
graphic analogies but as an ethnoarchaeologically-based theory of mater-
ial culture (Hodder, 1982, 1986). Graves are inherent parts of funeral rites.
Ritual is related to the real life, but it is also loaded with mythological
and symbolic meaning. Ritual - i.e. rites, dancing and narratives -
describe, memorize and manipulate real life at the same time as they
explain life as it is lived in relation to a spiritual and mythological dimen-
sion. The ritual may deny, contradict or ridicule the experienced reality,
as well as allegorically or theatrically describe it. To the mourners present
at the funeral the tools told a story when deposited in the grave. However
176 Material Culture, Ritual and Gender

tempting it is to assume the opposite, the story did not necessarily tell
that the deceased used the tools in question during her or his lifetime.
Ritual and myths do not work like that. Prehistoric graves are thus
problematic data.
The conclusion so far is that we do not know from the grave data,
whether the sickles were used by women, men or both genders during the
annual harvest in South Scandinavia during the Bronze Age. The reason for
this is indicated by the view of graves as ritual.
To understand gender-specific work tasks from grave data is thus equiva-
lent to understanding the symbolic meaning of the presence of the relevant
tools in the graves of individuals belonging to the various gender groups of
the society in focus. Our question accordingly has to be rephrased: 'why
were sickles deposited in graves during the last two millennia before the
Birth of Christ in Scandinavia?' An understanding of the mythology and
ideology, of which the sickles were a part, at the same time as they were
parts of the funeral rites, will involve an understanding of the everyday use
of the sickles as harvesting-tools. At least this is the idea, and seemingly a
necessary prerequisite, for the understanding of gender-specific work tasks
from the presence of tools in graves.
The reader interested in the historiography of the discipline of history
may at this point recognize the discovery within the discipline of prehis-
toric archaeology in the beginning of the 1980s of the tradition from
Leopold vol Ranke (1795-1886) to Robin G. Collingwood (1889-1943) after
two decades of social scientific archaeology (d. Tosh, 1991).
The contextual analysis of the grave data has to be continued and
directed towards a discussion of the above question. We will try to do this
by analyzing a burial ground with sickles in context, which will suggest in
which direction to look for answers. The ideas generated from the analysis
of data from one defined small society will, however, not self-evidently be
able to form generalized explanations of all the data discussed above. They
may rather point at an interesting kind of understanding.

The Ule burial ground

At the Ule burial ground in Southeast Norway a number of rectangular
stone-settings were built about 200 BC-AD 200 (Vibre Muller 1987). The
area inside these stone-frames was used for cremation pits. There are about
30 of them in each stone-frame, each with the bones of one individual, or
in a few cases those of two individuals. The deceased have been cremated
in their dresses, one or two metal objects from which may lie together with
the bones, and occasionally there is an iron tool or two. Most cremation
pits contain just the bones in a ceramic pot. There are women, men and
children in numbers and proportions corresponding to a village or a couple
of farms.
 Catherine fohmson, Karolina Ross and Stig Welinder 177

The Ule burial ground has incidentally been independently analyzed by

two specialists in physical anthropology. The result is not encouraging; the
suggested sex of the cremated humans is embarrassingly seldom in agree-
ment between the two analyses. We have followed the senior author
(Welinder, 1989) in accepting the suggested sex, when both analyses
suggest the same sex. In addition, a sex is assigned to the individuals
deposited in their cremation pits with metal objects characteristic of the
female and male North-European Germanic dresses, pins or fibulae for
women, and belt buckles for men. This is strictly a gender classification
based on a historical analogy. In this way two defined groups of women
and men, respectively, are formed among the individuals at the burial
ground. The majority of the individuals are assigned no sex, or gender. This
is valid for all children, but also for the majority of the adults. Thus, the
continuation of our discussion will be based on a minor part of the total
number of graves, and may be biased. This has to be remembered, when we
write about 'women' and 'men' within the burial ground population. It is
an implication of our use of the physical anthropological data as the
starting-point.
The group of people, or society, that used the Ule burial ground, used
iron sickles of the same kind as the druids in the Asterix books, although
the latter were of gold (Figure 11.1c). Sickles are found in the cremation
pits of all in all four women. They are never found in the cremation pits of
men. Thus, it is tempting to conclude that the sickles were used by women
and not by men, and that the crop was harvested by the women.
Accordingly this is possibly a data set, and a society, in agreement with the
image of Figure 11.2.
The Ule burial ground, however, presents a possibility to continue the
discussion, to look at the context of the sickles in more detail. A challeng-
ing question is: 'which women were selected to be buried with sickles?'
Again, we will make use of scientific data in our discussion.
Cremated bones can be subdivided into approximative age groups in
about the same way, although most often less precisely, as full skeletons
(Sigvallius, 1994). This has been done for the Ule burial ground population.
The disagreement between the two scientists is considerably less as
concerns the age compared to that of the sex grouping.
The infants have been cremated in a dress with no metal parts and with
no sickles (Table 11.3). It is reasonable that there are girls among the
buried infants. The alternative is that the girls have been buried outside
the rectangular stone-frames, or not at all. Young women have likewise
been cremated in dresses without metal ornaments, but in three cases
together with a sickle. Old women have been buried dressed in costumes
with display attire of metal. Thus, age was of importance in the funeral
ritual. Three female age groups are indicated (Table 11.3). One female
grave deviates from this otherwise coherent pattern. It must also be
178 Material Culture, Ritual and Gender

Table 11.3 The number of female graves with metal objects at the Ule burial
ground in relation to the age of the cremated women

Infants Young Below Middle Above

middle age middle
age age

Dress ornaments 2 2
Sickles 1 2 1
No objects + 1 2
Total 2 4 2 3

Source: Data from Welinder (1989).

remembered that the chances of metal objects being included among the
cremated bones was small, if they had been present at the pyre. Table 11.3
displays an image based on haphazard and maybe biased data. That is
the way in prehistoric archaeology. Problematic data are used when
reasonable sense can be made. The problem actually is not the data,
but to decide when and why they make sense. Our suggestion is the
following.
The women of the Ule society wore dresses indicating their age, and
they were cremated in these dresses. In addition, now and then the bones
of primarily young women were deposited in their container together
with a sickle. Young women are about to marry, or whatever the appro-
priate term was in Southeast Norway 2000 years ago. They also are about
to start on their batch of children. The term 'reproduction' comes to
mind.
Thus, an alternative idea to that of young females conducting the annual
harvest at the fields around present-day Ule 2000 years ago is that of sickles
representing female reproduction in the funeral ritual. Most probably both
ideas, which are not mutually exclusive, are too simplistic.
Gender and age are close to universal concepts. Human societies all over
the world stress gender and age when structuring themselves. Prehistoric
archaeology stresses material symbols used in this structuring of people
along gender and age lines. What must be remembered is that the material
symbols used may vary infinitely and that the structuring and ideological
principles may do the same. The same is valid for the mythology used to
elucidate these principles, and their inherent power relations. We thus feel
fairly sure that the sickles in the graves of the young women at the Ule
burial ground are to be understood in relation to a specific female gender
and age group. The rest of our suggested interpretation is a guess, the back-
ground of which we will now proceed to discuss. The discussion will
present the conceptual framework for the understanding of how to answer
our introductionary question.
 Catheril1e fohnsson, Karolina Ross and Stig Welinder 179

Bronze Age rock-carvings and a worldview of reproduction

The South Scandinavian rock-carvings, generally from the timespan AD
2000-500 BC, mostly consist of cupmarks, ships, feet, crass-in-circles,
humans, animals and a lot of unintelligible scribble. At least, that is what it
looks like. In addition there are what looks like scenes with one or several
humans and sometimes animals in action. We have selected a small
number of carefully chosen scenes of this kind to uncover what we believe
is a Bronze Age worldview and way of organizing human interaction. The
selected scenes are not unique, but extremely rare compared to the endless
amount of apparently simplistic but hard to understand symbolic motifs.
Also the scenes are certainly hard to understand. However, they seem to
tell a story.
The two rock-carving motifs to the left in Figure 11.3 are there to remind
the reader of the economic basis of the South Scandinavian farming
society during the period in focus: arable land and cattle-breeding. The net
resembles a map of the kind of arable land with small square fields, which
in British archaeology is denoted 'Celtic fields'. With little doubt it is
neither a net nor a map of arable land but something quite else. It would
have been nice instead to have had a person with a sickle in his or her
hand to represent the arable land in the figure. Maybe sickles are depicted
in the rock-carvings. They are, however, difficult to detect among all the
more or less curved lines in the hands of people or otherwise. The net will
have to do.

Figure 11.3 A selection of Bronze Age rock carvings organized to suggest links of
associations of thought
Sources: After Almgren (1927): Norden (1925); Marstrander (1963); Wihlborg (1977).
180 Material Culture, Ritual and Gender

Animals are common rock-carving motifs. Figure 11.3 displays a variety

of specimens, which we suppose to be domestic animals. The reader may
have another opinion.
In our view the Bronze Age rock-carvings reproduce things from the
Bronze Age reality. This is valid for axes, carts, clothes, and ploughs,
shields, swords and a lot of other items. They may be recognized from the
museum show-cases and store-rooms. Scenes, on the other hand, are more
problematic. All the various details may be correctly reproduced from
reality, but what about the total impression (see Figure 11.4)? Nineteenth
century scholars believed that the rock-carving scenes could be read like
photos in an ethnographic travelogue. Today the carvings are looked upon
as parts of cult and ritual. It is problematic whether they reproduce cult cer-
emonies that have really taken place, episodes from myths or tales, remem-
bered pictures from dreams and hallucinations, or whatever.
We will not solve the above problems. We will not even state our pre-
ferred solution. From our contextual archaeological standpoint, that is
unnecessary. It is sufficient for us to note the close relation of various motifs
within the scenes and the kind of action that takes place within the scenes.

Figure 11.4 An easily recognizable biblical scene Oob 14:1) with the actors dressed
in local costume of the province of Dalekarlia, Middle Sweden: wall painting in the
local traditional style, by Olhans Olof Jonsson (1828)
Source: Dalarnas Museum, Falun, DM10874.
 Catherine fohnsson, Karolina Ross and Stig Welinder 181

Thus, in Figure 11.3 we note a man, obviously ready for sexual inter-
course, ploughing, a scene of bestiality involving a man and an indefinite
species of animal, and a scene of sexual intercourse or rather the preludes
of one.
The latter scene involves a man with a sword and one other person. This
person has got what looks like a plait. Sometimes persons with this kind of
hairstyle have got a circular mark between the legs. These persons may be
women like the one in the scene of sexual intercourse. Sometimes persons
with this kind of hairstyle have got a sword like the man in the scene.
In fact, it is not self-evident which of the two persons in the scene is the
man. Other similar scenes seem to involve two men. Scenes with two
women are not known to us. It must be stressed that women are more
difficult to recognize in rock-carvings than men. Men seem, however, to be
more common among the rock-carving humans than women (Mandt,
1987). Nevertheless, scenes of sexual intercourse between women and men
are reproduced among the rock-carvings.
The arrangement of the scenes in Figure 11.3 and the lines between the
scenes are meant to indicate a suggested pattern of thinking. Sexual inter-
course between men and women, men and animals, and men and the
ploughed fields is linked to the cattle-herds and the arable land, to the
reproduction of the herds and to the future harvest in the arable land - i.e.
to the sickles. The harvest and the sickles, thus, are inherent to a worldview
of reproduction, the annual cycle and the life-death dichotomy. This is the
answer to the question, why sickles are found in graves.
It is a dangerously simplistic answer. Our text may be read by the critical
reader as an implicit juxtaposition of, on one side, men and, on the other
side, arable land, cattle and women. This is as close as one can get at
placing the following oppositions on an equal footing:

men women
production reproduction
active passive
culture nature

This scheme was part of the nineteenth century Victorian (in Sweden,
Oscarian) bourgeois ideology and lifestyle. Today it is part of common
Western well beaten intellectual tracks. It is less evident that this was the
view of the Scandinavian Bronze Age society or other pre-industrial
Western or non-Western societies. Perhaps it was, but that has to be
studied and discussed, not used as an implicit statement. Generalizations of
this kind, coming close to prejudice, are hard to avoid in prehistoric
archaeology. This is obviously not least as it concerns the gender concept.
Nevertheless, it is our answer to the introductionary question: 'who used
the sickles in the annual harvest of the corn crop in Scandinavia during the
182 Material Culture, Ritual a11d Ge11der

last two millennia before the Birth of Christ?' Admittedly, we do not know
if it was part of the female or male gender role to use the sickle, but we
know why we do not know. The answer to our question is not found in the
kind of data that we have analyzed. Gender is too complex a concept.

Gender system
Gender is one of the orgamzmg principles in, probably, all societies.
Material culture is one of the organizing means. In illiterate societies
without the tradition of analytical philosophy from Thales (c. 640-546 BC)
to Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1950) tales, myths, rites - and material
culture- are used to describe, categorize, analyze and explain the world. In
social interaction based on the spoken word, material culture is the long-
term medium, as are the tales and myths told again and again, and the rites
and dances performed again and again in the same way (Levi-Strauss, 1962;
Ong, 1982). But the use of material culture is also a way to categorize,
manipulate and dominate the hustle and bustle of social interaction. The
gender roles in a society are defined by the subdivision of space into rooms,
houses and places, where women and men are supposed to move and work,
with tools meant to be used by either women or men. The gender of an
individual person is recognized from her or his dress, hairstyle and body-
paint and the genders are differently buried.
Thus, the observation that there are two, or more, genders in a prehis-
toric society and that a tool is characteristic of one or the other gender is
superficial, even if interesting. The concept of gender has to be understood
as a holistic gender system. There is the kind of tool, the work task per-
formed by that kind of tool, the rites in which the tools take part - e.g.
funeral rites- the tales and myths narrated to explain who is to perform
the work task and accordingly to use the kind of tools in question. There
are the tales and rites in which the taboos for others to touch the tools are
explained, and there are the dances in which the performers relive the
totality of it all. Everything together forms a mental and material culture
world and worldview.
This is why the sickles are found in graves. They tell about the annual
cycle of sowing and harvesting, about life and death, and about women
and men; about the reproduction of food, life, society and gender roles.
The ideology of the annual cycle, the life-death cycle, the female-male jux-
taposition is narrated in tales, rites and dances seen in the rock-carvings:
ploughing, bestiality, sexual intercourse. The continuation of the cycles,
the society and its gender roles and relations are explained and secured.
In this way, the gender roles and their inherent work tasks are seen as
complementary, not as juxtaposed oppositions like the stereotypes dis-
cussed above. In the cross-culturally generalized annual farming cycle,
which can be modelled from the data presented in Murdock and Provost
 Catherine Johnsson, Karolina Ross and Stig Welinder 183

(1983), both genders have their position. In the list by Murdock and
Provost (1983) there are both predominantly female and male work tasks
related to the crop. The figures correspond to the same index as used above.

land clearance male 91

soil preparation male 73
crop planting both sexes 54
crop tending both sexes 45
harvesting both sexes 45
preparation of
vegetal foods female 6

The genders have their specific defined positions within the annual cycle of
farming work tasks and domestic work. It may be this complementarity,
not an active-passive or culture-nature power relation that is depicted in
the sexual intercourse rock-carving scenes or expressed as sickles in the
graves, sometimes in those of women, sometimes in those of men.

Bibliography
Almgren, 0. (1927) Hallristningar och kultbruk (Stockholm).
Arwill-Nordbladh, E. (1991) 'The Swedish Image of Viking Age Women: Stereotype,
generalization, and beyond,' in R. Samson (ed.), Social Approaches to Viking Studies
(Glasgow), pp. 53-64.
Cullberg, K. (1973) Ekehogen - Backa Rod - Valtersberg. Fragor om kronologi och
kulturkontakter under fOrromersk jarnalder i Goteborgsomradet (Goteborg).
Darnell, D. (1971) Rekame under bronsalder - aldsta jarnalder, Department of
Archaeology, Uppsala University (Uppsala).
Dommansnes, L. H. (1982) 'Late Iron Age in Western Norway. Female roles and
ranks as deduced from an analysis of burial customs', Norwegian Archaeological
Review, 15 (1-2), pp. 70-84.
Dommasnes, L. H. (1992) Two Decades of Women in Prehistory and in Archaeology
in Norway. A review, Norwegian Archaeological Review, 25 (1) pp. 1-14.
Hji:irungdal, T. (1994) 'Poles Apart. Have there been any male and female graves?'
Current Swedish Archaeology, 2, pp. 141-9.
Hodder, I. (1982) Symbols in Action. Ethnoarchaeological studies of material culture
(Cambridge).
Hodder, I. (1986) The Present Past. An introduction to anthropology for archaeologists
(London).
Levis-Strauss, C. (1962) La pensee sauvage (Paris).
Lundborg, L. (19 72) Undersokningar av bronsaldershogar och bronsaldersgravar i si:idra
Halland (Halmstad).
Mandt, G. (1987) 'Female Symbolism in Rock Art,' in R. Bertelsen, A. Lillehammer
and]. -R. Naess (eds), Were They All Men? (Stavanger) pp. 35-53.
Mandt, G. (1994) 'Review of "Dale Walde and Noreen D. Willows (eds), The
Archaeology of Gender". Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Chacmool Conference',
Norweign Archaeological Review, 26 (2) pp. 118-24.
184 Material Culture, Ritual and Gender

Marstrander, S. (1963) Ostfolds jordbntksrisminger (Oslo).

Montelius, 0. (1917) Minnen fran var fomtid (Stockholm).
Murdock, G. P. and C. Provost (1983) 'Factors in the Division of Labour by Sex:
A cross-cultural analysis', Ethnology, 12(2) pp. 203-25.
Norden, A. (1925) OstergOtlands bronsalder. I. Beskrivande fOrteckning (Linkoping).
Oldeberg, A. (1974) Die iiltere Metallzeit in Schweden (Stockholm).
Ong, W. J. (1982) Orality and Literacy: The technologizing of the word (London).
Randsborg, K. (1993) 'Egekister og bronzealderens kronologi', in S. Hvass and
B. Storgaard (eds), Da klinger i muld ... 25 drs arkaeologi i Danmark (Arhus),
pp. 164-5.
Sigvallius, B. 1994. Funeral Pyres. Iron Age cremations in North Spanga (Stockholm).
Stig Sorensen, M. L. (1991) 'The Construction of Gender Through Appearance, in
D. Walde and N. D. Willows (eds), The archaeology of gender. Proceedings of the
Twenty-Second Annual Chacmool Conference (Calgary), pp. 121-9.
Stig Sorensen, M. L. (1992) 'Gender Archaeology and Scandinavian Bronze Age
Studies', Norwegian Archaeological Review, 25 (1), pp. 31-49.
Stjernquist, B. (1961) Simris II. Bronze Age problems in the light of the Simris excavations
(Lund).
Stromberg, M.(1975) Studien zu einer Griiberfeld in Loderup (Lund).
Tosh, J. (1991) The Pursuit of History (London).
Vibe Muller, K. (1987) Gravfeltene pa Ule, Glemmen, 6stfold. Keltisk jernalder,
romertid og folkevandringstid (Oslo).
Welinder, S. (1989) 'An Experiment with the Analysis of Sex and Gender of
Cremated Bones', Tor, 22, pp. 29-41.
Wihlborg, A. (1977) 'Sagaholm. A Bronze Age Barrow with Rock-carvings', papers of
the Archaeological Institute. UniversityofLund 1977-1978, NewSeries,2, pp. 111-28.
 12
Lithic Functional Analysis as a
Means of Studying Gender and
Material Cui ture in Prehistory
Linda R. Owen

Introduction
The study of gender and material culture in prehistory is severely hampered
by the nature of the archaeological record. In European sites of the
Palaeolithic, also referred to as the Old Stone Age, the majority of the finds
are stone artefacts. Depending on site conditions and preservation, there
may also be visible structures, such as hearths or pits, faunal remains or
pollen. Artefacts of hard organic materials, such as bone, antler and ivory,
occur regularly, but are seldom numerous. Charred wood and plant
remains may be obtained from hearths, but artefacts of these materials are
almost never preserved.
By far the most frequent surviving artefacts are stone tools and
manufacturing debris. Since stone tools were often used prehistorically to
work other materials, knowledge of their function can be used to docu-
ment past activities. Consequently, the functional analysis of lithic arte-
facts is a valuable method for reconstructing aspects of the material
culture of prehistoric peoples. The manner in which a tool was used and
the materials worked are reconstructed by comparing microscopic alter-
ations of the tool surface, such as polishes, striations and edge damage, as
well as breakage, tool morphology and residues, with those of experi-
mental tools (Figure 12.1). In so far as some activities or tool types may
be gender-specific, the use-wear analysis of prehistoric artefacts offers one
of the few possibilities for studying material culture and gender in
prehistory.

185
186 Lithic Functional Analysis

Figure 12.1 Microscopic use- wear traces on an experimental lithic tool used to
hatchel reeds (original magnification 250x)
Source: Alfred Pawlik.

Experiments directed towards functional analysis

A comprehensive programme of experiments is of great importance for
functional studies. Experiments are usually based on recent knowledge of
tool use or on ethnographic examples. Five researchers, who have analyzed
artefacts from the European Palaeolithic, have given relatively detailed
descriptions of their experiments directed towards reconstructing
Palaeolithic tool use (Keeley, 1980; Anderson-Gerfaud, 1981; Moss, 1983;
Vaughan, 198Sa; Plisson, 1985). These research programmes are especially
important as they were used as the basis for the functional analysis of a
number of lithic collections and the publications helped many students
learn use-wear analysis. In addition, they reflect commonly held ideas
about the life of prehistoric hunter and gatherers during the European
Palaeolithic. As can be seen in Table 12.1, the experiments concentrate on
the working of bone, antler, wood, hide and meat. A survey of ethno-
graphic reports on the Inuit (Eskimos), Aleuts and Indians of northern
North America has shown, however, that they used a larger spectrum of
materials than is represented in these use-wear analyses (Owen, 1992,
1993). Furthermore, it can be shown that the neglected materials were gen-
erally collected and worked by women. We can now review the different
 Linda R. Owen 187

Table 12.1 Experiments directed towards use-wear analyses of lithic artefacts from
the European Palaeolithic, 1980-5

Worked materials Keeley Anderson Moss Vaughan Plisson Total(%)

-Gerfaud
(1980) (1981) (1983) (1985) (1985)
Animals
Bone 34 16 31 18 118 217 (16.46%)
Antler 10 31 48 16 71 176 (13.35(}6)
Ivory 16 16 (1.2191>)
Horn 11 11 (0.83%)
Hunting (Weapon 56 56 (4.25<)·6)
points & insets)
Hide 16 11 38 35 134 234 (17.75<!1>)
Meat/Butchery 12 15 17 20 36 100 (7.59%)
Fish/Scaling 3 3 (0.23%)
Wood 59 38 39 so 177 363 (27.54%)
Plants 2 4 12 30 23 71 (5.39%)
Soil (digging) 1 (0.08%)
Shell 4 10 14 (1.06%)
Stone/Minerals 4 2 so 56 (4.25%)
Total 134 119 248 171 646 1318 (100%)

materials used in ethnographic contexts versus those selected for use-wear

experimentation.

Animal materials
More than 60 per cent of the experiments deal with the working of
animal materials or hunting. As is clear from the texts, the majority of
these dealt with large animals. For example, only 4 per cent of Emily
Moss' animal experiments were conducted with small animals or fish.
Considerable microwear experimentation was carried out with the hides
of large mammals, using both fresh and dry skins and different tanning
processes.
Although caribou and deer skins were the most commonly used by
northern peoples, the skins of fish and birds also played a considerable role.
According to Hatt (1969, p. 7),

If one were to mention the sorts of skin used in arctic clothing in a

sequence based on their importance and the geographic distribution of
their use, then reindeer skin ought to be mentioned first, followed by
bird skins and fishskins, and only then sealskins.
188 Lithic Functional Analysis

Hatt (1969, p. 9) believes that the use of fish skin by northern peoples
was much greater than it appears from the museum collections, as the little
decorated fishskin clothing seldom attracted the attention of collectors.
Clothing of fish skins was especially important for peoples who lived from
river fishing. The Western Inuit and Indians of Alaska used them to make
waterproof capes and parkas (see, for example, Nelson, 1983, Plate XIX), as
well as moccasins, leggings, mittens and women's aprons. Throughout the
Arctic (Damas, 1984) and Subarctic (Helm, 1981), they were made into
waterproof bags and containers, mostly for liquids such as blood and oil.
The skins of salmon, burbot and sturgeon were utilized most frequently.
Bird skins were frequently used by the Inuit for clothing, especially
undergarments, but also for warm winter parkas, pants and hats (Hatt,
1969; Damas, 1984). They also made containers, sleeping mats and blan-
kets from them. The skins of seawater birds, such as eider duck, puffin, cor-
morant and murre, were preferred for the production of clothes. Bird skins
were apparently of less importance for the Northern Indians, although
there are reports that the western Dene wore clothes of bird skin in earlier
times (Hatt, 1969, p. 10). The use of bird skins in the Arctic is not a recent
development as shown by finds of well preserved pieces of seal and bird
skin - some with fine sewing - in the permafrost at the ca. 4000-year-old
Sarqaq site of Qeqertaussuk in Greenland (Gronnow and Meldgaard, 1988,
p. 437). In addition, all six of the fifteenth-century mummies discovered at
Qilakitsoq on the west coast of Greenland wore inner parkas of bird skins
(Hart Hansen, Meldgaard and Noroqvist, 1991).
In addition to skins, the feathers of many birds were used throughout
northern North America as decoration for clothing, bags, etc. The Indians
also substituted feather spines for porcupine quills in their quillwork. On
the Northwest Coast, robes were even produced from duck or geese down
and bark fibre (Drucker, 1955, Plate 16). They were also used in the produc-
tion of arrows. The feathers (usually wing and tail feathers of large birds
such as eagles or turkeys) were split down the spines, trimmed and lashed
to the shafts. Feathers, such as those of the ptarmigan, are absorbent and
were also used by some Inuit for cleansing purposes and in diapers (Ray,
1984, p. 289).
Considering the many possible uses of fish skins, bird skins and feathers,
the almost total lack of experiments with these materials is noteworthy.
This is especially so as use-wear traces from working fish skins or feathers
can differ from those which result from working animal hides (Gijn, 1986;
Sussman, 1988, p. 108).

Wood
Extensive experimentation was also conducted on soft and hard woods, in
both fresh and seasoned conditions. However, the experiments ignored
barks and roots. Bark was employed extensively by the Indians of the
 Linda R. Owen 189

Subarctic, Woodlands and Northwest Coast (see, for example, Drucker,

1955; Helm, 1981; Suttles, 1990). Sheets of bark (for example, from birch,
elm, chestnut, basswood, ash, cedar, fir and spruce) were utilized for shel-
ters, roofing, canoes, diverse containers (for example, dishes, cooking
vessels, boxes and buckets), infant carriers and temporary raincoats. The
inner bark or bast (for example of basswood, swamp ash) was used to
produce cordage, coiled baskets, and was woven to make mats, bags,
baskets, nets, tumplines and clothes. Food, medicine, seasoning and hide
tanning and colouring agents were obtained from the inner bark or
cambium of spruce, pine, birch, poplar and willow (see, for example,
Eidlitz, 1969).
The Indians of northern North America used split tree roots (most com-
monly spruce and cedar) to sew birchbark containers and canoes, for decor-
ation and to make twined baskets and nets. Prehistorically, split pine roots
were used in the Danish Mesolithic and Neolithic to bind twigs for fish
traps Ouel Jensen, 1988b, p. 248).

Herbaceous plants
The analysts working with material from the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe
viewed herbaceous plants as sources of food, while underestimating or
overlooking their possible value as raw materials. In her functional analysis
of the lithic artefacts from the French sites of Pincevent and Pont
d' Ambon, Moss (1983, p. 73) writes:

Plant working experiments were minimal because I felt that even if

plants formed a significant part of the final Palaeolithic diet, stone tools
would not be used to procure them.

The assumption that plants were not important raw materials during the
Upper Palaeolithic seems to be quite widespread. Symens (1982, p. 27), for
example, states that she carried out few experiments with plants because
the tools from the Magdalenian site of Verberie came from a non-
agricultural culture and thus little polish from the working of plants was to
be expected.
The cold climatic conditions during the Magdalenian at the end of the
last Glacial Period may also have led the researchers to believe that suitable
plants were not available. However, fibrous plants were an important mate-
rial for the Inuit of the North American Arctic. The Inuit of the Pacific
Coast and the Aleuts used grass for mats, matting on house benches and
walls, carrying and storage baskets, socks and boot insoles, rope and cere-
monial ornamentation (Lantis, 1984a, pp. 169-70, 1984b, p. 215; Nelson,
1983, pp. 43, 202-5). Dried grass was commonly used throughout the
Arctic in boots as protection against cold, moisture and pressure (see, for
example, Hatt, 1969, pp. 23-4). Remains of shoe grass were even found in
190 Lithic Functional Analysis

an inner sock of skin recovered from the permafrost at the ca. 4000-year-
old Sarqaq site of Qeqertaussuk in Greenland (Gmnnow and Meldgaard,
1988, p. 437). Grass was also used to cover winter houses (Damas, 1984), to
insulate sleeping platforms (Freuchen, 1961, pp. 42-3) and for diapers and
menstrual pads (Lantis, 1959, pp. 33, 35). In addition, the Inuit consumed
the stems, leaves, sprouts, flowers, roots and berries of a surprisingly large
number of plants (Eidlitz, 1969; Kuhnlein and Turner, 1991; Owen, 1995).
Plants were not only a reliable and welcome source of nourishment, but
also an important food during times of famine. They were important sup-
pliers of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates and ballast, and were used as
medicines.
The Indians of northern North America also used a variety of fibrous
plants (Helm, 1981; Trigger, 1978). For example, cordage was produced
from the fibres of nettle, milkweed, wild flax and Indian hemp in the
Northeast and kelp on the Northwest Coast. Coiled baskets were made
from rushes, coarse grass, maize husks, silk grass and wild hemp. Rushes
were used to weave baskets, bags and mats for various purposes (for
example, flooring and covers for shelters). The fibres of Indian hemp and
other plants were also woven into mantles and used to make nets.
Other types of plants were used regionally. In the Northeast gourds were
made into bowls, dishes, ladles and water bottles (Goddard, 1978, p. 217).
One account also mentions the use of locust thorns as needles (Goddard,
1978, p. 227). The Indians also decorated their clothes with plant materials.
Throughout the area of study, dried fruits and seeds were made into beads
for necklaces and the ornamentation of clothing. Plant dyes were also pro-
duced and used to colour quills, moose hair, etc.
Although precise information about the harvesting and processing of
the various plants utilized is seldom available, there is evidence that
cutting tools were used for harvesting grass and other fibrous plants
(Freuchen, 1961, p. 43; Shapsnikoff and Hudson, 1973) and for processing
plant foods- i.e. peeling and slicing roots and stems Oones, 1983). Roots
were dug or pried out with digging sticks of bone, antler, ivory or wood
where available.
Remains of objects produced from plants are seldom preserved in archae-
ological contexts. Finds of prehistoric basketry are known from the Great
Basin region of North America. According to Adovasio (1986, p. 194),

Controlled excavations in the abundant dry caves and rockshelters in

nearly all sections of this area have yielded basketry collections that
span more than 10 000 years of occupation.

Materials varied locally and included tule (Scirpus sp.), cattail (Typha
latifola), sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), true rush (!uncus sp.), willow
(Salix sp.), cane (Phragmites sp.), Indian hemp (Apocynum sp.), milkweed
 Linda R. Owen 191

(Asclepias sp.), cedar (Juniperus osteosperma), cliff rose (Cowania mexicana),

white sage (Euotia lanata) and squaw bush (Rhus trilobata) (Adovasio, 1986,
p. 203).
The ca. 5000-year-old mummy discovered in the glacier ice of the Otztal
Alps on the Italian-Austrian border (Hopfel, Platzer and Spindler, 1992)
also possessed a considerable amount of objects which were made from
plant materials. Among these were numerous strings and cords of twined
grass and tree bast, pads of grass in his shoes, a small case made from
woven grass threads- perhaps a sheath for his dagger- and a woven 'grass
mat' of twined grass which appears to have been a cape (Egg, 1992). His
tools also included a 7 em long flint blade with so-called 'sickle gloss' along
the cutting edge which might have been used for cutting grasses.
The use of plant materials by hunters and gatherers of the Arctic and the
age of archaeological finds from the Great Basin show that the working of
plant materials with the tools in the Upper Palaeolithic should not be
excluded without further investigation.

Gender
This short discussion has shown that the experiments used as a basis for
reconstructing lithic tool use in the European Palaeolithic are limited in
their scope. If the experimental activities are analyzed in terms of gender
roles, in this case simply male and female tasks as they are known from the
Inuit (Giffen, 1930) and assumed by many to have existed during the
Palaeolithic, distinct patterns can be ascertained. Over two-thirds of
the experiments are concerned with the working of hard materials, such as
bone, antler, ivory, shell, stone and wood or the hunting of large animals
(Table 12.1). These were typical male activities among the Inuit and other
foraging peoples of northern North America. The working of soft materials,
usually the work of women, is considerably less frequent in the experimen-
tation. More than 90 per cent of the experiments were conducted on large
animals, wood and stone, materials which were generally procured by male
Inuit. The experiments concentrate on aspects of hunting (for example, the
production and use of weapons), the processing of game and the utilization
of large animal resources. The plants, fish, birds and small animals which
were generally procured, worked and used by women in these areas are
often neglected or overlooked entirely. Little attention is paid to the
working of fish skins, bird skins, fibrous plant materials, bark, bast or roots,
although they have numerous possible uses as raw materials, food and
medicines and were often worked with lithic tools.
The emphasis on the hunting of large animals and their products in
use-wear studies mirrors the emphasis placed on this activity, predomi-
nantly one of males in the Arctic and Subarctic, by the almost exclusively
male ethnographers, explorers, traders and missionaries who reported on
192 Lithic Functional Analysis

the area. This stress on male activities, such as the hunting of large animals,
gives these activities a greater importance in the literature, especially in sec-
ondary accounts, than they actually had in reality. Information about
women and their work is often limited to generalizations or short refer-
ences. This becomes clear when one searches for information on a specific
topic. For example, although it is often mentioned that Eskimo women
were generally responsible for the care of the children, there are almost no
reports on child care. More detailed information is available on the care of
sled dogs! Eskimo women not only cared for the children, cooked, worked
hides, and sewed, but they also gathered plants, eggs and mussels extens-
ively, hunted small animals and birds, and caught large numbers of fish.
These activities are often only mentioned in passing. The importance of
these products as food and raw materials is seldom discussed or, if so,
underplayed.
Many reporters had very biased ideas about the importance of male
labour. The comments of Hans P. Steensby in his 'Contributions to the
Ethnology and Anthropogeography of the Polar Eskimos', published in
1910, are a good example of this, as can be seen from the following excerpt.

The expression 'collectors' has been employed to denote those tribes,

which stand in the lowest stage of development ... At the present day
true 'collectors' hardly exist, as industrial culture of all known tribes is
based on special acquirements or trained methods in using special appa-
ratus. This applies especially to the male sex, whereas the direct partici-
pation of the female sex in obtaining the means of sustenance consists
as a rule merely in the collecting of everything possible that might be
eatable, as fruits, roots, eggs, larvae etc., thus, things which can all be
obtained without the use of other apparatus than a pointed stick for
digging up roots. We might say, therefore, that among the hunting
peoples the woman still remains at the 'collectors' stage, whilst the man
has developed a special and higher form of culture.
Amongst the hunting peoples we may therefore with a certain
amount of right distinguish between two modes of livelihood, namely,
hunting which is pursued by the men with special weapons manipu-
lated in a special, trained manner with sport-like character, and sec-
ondly collecting, which is carried on by women, children and old
people or all those who do not possess the strength or skill to take part
in the hunting. In the culture stage of pure hunters, therefore, hunting
and collecting correspond partly to man's and woman's work; it is on
this basis at any rate, for a very great part, that the often sharp division
between the work of man and woman as also between their customs
has been founded.
It is self-evident, that it would be wrong in a scientific consideration
of cultures to distinguish fishing from hunting as a special or separate
 Linda R. Owen 193

mode of livelihood. Fishing has to be regarded as 'hunting', if it requires

special apparatus in conjunction with special methods of capture or
great strength, and in these cases it belongs to the activity of the men.
On the other hand, it is merely 'collecting', when a wealth of fish is so
easily obtainable that women and children can help in its capture.
(Steensby, 1910, pp. 281-2)

Although Steensby's reports on the lifestyle and division of labour among

the Polar Eskimos can only be really understood in conjunction with these
remarks, they are often cited independently. His opinions about the value
of hunting, as opposed to gathering or fishing, were held by many of the
men who reported on northern North America, although they are not
always presented so openly in the accounts. The same bias has been carried
over into many reconstructions of prehistoric life in the Stone Age without
being questioned.

Functional reconstructions and gender

A number of use-wear studies have been carried out on lithic assemblages
from Magdalenian sites in Germany and France. A summary of the worked
material determinations from seven of these studies is given in Table 12.2
(Vaughan, 198Sa, 198Sb; Symens, 1982, 1986; Keeley, 1987; Moss, 1983).
In contrast to the experiments, the working of hard materials accounts for
only 30 per cent of the determinations, even though use-wear traces from
harder materials form faster and are more resilient to post-depositional
alteration. However, the frequency of animal materials is extremely high.
Approximately 88 per cent of the worked material determinations are of
animal materials, including hunting weapons. Wood, as has been observed
elsewhere Ouel Jensen, 1988a), is rare with only S per cent. Materials, such
as fish, shells and plants, which are usually procured by women in north-
ern hunter and gatherer societies, make up less than 2 per cent of the
determinations.
Do these functional reconstructions actually give a realistic view of life
during the Magdalenian of Europe? Or do they reflect the prejudices
observed in the experimental programmes, further complicated by the
difficulty of distinguishing similar use-wear traces on archaeological mater-
ial? Preconceived ideas of tool use and limitations in the experiments con-
ducted could easily have biased the functional reconstructions. These are
especially dangerous in cases where use-wear traces are similar - for
example antler and wood, hide and wood, or hide and plant, or where
traces are slow to form, as with soft plant materials and meat (Unrath et al.,
1986, p. 163). Alternatively, is it possible that typical female activities, such
as the gathering and processing of plant materials, were carried out without
tools?
 \0
~
-
Table 12.2 Worked material determinations on lithic artefacts from Magdalenian sites of Europe

Worked material Vaughan Vaughan Vaughan Symens Keeley Moss Moss Total(%)
determinations
Site Andernach Zigeunerfels Cassegros Verberie Verberie Pincevent Pont
II D'Ambon
Magdalenian Period (Mag d.) (Late Magd. (Magd. '0') (Magd.) (Magd.) (Late Magd.) (Late Magd.)
Late Palaeo!.)
Animals
Bone/ Antler/Ivory 22 13 31 51 140 22 8 287 (23.0%)
Hard material 1 - 25 - - - - 26 (2.1%)

Hunting (weapon - - - - 48 27 1 76 (6.1%)

points and insets)
Hide 205 54 165 27 37 27 23 538 (43.2°;6)
Meat/Butchery 21 45 4 23 77 9 16 195 (15.7%)
Fish/Scaling - - - - - 1 - 1 (0.1%)

Wood 3 38 5 9 2 2 59 (4.7%)

Plants 2 3 3 4 2 1 15 (1.2%)

Stone/Minerals 18 3 - - - - 21 (1.7%)
Grit 4 - - - 4 (0.3%)
Misc. - - - 24 - - 24 (1.9%)

Total 269 118 270 109 339 90 51 1246

 Linda R. Owen 195

Tool use in the late Magdalenian of Southwest Germany

In order to investigate these questions, I have been studying the Late
Magdalenian (from approximately 14 000 to 11 000 years ago) of Southwest
Germany (Albrecht, 1983). This Late Glacial Period had a cool climate. The
chief faunal remains from sites of this time belong to reindeer, horse, arctic
fox, fish, ptarmigan and other birds. The vegetation is characterized by
grasses (Gramineae), sedges (Cyperaceae) and dwarf forms of birch and
willow. There were probably also larger trees in some of the protected river
valleys.
Studies of pollen, seeds and macro-remains have shown that a surprising
number of plants existed in this area in Late Glacial times (Bertsch, 1961;
Lang, 1962, 1967; Weniger, 1982; Schoch, 1987). Many of these have been
used extensively by hunting and gathering societies as food and raw mate-
rials and could have been gathered and worked prehistorically (Table 12.3).
A number of these could have supplied edible berries, leaves, greens, stems
and roots - important sources of vitamins, carbohydrates, medicine and
ballast. Some of these plants may have been gathered and worked with
tools - the roots may have been obtained with a digging stick and later
been peeled and sliced with knives.
The numerous grasses, sedges and cattails could have provided raw mate-
rial for insulation, cordage and the weaving of baskets, mats, clothing, etc.
The trees would have been important sources of wood for the production
of long implements - weapon shafts and tent poles, and for handles, plates
and traps. Their roots may also have been used to sew baskets or traps. The
trees and low shrubs could also have been used for fuel.
The number of known possible plant resources available during the Late
Magdalenian of Southwest Germany is thus quite large and opens up many
possibilities for gathering and the use of both lithic and organic tools.
Lithic tools - for example, flakes, blades, hafted knives and borers - may
have been used for harvesting and processing grasses, sedges and cattails
and processing roots and stems (Figure 12.2). Some of the so-called 'projec-
tile points' (Figure 12.3, a-q) and 'chisels' (Figure 12.4) of bone, antler and
ivory from the Magdalenian may have been parts of women's digging
sticks. Not only are some of them similar in form to Inuit digging sticks
which were made from bone, antler and ivory (Miles, 1963, pp. 2, 7-8), but
they often have extensive damage from impact with hard materials on
their points and bases (Hahn, 1993, pp. 331-44).
As Kehoe (1990) has noted, Magdalenian bone needles, awls and other
artefacts would have been suitable for making mats, basketry and nets.
Conkey (1991, p. 76) has also argued that the Magdalenian harpoons with
their small perforations on one side are suggestive of 'the making and using
of cord, string, line, even, by extension, perhaps weaving'. The discovery of
an impression of a ca. 6-8 mm thick, three-strand rope of indeterminable
 ......
Table 12.3 Ethnographical and ethnohistorical uses of plants discovered in the Late Glacial of Southwestern Germany \0
0\

Scientific name" English Known usesb

Ephedra c( distachya Sea grape Food: fruit; medicine
Pinus sylvestris Scotch pine Material: wood, roots; fuel; medicine
Salix herbacea Herb-like willow Food: roots, catkins; material: roots; fuel
Salix reticulata Netleaf willow Food: leaves; material: roots; fuel
Salix retusa Notchleaf willow Material: roots; fuel
Betula nana Dwarf birch Fuel
Polygonum cf. aviculare Prostrate knotweed Food: greens, seeds; medicine
Polygonum bistorta Mountain bistort Food: roots, shoots, leaves, flowers; medicine
Polygonum persicaria Lady's thumb smartweed Food: leaves, greens (cooked); medicine
Polygonum viviparum Viviparous knotweed Food: leaves, roots, flowers
Rumex acetosella Sheep sorrel Food: leaves
Chenopodiaceae Goosefoot family Food: greens
Thalictrum sp. Meadow-rues Food: fruit, greens
A rabis alpina Mountain rock-cress Food: greens
Saxifraga cf. oppositifolia Purple mountain saxifrage Food: greens, flowers
Dryas octopetala White mountain avens Tea: leaves; fuel
Sanguisorba minor Salad burnet Food: leaves; medicine
Sanguisorba officina/is Great burnet Food: leaves, shoots; medicine
Alchemilla vulgaris Lady's mantle Medicine
Hippophae rhamnoides Sea -buckthorn Food: fruit; medicine; material: wood; fuel
Vaccinium uliginosum Bog whortleberry Food: berries, leaves; medicine; fuel
Empetrum nigrum Black crowberry Food: berries; fuel; dye (yellow): stalks; leaves
Menyanthes tri(oliata Buckbean Food: roots; medicine
Pedicularis palustris European pedicularis Lice repellent
Plantago lanceolata Ribworth plantain Food: seeds, leaves
Plantago major Giant plantain Food: greens, seeds, leaves; medicine
Plantago media Hoary plantain Food: leaves; medicine
Artemisia sp. Mugwort/wormwood Food: leaves (herb); medicine
Table 12.3 continued

Scientific name" English Known usesb

Taraxacum officinalis Common dandelion Food: greens, buds, flowers, roots; medicine
Potamogeton natans Floating-leaved pondweed Food: roots
Potamogeton pectinatus Fennel-leaved pondweed Food: tuberous roots
Luzula sudetica Sudetic wood rush Material: leaves, stems, fibres
Gramineae Grass family Material: leaves, stems, fibres
Typha latifo/ia Common cattail Food: seeds, rhizomes, stems, greens, shoots,
flowers; material: leaves, seed heads
Cyperaceae Sedge family Material: leaves, stems, fibres
Eriophorum scheuchzeri Cotton grass Material: stems, flowers
Scirpus lacustris Roundstem bulrush Food: shoots, rhizomes; material: stems
Carex lasiocarpa Slender sedge Material: leaves, stems, fibres
Carex echinata Star sedge Material: leaves, stems, fibres
Carex rostrata Beaked sedge Food: stems, leaf bases

Sources:
a Bertsch (1961); Lang (1962, 1967); Weniger (1982); Schoch (1987).
b Hertz (1968); Hedrick (1972); Helm (1978); Jones (1983); Kuhnlein and Turner (1991); Sch6nfelder
and SchOnfelder (1991); Owen (1995).

,__.
\!;)
'-l
198 Lithic Functional Analysis

~-m-
::6
~-~- ...
:: I :
.<:::>
t-m
C>
e g

~-lJ
"8
k m

~
p
n ~0
~
t

~-~-~
'

d
~ q <([j;;;

0 50mm

Figure 12.2 Lithic artefacts from the Magdalenian site of Petersfels: a-m backed
bladelets, n-p endscrapers, q-r burins
Source: Albrecht (1979).
200 Lithic Frmctional Analysis

Figure 12.4 A range of organic artefacts from the Magdalenian site of Petersfels
which Peters classified as chisels: a- e antler, f-g bone, h ivory
Source: Peters (1930).

the Magdalenian level lllb at Fellstalle on the Schwabian AEb, southern

Germany (Owen, 1987). Among these was a denticulated baciked bladelet
with two pronounced notches and double end retouch. A well developed
band of bright, smooth polish within the notches, which diminishes
towards the points, and other use-wear traces suggest that it was used in a
vertical movement on a soft material, such as fresh wood or plant material.
This is interesting as it was generally believed that denticulated pieces were
used for sawing. At the time, I found it difficult to interpret these traces and
suggested that it may have been used to plane narrow pieces of wood or
plants. In light of this research and new experimentation, Isuspect that it
may have been used for hatchelling - i.e. combing and separating, the
fibres of a plant or bast for the production of cordage.
Indications for the production of cordage may also be given by 'ron-
delles', flat circular discs with central perforations which occur in the
Middle and Late Magdalenian of Europe (Figure 12.5, pp. 29, 30). These
objects of bone or stone are usually between 3 and 7 em in diameter and
are often decorated with geometric designs or figures of animals on either
one or both surfaces. Although their function has long been discussed, no
satisfactory explanation has yet been given and they are usually classified
as ornaments or pendants. On the basis of ethnographic comparisons
 Linda R. Owen 199

Figure 12.3 Organic artefacts from the Magdalenian site of Petersfels: a- q a range of
pointed implements which Peters classified as projectile points (m, p, q are fragmen-
tary), r an incomplete antler artefact, s- u perforated reindeer phalanxes
Source: Peters (1930).

vegetable fibre at the Magdalenian site of Lascaux, France, shows that

cordage was being made at this time (Glory, 1959; Leroi-Gourhan and
Allain, 1979). There may even be earlier representations of grass fibres.
According to Barber (1991, p. 40), the ca. 20 000-year-old Palaeolithic
'Venus' figure from Lespugue, France is wearing a skirt of twisted string.
Lithic artefacts may also have been used in the production of cordage. In
the 1980s, I conducted a use- wear analysis on a few selected artefacts from
 Linda R. Owen 201

Figure 12.5 Diverse artefacts from the Magdalenian site o f Petersfels: a- m shells,
n- o perforated ammonites, p fossil shark tooth, q perforated and broken calcspar
crystal, r-aa various animal teeth, some with perforations, bb perfo rated bone,
cc rondelle made from a re ind eer shoulder blade (a upper surface, b lo wer surface),
dd ivory rondelle, ee piece of bone, ff-hh ruddle, ii sandstone with traces of cutting,
jj haematite
Source: Peters (1930).

(Barber, 1991), I would like to suggest that they were whorls used for
spinning.
Preliminary analyses of artefacts from the Late Magdalenian of Southwest
Germany thus suggest that both lithic and organic tools may have been
used for the harvesting and processing of plants.
202 Lithic Functional Analysis

Conclusions
Preconceived ideas of prehistoric life and tool use have limited experimen-
tation directed toward use-wear studies of lithic artefacts and introduced
error into functional reconstructions. When analyzed in terms of gender
roles, in this case typical male and female activities as they are known from
the Inuit and generally assumed to have existed during the European
Palaeolithic, a clear gender bias is recognizable. Both the experimental pro-
gramme directed towards lithic use-wear analysis and reconstructions of
tool use in the Magdalenian of Europe concentrate on typical male activi-
ties, such as the production and use of hunting weapons, and on the pro-
cessing and utilization of the large animal resources procured by men. The
plants, fish, birds and small animals which were generally procured,
worked and used by women are neglected or overlooked entirely. Some of
these materials - for example, bark, roots, grasses, reeds, birds and fish have
numerous possible uses as raw materials, food and medicines. Many of
these and other exploitable plant resources were available to the prehistoric
inhabitants of the sites studied. New studies of the vegetation and artefacts
from the Late Magdalenian of Southwest Germany suggest, for example,
that both lithic and organic tools may have been used to harvest and work
plant materials. The consideration of plant resources has cast new light on
possible tool uses.
Further research and experimentation is necessary before reliable, unbi-
ased information on the material culture and technology of prehistoric
peoples can be obtained from use-wear analyses. Only then can functional
studies of lithic tools be used for studying the relationship between gender
and material culture in the European Palaeolithic.

Bibliography
Adovasio, ]. M. (1986) 'Prehistoric Basketry', in W. L. D'Azevedo (ed.), Handbook of
North American Indians. Volume 11 Great Basin, pp. 194-205.
Albrecht, G. (1979) Magdalenien-Inventare vom Petersfels. Siedlungsarchiiologische
Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen 1974-1976 (Ttibingen).
Albrecht, G. (1983) 'Die Jager der spa ten Eiszeit', in H. Muller-Beck (ed.), Urgeschichte
in Baden-Wiirttemberg, pp. 331-53.
Anderson-Gerfaud, P. (1981) Contributions methodologiques a /'analyse des microtraces
d'utilisations sur les outils prehistoriques These de 3eme cycle no. 1607, lnstitut du
Quaternaire, Universite de Bordeaux I (Talence).
Barber, E. J. W. (1991) Prehistoric Textiles. The development of cloth in the Neolithic and
Bronze Ages with special reference to the Aegean (Princeton and Oxford).
Bertsch, A. (1961) 'Untersuchungen zur spatglazialen Vegetationsgeschichte
Stidwestdeutschlands', Flora, 151, pp. 243-80.
Conkey, M. W. (1991) 'Contexts of Action, Contexts for Power: Material Culture and
Gender in the Magdalenian', in J. M. Gero and M. W. Conkey (eds.), Engendering
Archaeology: Women and prehistory (Oxford), pp. 57-92.
 Linda R. Owen 203

Damas, D. (ed.) (1984) Handbook of North American Indians. Volume 5: Arctic

(Washington DC).
Drucker, P. (1955) Indians of the Northwest Coast (New York).
Eidlitz, K. (1969) Food and Emergency Food in the Circumpolar Area (Uppsala).
Egg, M. (1992) 'Zur Ausrtistung des Toten vom Hauslabjoch, Gem. Schnals
(Stidtirol)', in F. Hopfel et al. (eds), Der Mmm im Eis, Band 1, pp. 254-72.
Freuchen, D. (ed.) (1961) Peter Freuchen's Book of the Eskimo (Cleveland and New
York).
Giffen, N. M. (1930) Roles of Men and Women in Eskimo Culture (Chicago).
Gijn, A. van (1986) 'Fish Polish, Fact and Fiction', in L. Owen and G. Unrath (eds),
Technical Aspects ofMicrowear Studies on Stone Tools (Ttibingen), pp. 13-27.
Glory, A. (1959) 'Debris de corde paleolithique a Ia Grotte de Lascaux', Mhnoires de Ia
Societe Prehistorique Fran(:aise, 5, pp. 135-69.
Goddard, I. (1978) 'Delaware', in B. G. Trigger (ed.), Handbook of Nort/1 American
Indians. Volume 15: Northeast (Washington, DC), pp. 213-39.
Gronnow, B. and M. Meldgaard (1988) 'Boplads i dybfrost', Naturens Verden, 11-12,
pp. 409-40.
Hahn, J. (1993) Erkennen und Bestimmen von Stein- und Knochartefakten (Ttibingen).
Hart Hansen, J. P., J. Meldgaard and J. Nordqvist (1991) The Greenland Mummies
(London).
Hatt, G. (1969) 'Arctic Skin Clothing', Arctic Anthropology, V(2).
Hedrick, U. P. (ed.) (1972) Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World (New York).
Helm, E. M. (1978) Feld- Wald- und Wiesenkochbuch. Erkennen, Sammeln, Zubereiten
und Einkochen von Wildgemiise und Wildfriichten (Munich).
Helm, J. (1981) Handbook of North American Indians. Volume 6: Subarctic.
(Washington, DC).
Hertz, 0. (1968) 'Plant Utilization in a West Greenland Hunting Community', Folk,
10, pp. 37-44.
Hopfel, F., W. Platzer and K. Spindler (eds) (1992) Der Mann im Eis. Band 1. Bericht
iiber das Intemationale Symposium 1992 in Innsbmck (Innsbruck).
Jones, A. (1983) Nauriat Nigiliaqtuat: Plants That We Eat (Kotzebue, Alaska).
Juel Jensen, H. (1988a) 'Functional Analysis of Prehistoric Flint Tools by High-Power
Microscopy: A review of West European research', Journal of World Prehistory, 2(1),
pp. 53-88.
Juel Jensen, H. (1988b) 'Microdenticulates in the Danish Stone Age: A functional
puzzle', in S. Beyries (ed.), Industries Lithiques. Traceologie et Technologie. Tome 1
Aspects Archeologiques, British Archaeological Reports, IS, 177 (Oxford), pp. 231-52.
Keeley, L. H. (1980) Experimental Determination of Stone Tool Uses (Chicago).
Keeley, L. H. (1987) 'Hafting and "Retooling" at Verberie', in La main et l'outil.
Manches et emmanchements prehistoriques (Lyons), pp. 89-96.
Kehoe, A. (1990) 'Points and Lines', inS. M. Nelson and A. B. Kehoe (eds), Powers of
Observation: Alternative views in archaeology, Archeological Papers of the American
Anthropological Association, 2, pp. 23-37.
Kuhnlein, H. V. and N.J. Turner (1991) Traditional Plant Foods of Canadian Indigenous
Peoples. Nutrition, botany and use (Philadelphia, Reading, Paris).
Lang, G. (1962) 'Chronologische Probleme der Spateiszeitlichen 'Vegetationsent-
wicklung in Stidwestdeutschland und im franzosischen Zentralmassiv', Pollen et
Spores, V(1), pp. 129-42.
Lang, G. (1967) Dber die Geschichte von Pflanzengesellschaften auf Grund
Quartarbotanischer Untersuchungen', in R. Ttixen (ed.), Pflanzensoziologie und
Palynologie, (Den Haag), pp. 24-31.
204 Lithic Functional Analysis

Lantis, M. (1959) 'Folk Medicine and Hygiene: Lower Kuskokwim and Nunivak-
Nelson Island Areas', Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska, 8(1),
pp. 1-75.
Lantis, M. (1984a) 'Aleut', in D. Damas (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians.
Volume 5 Arctic (Washington, DC), pp. 161-84.
Lantis, M. (1984b) 'Nunivak Eskimo', in D. Damas (ed.), Handbook of North American
Indians. Volume 5 Arctic (Washington, DC), pp. 209-23.
Leroi-Gourhan, A. (1988) Dictionnaire de Ia Prehistoire (Paris).
Leroi-Gourhan, A. and]. Allain (1979) Lascaux incomw, Editions du CNRS (Paris).
Miles, C. (1963) Indian and Eskimo Artifacts of North America (New York).
Moss, E. H. (1983) The Functional Analysis of Flint Implements - Pincevent and Pont
d'Ambon: Two case studies from the French Final Palaeolithic, British Archaeological
Reports, IS, 177 (Oxford).
Nelson, E. W. (1983, originally published 1899) The Eskimo About Bering Strait
(Washington, DC).
Owen, L. R. (1987) 'Mikro-Gebrauchsspuren-Analysen an einigen ausgewahlten
Steinartefakten von Felsstalle bei Ehingen- Miihlen, Alb-Donau-Kreis', in
C.-]. Kind, Das Felsstiille. Eine jungpaliiolithisch-friilzmesolithisclze Abri-Station bei
Elzingen- Miilzlen, Alb-Donau-Kreis. Die Grabungen 1975 bis 1980 pp. 264-6.
Owen, L. R. (1992) 'Der Gebrauch von organischen Materialien bei den Indianern
und Inuit und seine Bedeutung fiir die Urgeschichte', Etlmograplzisch-Archiiologische
Zeitsclzrift, 33, pp. 25-34.
Owen, L. R. (1993) 'Materials Worked by Hunter and Gatherer Groups of Northern
North America. Implications for use-wear analysis', in Traces et fonction: Les gestes
retrouves, ERAUL, SO, pp. 3-12.
Owen, L. (1995) 'Der Topos der Sammlerin bei den Inuit', in H. Brandt, J. E. Fries and
E. M. Mertens (eds), Frauen-Forschw1g-Arclziiologie (Munster), pp. 8-20.
Peters, E. (1930) Die altsteinzeitliche Kulturstiitte Petersfels (Augsburg).
Plisson, H. (1985) Etude fonctionnelle des outillages lithiques prehistoriques par /'analyse
des micro-usures; recherche methodologique et arclu5logique, These de Doctorat des
Sciences Humaines, Universite de Paris I (Pantheon Sorbonne).
Ray, D. ]. (1984) 'Bering Strait Eskimo', in D. Damas (ed.), Handbook of North
American Indians. Volume 5 Arctic (Washington, DC) pp. 285-302.
Saladin d' Anglure, B. (1984) 'Inuit of Quebec', in D. Damas (ed.), Handbook of North
American Indians. Volume 5 Arctic (Washington, DC) pp. 476-507.
Schoch, W. (1987) 'Vegetationsgeschichtliche Auswertung der Holzkohlefunde von
"Felsstalle" bei Ehingen, Alb-Donau-Kreis', in C.-J. Kind, Das Felsstiille. Eine jung-
paliiolithisch-friimesolithische Abri-Station bei Ehingen-Miilzlen, Alb-Donau-Kreis. Die
Grabungen 1975 bis 1980 (Stuttgart), pp. 347-53.
Schonfelder, P. and I. Schonfelder (1991) Der Kosmos- Heilpflanzenfiihrer. Europiiische
Heil- und Gi(tpflanzen (Stuttgart).
Shapsnikoff, A. T. and R. Hudson (1973) 'Aleut Basketry', Anthropological Papers of the
University of Alaska, 16(2), pp. 41-69.
Steensby, H. P. (1910) 'Contributions to the Ethnology and Anthropogeography of
the Polar Eskimos', Meddelelser om Gran/and, 34(7) (Copenhagen).
Sussman, C. (1988) A Microscopic Analysis of Use-Wear and Polish Formation on
Experimental Quartz Tools, BAR International Series, 395 (Oxford).
Suttles, W. (ed.) (1990) Handbook of North American Indians. Volume 7 Northwest
Coast, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC).
Symens, N. (1982) 'Gebruikssporenanalyse op Artefacten van de Magdaleniaanne-
derzetting te Verberie', Master's Thesis, Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven.
 Linda R. Owen 205

Symens, N. (1986) 'A Functional Analysis of Selected Stone Artifacts from the
Magdalenian Site at Verberie, France', foumal of Field Archaeology, 13, pp. 213-22.
Trigger, B. G. (ed.) (1978) Handbook of North American Indians. Volume 15 Northeast
(Washington, DC).
Unrath, G., L. R. Owen, A. van Gijn, E. H. Moss, H. Plisson and P. Vaughan (1986)
'An Evaluation of Use-Wear Studies: A Multi-Analyst Approach', in L. Owen and
G. Unrath (eds), Technical Aspects of Microwear Studies on Stone Tools (Ttibingen)
pp. 117-76.
Vaughan, P. (198Sa) Use-Wear Analysis of Flaked Stone Tools (Tucson).
Vaughan, P. (198Sb) 'Funktionsbestimmung von Steingeraten anhand mikroskopis-
cher Gebrauchsspuren', Germania, 63(2), pp. 309-29.
Weniger, G.-C. (1982) Wildbeuter und ihre Umwelt, Archaeologica Venatoria
(Ttibingen).
Part IV
Diet, Bodies and Burials
 13
Fat is a Feminist Issue: On Ideology,
Diet and Health in Hunter-Gatherer
Societies
Marek Zvelebil

Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to consider the relationship between ideol-
ogy, diet and health in hunter-gatherer societies, focusing especially on the
variation in diet between the genders. I begin by considering hunter-
gatherer ideology in general, then go on to outline the link between ideol-
ogy and diet and end with the discussion of gender-linked differences in
the diet of hunter-gatherers, past and present.
One feature that marks human societies from others is their remarkable
ability to use almost anything- tools and other forms of material culture,
speech and other forms of symbolic expression, or trees, rocks and other
features of the landscape - as a means of communication, and as a medium
for expressing social roles, ideologies and claims to land, property and
people. Food is no exception. Through manipulation of food, social rela-
tions between individuals can be symbolized and reinforced, food can serve
to establish ranking order between groups within a society, or it can be
used to confront or reinforce prevailing beliefs. Moreover, the control over
the distribution of food can prejudice the health of some individuals or
groups within a society, while benefiting others. Ethno-historical studies
of the social role of a diet (Goody, 1982; Bourdieu, 1977; Mennell, 1985;
Revel, 1982; Kent, 1989, etc.) together with palaeoanthropological exam-
ination of the health of the population under scrutiny Gerome, Pelto and
Kandel, 1980; Cohen and Armelagos, 1984; Webb, 1989), will alert us to
such overlapping roles food plays within a society. These roles combine the
social and the biological aspects of human existence and they need to be
investigated together within what has been termed the biocultural, or
biosocial perspective (Bush and Zvelebil, 1991; Goodman, 1991).

209
210 Fat is a Feminist Issue

Hunter-gatherer ideology
The recent and continuing anthropological debate calls into question the
very existence of hunter-gatherers as a discrete social type, and of hunting
and gathering as a self-contained way of life. Many anthropologists now
emphasize the historical contingency of hunter-gatherer societies and so
regard the modern hunter-gatherers as products of their own modern
history: in particular, many egalitarian foragers are seen as forming a
resistance to their 'encapsulation' by farming societies (Woodburn, 1988;
Leacock and Lee, 1982; Lee, 1990, 1992; Kent, 1992).
At the same time, this debate has sharpened our understanding about the
nature of egalitarian ideology among hunter-gatherers, and about the range
of variation which can be observed in their social structure and organiza-
tion. As a group, hunter-gatherers are economically dependent on hunting,
fishing and gathering. Their social relations typically reflect the personal
skill in using the resources provided by the environment. Prestige and
status depend on personal ability, rather than on land or resource owner-
ship. Ecological relations are dominant and set limits to resource use: social
relations are selective in specifying how the environment is utilized. Such
hunter-gatherers maintain the practice of sharing (embedded in resources
owned communally), 'ownership' only/simply conferring the right to
distribute food in return for social prestige (Ingold, 1986, 1988).
Although central to hunter-gatherer way of life, sharing can operate only
within the context of an ideology which is intolerant of private possessions
(except personal gear), status differences and social hierarchies. A number
of people, Bird-David (1990, 1992) and Ingold (1988), for example, link the
egalitarian ideology to the broader hunter-gatherer world view: for Bird-
David (1990), most hunter-gatherers perceive themselves as 'children of the
forest', of the 'giving environment'. Consequently, groups such as Naiken
do not distinguish between gathering and planting of crops, although they
are engaged in both.
Ingold (1988) draws the distinction between hunting-gathering as a
mode of subsistence and a mode of production, where 'essence of hunting
and gathering as production lies in the intentional control of procurement
behaviour by the self-conscious human object' (1988, p. 273). That
includes not only labour, the technology and the targeted resources, but
also the social relations of production. Among hunter-gatherers, these typi-
cally include open access to resources, sexual division of labour and
sharing. Ingold sees the underlying ideology of hunter-gatherers in terms of
the ritual appropriation of resources, but emphasizes the practice of sharing
as the determinant 'social relations of the hunter-gatherer mode of pro-
duction' (Ingold, 1988, pp. 272-6, 282-3).
Among those who stress the relative complexity of some hunter-gatherer
societies, the distinction developed by Woodburn (1982, 1988) between the
 Marek Zvelebil 211

immediate and delayed return hunter-gatherers extends the range of social

practice within hunter-gatherer societies. An immediate return system is
oriented towards procuring food for immediate consumption using simple
technology by groups with an ideology oriented to sharing and to the
present, where 'distinctions of wealth, power and status are systematically
eliminated' (1988, p. 34), while in delayed return systems, activities are
more diachronically oriented - i.e. planned over a longer period of time
and people hold rights over four types of assets (Woodburn, 1988, p. 32):

(1) valuable technical facilities used in production, boats, nets, weirs, pit-
traps, etc. which act as delayed return facilities and which require a
considerable labour investment;
(2) 'processed and stored food and materials usually in fixed dwellings',
(3) 'wild products which have been improved or increased by human
labour';
(4) 'assets in the form of rights held by men over their female kin who are
then bestowed in marriage on other men'.

These assets, according to Woodburn, are distributed on the basis of con-

tractual bonds based on kinship and affinity in a society where the devel-
opment of social ranking is incipient, or at least implicit through the
relaxation of egalitarian levelling mechanisms. While the first three assets
are often held by both women and men, the relations of power in marriage
depend on matrilineality or patrilineality of the societies concerned. The
question of choice and control among matrilineal hunter-gatherers, such as
the Tlingit, is yet to be fully investigated, but the social practice appears to
diverge from the structural norms as outlined by Woodburn (1988).
The general conclusion which can be drawn from this debate is that even
though economic and technological elaboration has broadly consonant
analogues in social elaboration, the hunter-gatherer mode of subsistence
and the mode of production are not always coeval (Figure 13.1), allowing
for social elaboration to occur which goes beyond the hunter-gatherer
model of production, while elements of farming can be incorporated
within its mode of production without the abandonment of egalitarian
ideology. Only some hunter-gatherers, then, share both the hunter-
gatherer mode of production and mode of subsistence.

Ideology of sharing and diet

Within such a range of variation, the ideology of sharing, as practised by
hunter-gatherer communities exercised some influence on the dietary pat-
terns of individuals and groups within the society. In our own as well as in
other societies, foods can serve as powerful symbols through which the
overarching ideology of a society is articulated, and through which power
212 Fat is a Feminist Issue

Hunter-gatherer groups with

'mode of subsistence': based on
hunting, fishing, gathering, but
with non-egalitarian ideology,
allowing for some inequalities
and ranking

Hunter-gatherer groups with

hunter-gatherer 'mode of
production' (see text): based on
hunting, fishing and gathering
and egalitarian ideology and
sharing

. ~~~~~~~--~ Hunter-gatherer groups with

~ some farming but with ideology
of sharing, who perceive themselves
as hunter-gatherers

Only the societies in the centre of this diagram tend to be adopted as

a standard model for our understanding of hunter-gatherers in the
past, and, to a lesser extent, in the present

Figure 13.1 Diagram showing the range of variation in the organization of modern
hunter-gatherer societies
Source: Author.

relationships within a community are negotiated. It seems that despite

rules and prohibitions enforcing the principles of sharing and food
distribution among hunter-gatherers, social practices and beliefs have pro-
moted unequal distribution of nutritionally crucial foods, particularly to
the detriment of women.
For example, among the Australian aboriginals, ancestors are central to
the ideology of these societies. It is only through secret male rituals that
the identity of key ancestors are learned. Once initiated, males are able to
take an active part in identifying and maintaining ancestral identities and
their relation to land and resources. Women cannot do this; their interests
are guarded by men. Although women have their own parallel social and
ritual traditions which structure their own relationship to ancestors
(Chatwin, 1989; Hamilton, 1980), men nevertheless are able to claim
control over women's interests to a large extent on the basis of the exclu-
sion of women from mens' rituals (Woodburn, 1982; Bern, 1979; Peterson,
1993; Tonkinson, 1988). In this way, men are largely able to control invisi-
ble potent powers essential to social reproduction, and linked to sexual
reproduction. A pregnant woman is said to have been entered by guruwari,
a spirit of a particular ancestor, an abstract identity represented by graphic
 Marek Zvelebil 213

designs and controlled by men. So, as Tilley (1991, p. 167) notes, the power
in aboriginal society is structured ritually in relation to ceremonies, myth,
song and art. Women are excluded from access to control of ritual property
and their reproduction is controlled by the older men who negotiate
partners for them.
The control of women by older men extends to the distribution of food.
Even though they adhere to the ideology of sharing, Australian Aboriginals
often circumvent this by eating during the food collection (Hiatt, 1982),
and by the application of ideologically sanctioned special rules, which
advantage senior men and disadvantage older women. Even though
women usually have exclusive rights to the plant food and small game that
they gather or catch, it is the men who hunt and distribute the meat from
larger animals.
The effect on the health condition of the aboriginal women is a matter of
much debate - but the general conclusion is that the health status of adult
women is poorer than that of males. The antiquity of the pattern is docu-
mented by a study of pathologies among prehistoric populations in
Australia; the stress indicators identified among the prehistoric female
skeletons appear to be at least partly a consequence of unequal access to
food (Webb, 1989).
The food-sharing practices among the !Kung follow slightly different pat-
terns. In conformity with the ideology of sharing, enforced by custom and
rules, hunters take care to distribute the desirable joints of meat brought
back to camp equitably (Kent, 1989, 1993). But fat is not always shared
equitably, because the males, who are responsible for hunting of larger
game, often appropriate the most nutritious (i.e. fatty) parts of the carcass
by 'snacking' at the site of the kill (Speth, 1989, 1990).
Among the boreal hunter-gatherers of North America, hunting is a part
of a creative cycle of renewal and regeneration, analogous to a sexual repro-
duction among humans, but one which is controlled by men through the
negotiation with the spirit masters of wild animals (such as bears).
Consequently, women are not allowed to take part in hunting or in the
rituals related to it. As a part of this belief, women are not allowed to
consume certain nutritional foodstuffs, such as the blood, heart, liver, and
other vital organs, which are considered a source of spiritual strength
(Ingold, 1986, pp. 250-1, 254-9; but see Sharp, 1988).
In coastal areas of North-West America, the attitude to shellfish contrasts
with the attitude to hunted resources. Even among the Tlingit, a matrilin-
eal society, shellfishing was considered to be a women's work, and an activ-
ity of low status. Persons of high status avoided eating shellfish; in Tlingit,
the word for an aristocrat means 'person of the village', while a social
outcast is 'person of the beach'. Despite dietary guidelines discouraging
shellfish consumption, the quantity appears to have been greater than
admitted in ethnographic accounts. This was especially true for women, for
214 Fat is a Feminist Issue

whom guidelines proscribing shellfish consumption were not as strict as for

men. So even here 'male' and 'female' foods were linked to gender and
status (Moss, 1993).
There are three types of behaviour involved in these examples:

(1) In keeping with the prevailing ideology of sharing, the redistribution of

food resources, especially meat, takes place following social conven-
tions and rules. For example, in Australia, hunters cannot distribute
their prey, but the meat has to be given to their relatives for distribu-
tion; or, among the !Kung, it is the owner of the killing arrow who is
entitled to distribute the kill: and women as well as men can own
arrows (Peterson, 1993; Weissner, 1977; but see Kent, 1993, p. 504).
(2) Men nevertheless have a privileged access to hunted resources as an
indirect consequence of the division of labour: it does appear to be the
case that in most hunter-gatherer societies it is the men who hunt
larger game, women concentrate on gathering, fishing and small game
hunting. 'Snacking' by men at the kill site is a common practice which
deprives others of the most nutritious parts of the catch. (Hiatt, 1982;
Speth and Spielman, 1983; Speth, 1990; but see Kent, 1993)
(3) Women in many hunter-gatherer societies are subject to food taboos.
As Spielman (1989) noted, these taboos frequently occur at critical
times in women's reproductive cycles - i.e. during puberty, menstru-
ation, pregnancy and lactation. Although there is a wide degree of vari-
ation in the kinds of food subject to taboos, the restrictions mostly
apply to animals or animal products, and involve reduction in the
intake of protein and fat.

The key nutrient in these ideologically inspired restrictions appears to be

fat. (Speth and Spielman, 1983; Speth, 1989, 1990; Kratz, 1988). Unlike our
own society, hunter-gatherer communities mostly depended on low-fat
resources for survival: both wild animals and plants have low fat contents.
The exception to this rule are some nuts and seeds among the plant foods,
blood and internal organs of animals - offal - and a few birds, fish and
animals in certain seasons (beaver, waterbirds, migratory fish).
At the same time, humans are biologically unable to subsist on large
amounts of lean meat: such dependence will lead to excessive intake of
protein, protein poisoning and death. Normally, at least SO per cent of
daily energy must come from sources other than lean meat, this figure
declines to 30-40 per cent over time, and for pregnant women, protein
intake of more than 20 per cent of total calories appears to be detrimental.
So, too much protein is bad for you: at least 60-70 per cent of the daily
energy requirement has to come from carbohydrates or fat in the long run.
But, a complete reliance on plant food will normally lead to the shortage of
protein (S-10 per cent) of the high-quality protein required daily: 30-60 g)
 Marek Zvelebil 215

and a lack of lipids; and as studies of people such as the !Kung show, there
may not be enough plant food during the lean seasons of the year to
supply energy requirement from plant food alone. This is what makes fat a
critical resource. Recent studies have indicated that excessive intake of
meat may be harmful to pregnant women and this is supported by the
20 per cent limit on protein intake in pregnancy noted above (Spielman,
1989; Speth, 1990). However, while excess protein may be harmful, ade-
quate fat and energy reserves increase the chances of successful pregnancy
and of the child's survival. A balanced meat and vegetable diet, including
meat high in lipids relative to protein would appear optimal for pregnant
women in pre-industrial societies.
Yet ritual prohibitions and social practice among modern hunter-
gatherers target fat as a crucial resource: fat-rich parts of the carcass have
the highest value (Binford, 1981; Speth and Spielman, 1983; Spielman,
1989; Speth, 1990; Moss, 1993). At the same time, medical and nutritional
studies among the contemporary hunter-gatherers have shown that women
tend to suffer more nutritional stress than men, that fat levels in females
are a factor contributing to their fertility, and that the offspring of women
with greater body fat have lower rates of infant mortality and greater
chances of survival (Spielman, 1989; Buikstra, Konigsberg and Bullington,
1986; Speth, 1990). Although preliminary, these observations suggest that
food taboos and uneven food-sharing practices may cause nutritional stress
among women, especially during periods when nutritional health is
critical; and that they may have a significant effect on fertility in hunter-
gatherer populations.

Prehistoric hunter-gatherers
Can we identify the operation of similar controls, showing that food is
socially constructed, in the archaeological record of prehistoric hunter-
gatherers, for example in the Mesolithic of Europe? The human biological
evidence points to differences in health status and in the pattern of
pathologies between males and females, which may be to some extent con-
tingent on the sex of the individual and the childbearing role of women.
However, beyond that there is an additional, dietary pattern related to
nutritional stress indicators from skeletal remains. Females appear to be suf-
fering from greater incidence of dental disease - the female caries rate is
double that for males. Females also suffered from greater incidence of linear
enamel hypoplasia (LEH), which occurred on molars as well as on the front
teeth, suggesting more severe conditions (Meiklejohn and Zvelebil1991).
In the Danube gorges - i.e. at Vlasac - significant differences occurred
between males and females. Males have a higher incidence of calculus,
while females have a greater rate of alveolar resorption. Moreover, females
suffered from more severe levels of osteomalacia (rickets in the adults).
216 Fat is a Feminist Issue

Both these data sets indicate a lack of calcium, protein and fat-soluble
vitamins A and D. Although the general reason for this condition may be
parasitic infestation linked to fishing and sedentism, the lack of access to
animal fat may have increased this condition among women (Meiklejohn
and Zvelebil, 1991; Y'Edynak, 1978, 1989). This differential pattern of
markers of stress is consistent with the higher intake of meat among the
males, and a more carbohydrate-oriented diet among the females. Female
health appears to be prejudiced as a result and this is reflected in the lower
life expectancy for females at Vlasac: life expectancy at birth is 30 years as
opposed to 34 years for males (Meiklejohn and Zvelebil, 1991; Nemeskeri,
1978).
The pattern of differential access to food among the late Mesolithic
hunter-gatherers in Europe is matched by other evidence, in particular
from the study carried out by Webb (1989) among the prehistoric popula-
tions in Australia and from the indicators of nutritional stress among the
Archaic and Woodland period hunter-gatherer communities in North
America Oerome, Kandel and Pelto, 1980; Cohen and Armelagos, 1984,
etc.).

Conclusion: ideology, health and gender

These considerations suggest that, despite the existence of egalitarian
ideology and of the normative rules promoting food-sharing, food was
shared unequally in practice, often to the detriment of women. In part, this
practice was embedded in the ideology of hunter-gatherer groups and
justified through the enforcement of food taboos. This raises at least three
questions:

(1) What was the role of women in such societies, in terms of their inde-
pendence, power and ability to control their own conditions?
(2) Did the unequal access to food make sense in terms of the broader
survival of the hunter-gatherer communities?
(3) How should we perceive such practices from our contemporary,
modern perspective morally committed to the equality between
genders and to the paramount importance of childrens' health?

In concluding this chapter, I would like to comment briefly on the first two
issues.
Women's status in so-called egalitarian societies has been extensively dis-
cussed by Leacock (1978); Leacock and Lee (1982); Lee (1990, 1992);
Ehrenberg (1989); Hayden (1986); Kent (1992, 1993); Moss (1993) and
others. While no clear conclusions emerge, it would appear that, histori-
cally, women were losing their position of relative equality and social
power as hunter-gatherer communities entered into relations of trade and
 Marek Zvelebil 217

exchange with commercial traders or their farming neighbours. The present

study, while not contradicting the notion of normative egalitarianism
between the genders in hunter-gatherer communities, does conflict with
Leacock's assertion that 'women were autonomous in egalitarian society-
that is, that they had decision-making power over their lives and activities
to the same extent that men did over theirs' (1978, p. 226) and that the
role of both sexes was public, separate and equal (1978, pp. 226, 236). If
this were so, women appear to have tolerated the unequal access to food as
described above.
One should not, of course, exclude the possibility that men were simi-
larly disadvantaged in some other aspect of life, without such a disadvan-
tage impinging on their status. For example, Armelagos, Goodman and
Jacobs note that in some hunter-gatherer societies, zoonotic diseases, trans-
mitted through contact with animals (such as sleeping sickness), are
significantly higher among men then women - a consequence of men's
occupational focus on hunting and honey-collecting (Armelagos,
Goodman and Jacobs, 1991, p. 15). Pathologies found on past skeletal
remains suggest that heavier physical workloads and injuries sustained in
hunting are more frequent among men than women Oerome, Kandel and
Pelto, 1980; Meiklejohn and Zvelebil, 1991, etc.). Can it be that unequal
access to food was a part of a broader strategy aimed at increasing the
chances of survival of the whole community?
Modern studies have shown that the greater nutritional stress experi-
enced by hunter-gatherer girls and women results in their reduced weight
and stature, greater incidence of pathologies, reduced fertility and increased
child mortality, even though the mortality of women themselves may not
be substantially affected. It is also worth noting that the health condition
of farming populations, juveniles in particular was, if anything, worse.
Although we mostly lack the relevant information for the Mesolithic of
Europe, the greater nutritional stress experienced by females, as well as
reduced life expectancy of females at some sites such as Vlasac, would
suggest that in prehistory, too, cultural traditions acted to reduce the repro-
ductive capacity of the population.
Among the hunter-gatherers in general, infant and child mortality seems
to be higher than among farming communities, but the health of the
hunting-gathering populations is generally much better than those of the
farmers. Conversely, although farmers tend to be in a much more decrepit
state of health than foragers, their reproductive capacity, marked by the
greater rate of survivorship of children to reproductive age (Buikstra,
Konigsberg and Bullington, 1986), or by reduced birth-spacing (Armelagos,
Goodman and Jacobs, 1991) is greater (Armelagos, 1991; Bentley, Jasienra
and Goldberg, 1993, but see Campbell and Wood, 1988).
Ostensibly, this means that health condition alone is not always a good
guide to survival, or a good measure of 'adaptation'. This apparent paradox
218 Fat is a Feminist Issue

can be explained only by a shift in strategies for survival at the transition to

farming. Hunter-gatherers invest in the survival of the adult population, at
the expense of increased reproduction; farmers invest in reproduction at
the expense of the health of their populations. The shift in these strategies,
which must have been sanctioned ideologically, seems to characterize the
transition to farming. One wonders how far these strategies were dictated
by the broader conditions of hunter-gatherer and farming ways of life:
among most hunter-gatherers, the low productivity of a hunter-gatherer
mode of subsistence required strident population controls, the resulting
low population densities required careful investment in the survival of the
adult population. Among most farmers, raised potential productivity of
resources reduced the need for population control, while increasing the
demand for labour, thereby promoting the investment in children.
Arguably, the disregard for the nutritional well-being of women, particu-
larly during pregnancy and lactation, may in part reflect the order of prior-
ities among many hunter-gatherers, which appears to have placed a greater
premium on adult, as opposed to child survival.
So, the introduction of farming, it seems, does not improve the quality of
life nor increase the life expectancy; but it does allow more people to
survive, albeit in a poorer state of health. To paraphrase Clement Freud's
remark about quitting smoking: 'If you quit hunting-gathering, you don't
live any longer - it just seems that way'. The problem is, our prehistoric
hunter-gatherers did not know this at the time: and it might have been in
the women's interest to adopt farming. This brings us back to food as a
social and symbolic product, and as an analogue to material culture. By
adopting farming, particularly the hoe cultivation of the garden propor-
tions, women would have been in a better position to control their own
supply of food, including the cultigens relatively rich in fat, and to estab-
lish new cycles of symbolism and exchange where such food played a
major role. This assumes, of course, that it was the women who were in
control as the principal garden keepers, making this argument somewhat
speculative. The ethnographic evidence lends strong support to this
contention (Kent, 1989; O'Hanlon, 1993; Hurtado and Hill, 1990; Kaplan
and Hill, 1985; Hawkes, 1990, etc.).

Bibliography
Armelagos, G.]., A. H. Goodman and K. Jacobs (1991) 'The Origins of Agriculture:
Population growth during a period of declining health', Population and
Environment: A Joumal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 13(1), pp. 9-22.
Bentley, G. R., Jasienska, G. and Goldberg, T. (1993) 'Is the Fertility of
Agriculturalists Higher than that of Non-agriculturalists?', Current Anthropology,
34(5), pp. 778-85.
Bern, J. (1979), 'Ideology and domination: Toward a reconstruction of Australian
Aboriginal social formation', Oceania, SO, pp. 118-32.
 Marek Zvelebil 219

Binford, L. R. (1981) Bones: Ancient men and modem myths (New York).
Bird-David, N. (1990) 'The Giving Environment: Another perspective on the
economic system of gatherer-hunters', Current Anthropology, 31 (2), pp. 189-96.
Bird-David, N. (1992) 'Beyond the Hunting and Gathering Mode of Subsistence:
Culture-sensitive observations on the Nayka and other hunter-gatherers', Man
(NS), 27, pp. 19-44.
Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge).
Buikstra, J. E., L. W. Konigsberg and J. Bullington (1986) 'Fertility and the
Development of Agriculture in the Prehistoric Midwest', American Antiquity, 51(3),
pp. 528-46.
Bush, H. and M. Zvelebil (eds) (1991) Health in Past Societies, BAR International
Series, 567 (Oxford).
Campbell, K. L. and J. W. Wood (1988) 'Fertility in Traditional Societies', in
P. Diggory, S. Teper and M. Potts (eds), Natural Human Fertility: Social and biological
mechanisms (London), pp. 39-69.
Chatwin, B. (1989) The Songlines (Picador).
Cohen, M. N. and G. J. Armelagos (eds) (1984) Paleopathology at the Origins of
Agriwlture (Orlando).
Ehrenberg, M. (1989) Women in Prehistory (London).
Goodman, A. H. (1991) 'Health, and Adaptation and Maladaption in Past Societies',
in H. Bush and M. Zvelebil (eds), Health in Past Societies, BAR International Series,
567 (Oxford), pp. 31-8.
Goody, J. (1982) Cooking, Cuisine and Class (Cambridge).
Hamilton, A. (1980) 'Dual Social Systems: Technology, labour and women's secret
rites in the eastern Western Desert of Australia', Oceania, 51, pp. 4-19.
Hayden, B. (1986) 'Ecological Determinants of Women's Status among Hunter-
gatherer's, Human Evolution, 1, pp. 449-73.
Hawkes, K. (1990) 'Why Do Men Hunt? Benefits for risky choices', in
E. Cashdan (ed.), Risk and Uncertainty in Tribal and Peasant Economies (London),
pp. 145-66.
Hiatt, L. (1982) 'Traditional Attitudes to Land Resources', in R. M. Berndt (ed.),
Aboriginal Sites, Rites and Resource Development (Perth).
Hurtado, A.M. and K. R. Hill. (1990) 'Seasonality in a Foraging Society: Variation in
diet, work effort, fertility, and sexual division of labor among the Hiwi of
Venezuela', Joumal of Anthropological Research, 46(3), pp. 293-346.
Ingold, T. (1986) The Appropriation of Nature. Essays on human ecology and social
relations (Manchester).
Ingold, T. (1988) 'Notes on the Foraging Mode of Production', in T. Ingold, D. Riches
and V. Woodburn (eds), Hunters and Gatherers, 1: History, evolution and social change
(Oxford), pp. 269-85.
Jerome, N. W., R. F. Kandel and G. H. Pelto (1980) 'An Ecological Approach to
Nutritional Anthropology', in N. W. Jerome, G. H. Pelto and R. F. Kandel (eds),
Nutritional Anthropology: Contemporary approaches to diet and culture Pleasantville
(New York), pp. 13-46.
Kaplan, H. and K. Hill. (1985) 'Food Sharing among Ache Foragers: Tests of explana-
tory hypotheses', Current Anthropology, 26(2), pp. 223-46.
Kent, S. (1992) 'The Current Forager Controversy: Real versus ideal views of hunter-
gatherers', Man (NS), 27, pp. 45-70.
Kent, S. (1993) 'Sharing in an Egalitarian Kalahari Community', Man (NS), 28,
pp. 479-514.
Kent, S. (ed.) (1989) Farmers as Hunters (Cambridge).
220 Fat is a Feminist Issue

Kratz, C. (1988) 'The Unending Ceremony of a Warm House: Representation of a

patriachal ideal and the silent complementarity in Okiek blessings', in T. Ingold,
D. Riches and J. Woodburn (eds), Hunters and Gatherers, 2 Property, power and
ideology (Oxford), pp. 215-48.
Leacock, E. (1978) 'Women's Status in Egalitarian Society: Implications for social
evolution', Current Anthropology, 19, pp. 247-75.
Leacock, E. and R. Lee (eds) (1982) Politics and History in Band Societies (Cambridge).
Lee, R. B. (1990) 'Primitive Communism and the Origin of Social Inequality', in
S. Upham (ed.), The Evolution ofPolitical Systems (Cambridge), pp. 225-46.
Lee, R. B. (1992) 'Art, Science, or Politics? The crisis in hunter-gatherer studies',
American Anthropology, 94(1), pp. 31-54.
Meiklejohn, C. and M. Zvelebil (1991) 'Health and Status of European Populations at
the Agricultural Transition and the Implications for the Adoption of Farming', in
H. Bush and M. Zvelebil (eds), Health in Past Societies, BAR International Series 567,
pp. 129-45.
Mennell, S. (1985) All Manners of Food: Eating and taste in England and France from the
Middle Ages to the presellt (Oxford).
Moss, M. L. (1993) 'Shellfish, Gender, and Status on the Northwest Coast:
Reconciling archeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistorical records of the
Tlingit', American Anthropologist, 95(3), pp. 631-52.
Nemeskeri, ]. (1978) 'Demographic Structure of the Vlasac Epipalaeolithic
Population', in M. Garashanin (ed.), Vlasac: A Mesolithic settlement in the Iron Gates
(Beograd, Serbia), pp. 97-134.
O'Hanlon, M. (1993) Paradise. Portraying the New Guinea Highlands (London).
Peterson, N. (1993) 'Demand sharing: reciprocity and the pressure for generosity
among foragers, American Anthropologist, 95(4), pp. 860-74.
Revel,]. F. (1982) Culture and Cuisine (New York).
Sharp, H. S. (1988) 'Dry Meat and Gender: The absence of Chipewyan ritual for the
regulation of hunting and animal numbers, in T. Ingold, D. Riches and
]. Woodburn (eds), Hunters and Gatherers 2 Property, power and ideology (Oxford),
pp. 183-91.
Speth,]. D. (1989) 'Early Hominid Hunting and Scavenging, The role of meat as an
energy source', Joumal of Human Evolution, 18, pp. 329-43.
Speth, ]. D. (1990) 'Seasonality, Resource Stress and Food Sharing in So-called
Egalitarian Foraging Societies', Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 9(2),
pp. 148-88.
Speth, ]. D. and K. A. Spielman (1983) 'Energy Source, Protein Metabolism and
Hunter-Gatherer Strategies', Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2, pp. 1-31.
Spielman, K. (1989) 'A Review: Dietary restrictions on hunter-gatherer women and
the implications for fertility and infant mortality', Human Ecology, 17(3),
pp. 321-45.
Tilley, C. (1991) Material Culture and Text: The art of ambiguity (London).
Tonkinson, R. (1988) 'Ideology and Domination in Aboriginal Australia: A Western
Desert test case', in T. Ingold, D. Riches and ]. Woodburn (eds), Hullters and
Gatherers 2 Property, Power and Ideology (Oxford), pp. 150-64.
Webb, S. (1989) Prehistoric Stress in Australian Aborigines, BAR International Series,
490, pp. 1-197.
Weissner, P. (1977) 'Hxaro: A regional system of reciprocity for reducing risk among
the !Kung San', unpublished Ph D dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Woodburn,]. (1982) 'Egalitarian Societies', Man (NS), 17, pp. 431-51.
 Marek Zvelebil 221

Woodburn,]. (1988) 'African Hunter-gatherer Social Organization: Is it best under-

stood as a product of enscapulation?', in T. Ingold, D. Riches and]. Woodburn
(eds), Hunters and Gatherers 1 (Oxford), pp. 31-64.
Y'Edynak, G. (1978) 'Culture, Diet and Dental Reduction in Mesolithic Forager-
fishers of Yugoslavia', Current Anthropology, 19, pp. 16-167.
Y'Edynak, G. (1989) 'Yugoslav Mesolithic Dental Reduction', American Journal of
Physical Anthropology, 78, pp. 17-36.
14
The Anthropology and Archaeology
of Mesolithic Gender in the Western
Baltic
Chris Meiklejohn, Erik Brinch Petersen and Verner Alexandersen

Introduction
This chapter examines the question of whether there is evidence for social
differentiation on the basis of identified gender in the Mesolithic period,
especially as seen through items of material culture associated with the
burials. In the discussion below we pull together information from three
primary sources deriving from burial context - the skeletal materials, their
associated grave goods and the burial type. All three should bear directly on
the topic, as long as we are able to interpret them as markers of the
deceased persona and not as ritual remnants unconnected to the actual
identity of the buried individual. The problems that are associated with the
last qualification are also discussed in Chapter IS in this volume.
More precisely, this chapter focuses upon the work on the Danish island
of Sjrelland, and specifically on the findings of the Vedbrek Project. The
fossil Vedbrek fjord is one of several embayments of the 0resund, the strait
separating Denmark from Sweden. Work over the course of this century has
shown that these fjords were centres of occupation during the middle and
later Mesolithic period, with populations exploiting a variety of neighbour-
ing ecological zones that ranged from marine fishing, fowling and gather-
ing to woodland hunting and gathering (Aaris-S0rensen, 1980). The net
result was seen in the flowering of the Kongemose and Erteb0lle periods,
often taken to characterize the potential richness of the European later
Mesolithic.
The presence of sites in the Vedbrek area had been known prior to the
First World War, and one of the classic skeletal finds from Denmark was
the inhumation grave discovered at Vedbrek-Boldbaner in the mid-1940s
(Mathiassen, 1946; see Bmste and )0rgensen, 1956). However, the major

222
 Chris Meiklejohn, Erik Brinch Petersen and Verner Alexandersen 223

impetus to the intensive study of the fjord began with the accidental dis-
covery of the many burials at the well known habitation site of Vedb<ek-
B0gebakken in 1975. At least 17 graves were recovered (see Figure 14.1),
containing a total of 22 individuals (Albrethsen and Brinch Petersen, 1976;
Albrethsen et al., 1976).
From 1975 onwards a major research team headed by Erik Brinch
Petersen has surveyed and excavated on a yearly basis. Well over 40 sites
have now been discovered within the confines of the fjord with, however, a
mere 10 being subjected to excavation. At the time of writing, burials have
been recovered from six different sites in the area of the fjord. In addition
to B0gebakken, and the inhumation grave and separate cremation at
Boldbaner, there are smaller series from Maglemosegard (Alexandersen,
1979; Brinch Petersen, 1979), and Stationsvej 19 (unpublished). There is
evidence for burial, but without preservation of skeletal remains, at V<enget
Nord, and a series of new burial features at G0ngehusvej 7 (Brinch Petersen,
1990; Brinch Petersen et al., 1993; Meiklejohn and Wyman, 1993).
Work by the three of us has also expanded our focus on the island of
Sj<elland during the Mesolithic. There are a total of 13 sites with burials
(other than finds of isolated stray bones) on the island, of which six are at
Vedb<ek. Of sites not in the Vedb<ek area, the best known and most central
to the ongoing study is the multiple grave at Str0by Egede, discovered in
1986 (Brinch Petersen, 1988). All of the key finds discussed here are from
Kongemose or Erteb0lle archaeological contexts. The discussion that
follows centres on this material, but also makes reference to other materi-
als, especially those excavated at Skateholm in southern Sweden (Larsson
(ed.), 1988, 1988) and the most recent finds from Jylland (Kannegard
Nielsen and Brinch Petersen, 1993).

The problem
Over the past two decades southern Scandinavia has produced a wealth of
material for the investigation of burial patterns in the Mesolithic period.
The current study asks two specific questions, especially of those data that
involve material culture. First, is it possible to identify gender and, sec-
ondly, can differentiation based on gender be demonstrated? Such differen-
tiation would be of considerable interest given recent comparisons of the
South Scandinavian Mesolithic, and especially the Erteb0lle, to other so-
called 'complex' hunter-gatherers and especially with the prehistoric
Jomon culture of Japan and proto historic Northwest Coast cultures of the
Americas (for example, Aitkens, Ames and Sanger, 1986; Price and Brown,
1985; Price and Gebauer, 1992).
Marek Zvelebil (Chapter 13 in this volume) has discussed lines of evi-
dence pointing to patterns of differential access to food resources and resul-
tant stress in modern and prehistoric hunter-gatherer populations, related
224 Mesolithic Gender in the Westem Baltic

Figure 14.1 A double grave from G0ngehusvej 7, containing the skeletons of a

mature adult female about 40 years of age together with a 3-year-old child; the
darker areas show the location of red ochre over the head and between the thighs of
the adult, and over all of the child
Source: Authors.
 Chris Meiklejohn, Erik Brinch Petersen and Vemer Alexandersen 225

to those under discussion here. He argues that some of these might lead to
the kinds of pressure that resulted in the final transition to an agricultural
mode of life. Differential access would suggest a separation of patterns of
the type we might call 'social differentiation'. In this case, the actual food
and its dietary context becomes part of the cultural totality involved in the
transition, and thus can be considered within the overall rubric of material
culture.
In their analysis of Mesolithic burial patterns Clark and Neeley (1987)
came to the conclusion that there was evidence for what they referred to as
'horizontal differentiation', based on age, sex or achievement. Furthermore,
they also felt that analysis of larger burial groups, which they called ceme-
teries, provided evidence for 'vertical differentiation', the initial appearance
of 'ranked' societies. In relationship to the latter point, we disagree with
the usage of the term 'cemetery' in this context, as discussed in more detail
elsewhere (Kannegard Nielsen and Brinch Petersen, 1993; Meiklejohn,
Brinch Petersen and Alexandersen, 1998). We would point out that, with
the possible exception of Olenii Ostrov in Karelia and Zvejnieki in Latvia,
the relevant sites in Europe show burials to be an integral element of habi-
tation sites as opposed to differentiated sites for burial. The central point to
be made is that while Mesolithic burial patterns are not simple, neither are
they simpler precursors of the succeeding Neolithic mode. In fact, there is a
much closer resemblance to the pattern of the Upper Palaeolithic.
Certainly, the Mesolithic mode of burial gives few clues to the Neolithic.
In the following we examine several lines of evidence pointing to differ-
entiation on the basis of gender. There are clear differences in some of the
skeletal and burial data, assuming that our gender identifications are
correct. As such, there is evidence for elements of the horizontal differenti-
ation noted by Clark and Neeley (1987). However, at present we do not feel
that these data point to a pattern other than might be expected from social
patterns related to sex and age, and maybe to achievement and the division
of labour.

Identifying gender
Our purpose is to examine evidence for the identification of gender within
burial ritual. The latter is strongly developed within the Scandinavian
Mesolithic. Moreover, it is remarkably variable (see Meiklejohn, Brinch
Petersen and Alexandersen, 1998). As an example, Vedbcek-G0ngehusvej 7,
spanning the Kongemose and Ertebolle periods, contains a double inhuma-
tion grave, a series of single inhumations, a single cremation, and a multi-
ple cremation with five individuals (Brinch Petersen, 1990; Brinch Petersen,
Alexandersen and Meiklejohn, 1993; Meiklejohn and Wyman, 1993). For
this reason alone there are many lines of evidence that suggest differentia-
tion. We are not dealing with a monolithic pattern of ritual extending
226 Mesolithic Gender in the Western Baltic

across all categories of burials. Another major issue is the distinction of

characteristics that relate to ritual as opposed to gender identification. How
can we separate one from the other? How can we also measure degrees of
'richness' when we are dealing with the use of naturally occurring items,
such as Red Deer teeth turned into pendants?
Paramount to our line of argument is the observation that most of the
deceased must have been buried in a fully clothed state, thereby carrying
some of their personal belongings, like jewellery or tools, with them into
the burial pit. In looking for gendered identification in burial material we
must begin by looking for patterns of regularity between burial association
and the sex and/or age of individuals within the grave. At this point in any
given analysis, the semantic separation of sex and gender may not be appar-
ent. We stress that in an analysis of this type, there must be a sufficient
sample to rule out statistical error in any noted correlation. In this particular
case we must be certain that any apparent correlation with sex or age is real.
There must also be some recognition of the potential sources of error in
both age and sex identification (see, for example, Saunders and Katzenberg,
1992). As an example, the Vedbrek-Bogebakken sample shows considerable
variability in relation to patterns of sexual dimorphism. If only reasonably
complete individuals are examined, it is obvious that some of the females
are more robust than some of the males. Therefore, the use of robusticity
measures for identification in incomplete cases must remain in some doubt.
An example can be seen in the problem of assessing the sex of the two
adults in burial 19 (see further below). This sample also shows extremely
high overall variability in initial multivariate statistical testing now in
progress (Meiklejohn, Alexandersen and Wyman, 1994).
Furthermore, we need to note that most testing for age patterning is
based on categories that are not necessarily recognized within the society
being examined. Thus, testing for an age distribution for particular ele-
ments within the categories of infant (0-2 years), child (3-12 years), adoles-
cent (13-18 years) and adult implicitly assumes that these are meaningful
units or variables for the society under analysis. In fact, the biological
ageing methods employed by anthropologists may well define groups that
are not culturally useful. As an example, the definition of adult status in a
society may indeed have little to do with the markers used to define that
biological age (for example, eruption of third permanent molars in osteo-
logical studies). For these reasons we need to carefully cross-check our
assumptions if a clearly variable sample does not partition along the 'taxo-
nomic' boundaries that we have created. Given the relatively small sample
available for the analyses to follow, we have avoided complex statistical
analyses in the belief that the data are not yet robust enough for such a
treatment.
In the discussion above we have noted that any initial element in the
type of analysis discussed here cannot separate the semantic differences
 Chris Meiklejohn, Erik Brinch Petersen and Vemer Alexandersen 227

between sex and gender. Initial patterning of burials and their association
must rely on the diagnosis of biological sex. However, there is a proclivity
among physical anthropologists to assume that sex and gender are inter-
changeable elements. This is abetted by the kinds of problems that the dis-
cipline is usually asked to answer, such as whether a dead subject was male
or female. In moving to the area under discussion, only one of these two
definers - sex - is, by and large, a biological given. The other- gender- is a
social category that includes elements beyond the biological. While there is
considerable overlap in the categories, they are not always congruent. Lack
of full congruency may involve either biological or cultural variables or
both.
As broadly discussed at the conference from which this chapter evolved,
even sex is not a simple biologically bipartite affair. There are a number of
chromosomal variants resulting in categorizations other than the 'normal'
male/female dichotomy. In some cases the categorization of individuals
showing one of these 'syndromes' cannot be neatly separated along the
male/female divide. Their role in identification problems within the archae-
ological record remains effectively unanswered. If they create ambiguous
situations in the modern medical world, they could have created similar
dilemmas in the past.
If biological defined 'sex' can be ambiguous, then culturally defined
'gender' must be a minefield. The word 'gender', as used here, refers to the
set of culturally defined and controlled behaviours associated with the nor-
mative pattern for a given sex and age. However, since the pattern is cultur-
ally defined, the behaviours are not strictly linked to a biologically defined
category. As an example, while there are normative linkages between sex
and costume in any given society, the degree to which patterns such as
cross-dressing occur varies widely. As a result, the identification of specific
items of clothing with a specific sex denotes a culturally defined pattern,
and we can refer to that item as showing engendered information. In a
context such as the archaeological we are restricted in our interpretation by
the normative nature of the association. If item Y is normally associated
with the female sex we can refer to the item as female-engendered.
However, the possibility will exist that an individual showing such a
pattern of behaviour falls outside the cultural norm. There is always the
potential for error in association when neither sex nor gender are subject to
verification.
The potential for such a situation is seen in the triple burial 19 at
Vedb~k-Bogebakken where, due to problems of preservation, the sex of the
two adults associated with a child cannot be identified with certainty.
Specimen 19A has attracted attention as it has a bone point firmly lodged
between the second and third thoracic vertebrae (Brinch Petersen, 1981).
With an age of <25 years, it was originally referred to as a male (ibid.). It is,
however, both less robust than its adult partner, and has a series of minor
228 Mesolithic Gender in the Western Baltic

pelvic characteristics that are female in nature (Meiklejohn and Wyman,

n.d.). Specimen 19C, the second adult, had an associated tooth bead
pectorale, a blade-knife and a pine marten jaw, originally interpreted as
being grave goods which typically would have accompanied a woman
(Albrethsen and Brinch Petersen, 1976). However, the individual shows
more robust features than 19A in the cranium (Meiklejohn and Wyman,
n.d.), and has dental measurements near the male mean for the series.
While other burials could corroborate a cultural pattern of a male/female
pair for a similar situation, the skeletal morphology is obviously not nearly
as clear. The discussion above concerning the range of known sexual vari-
ation in this sample indicates that we should be very careful about the logic
we use in any assessment of the sex and gender of the adults in this intrigu-
ing burial. If the original diagnoses are correct then it appears that the
female is more robust than the male. While possible, it is also conceivable
that the burial consists of two females, if both the gendered identification
and the normative pattern of robusticity are correct. Given the weight
placed on gendered identification of the burial goods, there is even a poss-
ibility that the identification of the sex of 19C is incorrect, and we are
looking at variant behaviour. There are clearly a series of possible scenarios,
and the potential for circularity in the identity of the sex and gender of one
or both of the adult individuals must be dealt with. In this particular case
there is the added complexity that one of the individuals was apparently
murdered.
Separate but related problems come from the phenomena of other multi-
ple burials (a category to which B0gebakken 19 belongs) and those of
subadults. We have examples in southern Scandinavia of double graves,
triple graves, graves with five persons and, at Stmby Egede, of eight individ-
uals in a single unit. Though some individuals have associated grave goods
that appear to identify gender, the relationship is not always clear between
the deceased, the grave goods and the grave as a total unit. This is espe-
cially evident in multiple cremations, and in inhumations where no
specific cause of death can be assigned. In cases such as B0gebakken 19,
where there is violence involved, we have some sense of the event.
However, whether the fate of 198 and 19C is similar to that of 19A is
unproven (Brinch Petersen, 1981).
Furthermore, what is the purpose of graves such as Stmby Egede with
eight individuals (Brinch Petersen, 1988)? We cannot be certain that this is
the end-product of a single accidental event. Is there a central individual
and who was buried with whom? Are individuals being treated as grave
goods, possibly engendered, in an analogous way to later patterns in which
slaves were buried with their master?
In the case of double and multiple burials it is quite clear from the field
observations that the deceased persons must have been buried together at
the same time. However, whether they also died at the same time is
 Chris Meiklejohn, Erik Brinch Petersen and Verner Alexandersen 229

another matter. Based upon the evidence from the multiple cremation at
Gongehusvej 7 there are preliminary indications that the individuals had
been cremated at various states of decomposition. Therefore, even if the
individuals share the same burial, they might not have shared the same
time and event of death.
With subadults, where sex identification cannot be directly checked by
biological means, can we be certain that engendered burial goods are corre-
lated with the young person, and not with an associated adult? This is par-
ticularly interesting since grave goods accompany some young children
buried with adults, but are apparently much rarer as accompaniments of
young children buried by themselves. Certainly the flint-knife found on
the belly of the near-term infant in the Bogebakken 8 burial might take on
a separate symbolic value, possibly unrelated to gender. This reinforces the
point made above that while, on the one hand, we believe that there is
gendered information in the Mesolithic burials that we are describing, we
also believe that there are elements simply associated with the ritual of
death. It is important to recognize the potential for confusion of these two
categories.

Evidence
With the above in mind, what evidence do we have? The discussion
extends that of Kannegard Nielsen and Brinch Petersen (1993), who
identified three groups of individuals within the burial process - those
without grave goods, those with limited grave goods, and those who were
richly decorated.
There are certainly gender-related patterns in the nature of burials and
their associations. Burials are sometimes, though not always, marked.
However, as many if not most burials have been found in ploughed fields,
interpretation is a difficult matter. Large stones associated with burials, as
at Bogebakken 10, Vedb<ek-Boldbaner and Bloksbjerg, may have been grave
markers rather than stones placed on the deceased for symbolic purposes.
Stones are also associated with graves at Stroby Egede, V<enget Nord and
Gongehusvej 7. Within this context there is also a pattern that the deeper
the underlying pit, the richer the grave goods, but individuals interpreted
as having been murdered, as at Bogebakken 19, are without burial goods.
Association of graves with dug-out canoes has been demonstrated at
Mollegabet II (Gron and Skaarup, 1991) and suggested for both Bogebakken
and Skateholm. The first two cases seem to refer only to males.
Single adult or child burials are the commonest form. Double burials are
usually of an adult woman and a child, presumably related. At Bogebakken
19, as noted above, there are two adults and a child. As well as mass burials
of more than three individuals, the cremation grave from Gongehusvej 7
(Feature N) and the mass inhumation at Stroby Egede, there are some cases
230 Mesolithic Gender in the Western Baltic

of a pair of adults buried together, at Dragsholm, at Nederst and at

Skateholm. In two cases from B0gebakken there is connection of an adult
male burial to an already existing burial of an adult female and child.
Ochre, as haematite, is a common accompaniment of burials. Infants are
completely covered while females tend to have ochre on the head, pelvic
area and long bones. Association with males is more varied. The exact
nature of the original distribution of the ochre is also unclear, and may
have been either related to burial ritual or treatment of clothing (our inves-
tigation is in progress).
Burial furniture, such as the use of antler sets, is limited in nature and
seems to be age- rather than sex-related. It appears with both older males
and females as at B0gebakken 10 and 22. However, multiple antlers, have
been recovered in association with young individuals at Skateholm
(Larsson, 1988b). jewellery or adornment appears to be age- and sex-based,
and individuals seem to have been buried in their clothing. Some young
people have associated headgear. Women can have belts with tooth
pendants, one or two of which are normally from animals that are exotic
to the region. Hairpins seem to be restricted to adult females, as at
G0ngehusvej 7. Males seldom have tooth pendants and therefore have no
exotics. However, there do appear to be exotics with the gender-identified
'male' child in the G0ngehusvej 7 inhumation (Brinch Petersen,
Alexandersen and Meiklejohn, 1993).
Interesting problems include the presence of individuals who fail to
match the pattern noted above. There is also a paradox in situations where
the amount of buried personal gear is negatively correlated with the age of
the individual. Still, there are some elderly individuals who are richly
adorned, as at Nederst 2. Children, on the other hand, are often the most
richly accompanied, as seen at Nederst 6 and the G0ngehusvej 7 inhuma-
tion. Clearly, the attempt by Clark and Neeley to demonstrate ranking on
the basis of burial goods and association must have difficulty with this
mixed pattern of association. This difficulty is exacerbated even more if we
include the rich association of dog burials, as demonstrated by Larsson's
work at Skateholm (1989, 1990).
There are also lithic associations. They are confined to a few types and
exclude both debitage, and common tool types such as scrapers, burins and
perforators. Identification of these types of tools with burials, such as at
Berlin-Schmockwitz (Gramsch, 1973) or at Schopsdorf (Wechler, 1989),
both in Germany, raises the difficult question of the separation of grave
goods from settlement waste when the burials are intricate parts of
settlement sites.
Lithic types that do appear are truncated blades, naturally pointed blades
or those with retouched points and basal trimming, similar to the Bann
flakes in Ireland (Woodman, 1977). These are, incidentally, types that do
not appear as part of the normal settlement material. Lithic differences
 Chris Meiklejohn, Erik Brinch Petersen and Vemer Alexandersen 231

associated with gender are based on size, sturdiness and typology rather
than on the technology of the blades. Core axes are apparently associated
with males and with children, where they are tentatively viewed as gen-
dered. Decorated antler axes are male-related, but are also found with dogs
at Skateholm. The latter could represent identification of the dog's owner,
but again raises the problem of identification and association.
In brief summary, there is clear evidence for gender-related burial associ-
ation. However, there are both discrepancies and problems, and a number
of issues remain. Are gendered materials associated with young individuals
based on the person themselves or the accompanying adult, when present?
Why is there a negative correlation between age, and presumed social
status, and richness of burial? What is the full meaning of multiple burials
where the causes of death and their sequence are unknown?
This discussion has centred upon gender-based identification of individu-
als. The conclusion seems clear that on this basis there is a horizontal dif-
ferentiation of individuals in the Scandinavian Mesolithic. The argument
for vertical differentiation seems far less clear. Moreover, a ritual burial pat-
terning unconnected to the gender of the individual seems to play a role,
thus obscuring any overall engendered explanation.

Gender and diet

We now turn briefly to one of the most obvious elements in discussion of
the biological concomitants of social equality, access to dietary resources.
Zvelebil (Chapter 13 in this volume) has hinted at differences in nutritional
access among hunter-gatherers on the base of sex and age. What can we say
from the Scandinavian evidence? It has been pointed out by Alexandersen
(Alexandersen, 1988a, 1988b; confirmed by Frayer, 1988), that males and
females can be distinguished within the Scandinavian Mesolithic by the
pattern of dental wear on the anterior teeth. To date, study has not demon-
strated a similar separation in the molars. Furthermore, there are no appar-
ent differences in ante mortem tooth loss and there is no evidence for
culturally mediated differences such as tooth mutilation. However, perfor-
ated human teeth do sometimes form part of the jewellery. Anterior dental
wear in the Scandinavian samples studied showed a high correlation with
that shown on the upper second permanent molar [r = 0.9] (Alexandersen,
1988a). When partitioned by sex, there was increased wear in the female
sample compared to the pattern in males. The opposite was seen in Iron
Age samples, in congruence with the pattern normal to most Neolithic and
later groups.
Variation in dental wear might seem, at first glance, to suggest dietary
differences, therefore reflecting higher levels of grit in the diet of women
who are acting as the primary food gatherers (Alexandersen, 1988a, 1988b;
Frayer, 1988). Yet the wear might also be consistent with the sexual
232 Mesolithic Gender in the Western Baltic

division of labour in activities such as hide chewing or basket making. We

therefore believe that the data in hand support a model of gender-based
activity differences and should be treated with caution before being
extended to diet.
This could be tested, at least in theory, by looking at the stable isotope
data for Scandinavian samples. Various studies have shown that the con-
centration of certain stable isotopes in bony tissue (especially of Carbon
(1 3C) and Nitrogen (1 5N)) are a function of diet. Such studies show evidence
for a significant dietary shift at the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition in
southern Scandinavia (Tauber, 1993). However, these data have seen only
initial analysis for patterning within the Mesolithic. In a brief examination
we (Meiklejohn, Brinch Petersen and Alexandersen, 1998) previously
looked at the distribution of 13 C levels in human bone samples from
Denmark and Sweden. The pattern shows clear regional variation in the
values obtained, with a distribution that is concentrically distributed
around the Kattegat. We see the following factors in these results. One
apparent solution is to suggest dietary differences within the region. At this
time, however, we cannot fully control for chronological variation. We also
cannot control for the possibility that differences in 13 C levels may relate to
different access to marine resources- not by the humans directly, but by
the food web. In other words, we cannot be certain that dietary 13 C levels
reflect only what is being eaten, rather than the nature of the food chain
itself. We therefore need to test for variation within different food sources.
Caution is urged at the present time.
We thus feel that demonstration of dietary differences from stable
isotope data on the basis of sex and age can be done only by specific site or
micro-region. Only at B0gebakken are there sufficient individuals with 13 C
determinations to make a comparison (Table 14.1). There are six determ-
inations, with a total range of 1.9 parts per 1000 (values are stated as vari-
ations, + or-, from a clinical standard). Mean values are -14.2 for males
and -14.7 for females, with B0gebakken 19C interpreted as a male (see
above). If, however, this specimen is a female the values are -14.0 for males
and -14.6 for females. Both calculations suggest a slightly higher marine
focus for males, in agreement with the earlier comment on gathering by
females. However, the values are sufficiently close to preclude statistical
significance. Separation by stable isotope value and sex (Tables 14.1A and
14.1C) is inconclusive. It can also be seen (Table 14.1B) that there is no
obvious separation by chronological age. We would therefore suggest that
there is no clear evidence for sex-based dietary differences in the
Scandinavian Mesolithic on the basis of the available evidence. The differ-
ences seen in wear patterns are more likely task-related. There are therefore
insufficient data to examine the most direct source of information on diet.
Other sources for suggestion of differential access to resources are equally
problematic. Overall levels of pathology are low. The primary category
 Chris Meikleiohn, Erik Brinch Petersen and Vemer Alexandersen 233

Table 14.1 Stable isotope (13 C) and radiocarbon (1 4C) data for B0gebakken

A Sorted by stable isotope value

13C Lab No. Specimen Sex
-13.4 K-2782 [HB 5] M
-14.1 K-2784 [HB 14] M
-14.1 K-4154 [HB 8] F
-14.5 K-4155 [HB 19C] M??
-14.6 K-4156 [HB 10] M
-15.3 K-2781 [HB 3] F

B Sorted by 14 C determination (uncal BP)

13C Lab No. Specimen Sex uc
-14.1 K-2784 [HB 14] M 5810 ± 105
-15.3 K-2781 [HB 3] F 6050 ± 75
-14.1 K-4154 [HB 8] F 6130 ± 90
-14.6 K-4156 [HB 10] M 6230 ± 90
-14.5 K-4155 [HB 19C] M?? 6280 ± 90
-13.4 K-2782 [HB 5] M 6290 ± 75

C Sorted by sex
13C Lab No. Specimen Sex 14C

-14.1 K-2784 [HB 14] M 5810 ± 105

-14.6 K-4156 [HB 10] M 6230 ± 90
-13.4 K-2782 [HB 5] M 6290 ± 75
-14.5 K-4155 [HB 19C] M?? 6280 ± 90
-15.3 K-2781 [HB 3] F 6050 ± 75
-14.1 K-4154 [HB 8] F 6130 ± 90

noted is age-related arthritis (Kannegiird Nielsen and Brinch Petersen, 1993;

Meiklejohn and Zvelebil, 1991). Clear markers for major differences in
health and diet are limited. Caries levels, which are dependent on diet, are
extremely low. In the Scandinavian Mesolithic only six teeth in a sample of
1899 (0.315 per cent) are carious (Meiklejohn and Zvelebil, 1991;
Meiklejohn et al. 1997). Such an incidence rate provides no evidence for
sex-based differences. In similar fashion, levels of linear enamel hypoplasia
(LEH: a major marker of generalized stress) are low enough in the Danish
sample to suggest that chronic stress was neither a major element in the
population nor an indicator of differential pattern by sex. At Skateholm,
LEH was in fact more frequent in the male sample (Alexandersen, 1988b)
though not sufficiently so to be statistically significant (chi-square= 2.28,
p = 0.13, df = 1). There are also no data in the analysis of Skateholm
234 Mesolithic Gender in the Westem Baltic

presented by Newell and Constandse-Westermann (1988) suggesting differ-

ential mortality, pathology or stress by sex and/or gender.

Conclusions
The above discussion has looked at sources of data appropriate to the
problem of gender-based differentiation in the Mesolithic of southern
Scandinavia, focused especially upon work in Denmark over the past 20
years. As might have been expected, there are a number of lines of evidence
that point towards horizontal differentiation based on gender. There is con-
siderable evidence for patterning in the burial data. Males and females are
buried with different grave goods, a configuration apparently extended
towards children as well. In addition, evidence from dental studies indi-
cates different activity patterns, albeit within a rather limited area.
Attempts to extend this into a vertical pattern of differentiation seem
less successful. As noted, the patterns of difference in the burial data are
sometimes counter to those that might be expected from the presence of
social rank. Children, as opposed to older adults, and especially older
adult males, are often the most richly adorned. Clearly the differentiation
noted is interpretable in ways other than those of rank. Similarly, though
there are differences in patterns such as those of dental wear, the inter-
pretation of these as indicative of differential access to dietary items by
sex is moot, and is not supported by either chemical isotope or other
dietary studies.
At this point in time, it seems fairest to suggest that the South
Scandinavian Mesolithic shows that so-called 'egalitarian' societies have
differing patterns of behaviour based on gender identification. The data
that we have looked at to date do not seem, however, to point towards the
pattern seen in ranked societies of the Neolithic and later periods. The
importance placed by some workers on the appearance of cemeteries at this
time is made considerably moot by the realization that such structures are
singularly absent in the early Neolithic of the same region (Torsten
Madsen, personal communication). Some elements are in fact closer to the
preceding Upper Palaeolithic. Interpretation of the Mesolithic must stand
on its own. Reading it through the eyes of Neolithic or later patterns may
be highly misleading.
Finally, it must be borne in mind that throughout this chapter we have
tried to see the identification of Mesolithic gender through the evidence in
the burial pit, but we have not yet been able to control this significant state
of rite de passage for its non-gendered ritual messages. As a result, there is
still the possibility of confusion of gendered with non-gendered and ritual
information. Moreover, we recognize the possibility that the culture
involved may have recognized gender divisions beyond the simple bipartite
pattern of male versus female. Any such addition to the engendered cate-
 Chris Meiklejohn, Erik Brinch Petersen and Vemer Alexandersen 235

gories would, of course, further confound the message contained within

the archaeological record.

Note
* An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the conference, 'Gender and
Material Culture'. Attendance at the conference in Exeter by Chris Meiklejohn
was made possible through research funding from the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada. Data gathering by Meiklejohn since
1986 in Denmark has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada, and by the University of Winnipeg.

Bibliography
Aaris-S0rensen, K. (1980) 'Atlantic Fish, Reptile, and Bird Remains from the
Mesolithic Settlement at Vedb<ek, North Zealand', Videnskabelige Meddelelser fra
Naturhistorisk Forening, 142, pp. 139-49.
Aitkens, C. M., K. M. Ames and D. Sanger (1986) 'Affluent Collectors at the Edges of
Eurasia and North America: Some comparisons and observations of the evolution
of society among north-temperate coastal hunter-gatherers', in T. Akazawa and
C. M. Aitkens (eds), Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers oflapan (Tokyo), pp. 3-26.
Albrethsen, S. E. and E. Brinch Petersen (1976) 'Excavation of a Mesolithic Cemetery
at Vedb<ek, Denmark', Acta Archaeologica, 47, pp. 1-28.
Albrethsen, S. E., V. Alexandersen, E. Brinch Petersen and]. B. Jorgensen (1976) 'De
levede og dode ... for 7000 ar siden', Nationa/museets Arbejdsmark, pp. 5-23.
Alexandersen, V. (1979) 'Beskrivelse af et barn - ud fra 23 t<ender', 50ller¢dbogen,
pp. 30-9.
Alexandersen, V. (1988a) 'The Late-Mesolithic Dentition in Southern Scandinavia',
Rivista di Antropologia, 66 (Supplement), pp. 191-204.
Alexandersen, V. (1988b) 'Description of the Human Dentitions from the Late
Mesolithic Grave-fields at Skateholm, South€rn Sweden', in L. Larsson (ed.), The
Skateholm Project. 1: Man and the environment (Stockholm), pp. 106-63.
Brinch Petersen, E. (1979) 'Kvindernes smykker', S¢1/er¢dbogen, pp. 39-56.
Brinch Petersen, E. (1981) Blev de Myrdet Aile Tre? (Copenhagen [Stenalder et Jregerfolk
for 7000 ar siden 3].
Brinch Petersen, E. (1988) 'Ein mesolithisches Grab mit acht personen aus Seeland',
Archdologisches Korrespondenzblatt, 18, pp. 121-5.
Brinch Petersen, E. (1990) 'Nye grave fra J;egerstenalderen: Stroby Egede og Vedb<ek',
Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark, pp. 19-30.
Brinch Petersen, E., V. Alexandersen and C. Meiklejohn (1993) 'A Mesolithic Burial
from the Town of Vedb<ek', Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark, pp. 61-9.
Broste, K. and J. B. Jorgensen (1956) Prehistoric Man in Denmark, (Copenhagen).
Clark, G. A. and M. Neeley (1987) 'Social Differentiation in European Mesolithic
Burial Data', in P. Rowley-Conwy, M. Zvelebil and H. P. Blankholm (eds),
Mesolithic Northwest Europe: Recent trends (Sheffield), pp. 121-7.
Frayer, D. (1988) 'Sex Differences in Tooth Wear at Skateholm', Mesolithic Miscellany,
8(1), pp. 11-12.
Gramsch, B. (1973) 'Das Mesolithikum im Flachland zwischen Elbe und Oder',
Veroffentfichungen des Museums fiir Ur- und Friihgeschichte Potsdam, 7.
236 Mesolithic Gender in the Western Baltic

Gron, 0. and J. Skaarup (1991) 'Mollegabet II- A submerged Mesolithic site and a
boat burial from Aero; Journal of Danish Archaeology, 10, pp. 38-50.
Kannegard Nielsen, E. and E. Brinch Petersen (1993) 'Burials, People and Dogs', in
S. Hvass and B. Storgaard (eds), Digging into the Past. 25 years of archaeology in
Denmark (Arhus), pp. 76-81.
Larsson, L. (1988) Ett fiingstsamhii/le fOr 7000 iir sedan (Kristianstad).
Larsson, L. (1989) 'Big Dog and Poor Man. Mortuary practices in Mesolithic societies
in southern Sweden', in T. B. Larsson and H. Lundmark (eds), Approaches to Swedish
Prehistory, BAR International Series, 500 (Oxford), pp. 211-23.
Larsson, L. (1990) 'Dogs in Fraction- Symbols in action', in P.M. Vermeersch and
P. van Peer (eds), Contributions to the Mesolithic in Europe Studia Praehistorica
Be/gica,(Leuven), pp. 153-160.
Larsson, L. (ed.) (1988) The Skateholm Project. 1: Man and the environment (Stockholm).
Mathiassen, T. (1946) 'En boplads fra &ldre stenalder ved Vedb&k Boldbaner',
Sollerodbogen, pp. 19-35.
Meiklejohn, C. and]. M. Wyman (n.d.) The Skeletal Material from Vedbcrk-Bogebakken
(Winnipeg), unpublished manuscript.
Meiklejohn, C. and ]. M. Wyman (1993) The Skeletal Material from Feature N:
Gongehusvej 7, Vedbcrk, North Sjcrl/and, Denmark: A preliminary report (Winnipeg).
Meiklejohn, C. and M. Zvelebil (1991) 'Health Status of European Populations at the
Agricultural Transition and the Implications for the Adoption of Farming', in
H. Bush and M. Zvelebil (eds), Health in Past Societies: Biocultural Interpretations of
human skeletal remains in archaeological contexts BAR International Series, 567
(Oxford), pp. 129-45.
Meiklejohn, C., V. Alexandersen and]. M. Wyman (1994) 'Patterns and Processes of
Human Biogeography in the Mesolithic-Neolithic Peri-Baltic zone', paper read at
the American Anthropological Association Meeting (Atlanta) (November).
Meiklejohn, C., E. Brinch Petersen and V. Alexandersen (1998) 'The Later Mesolithic
Population of Sj&lland, Denmark, and the Neolithic Transition', in M. Zvelebil,
L. Domail.ska and R. Dennell (eds), Harvesting the Sea, Farming the Forest (Sheffield),
pp. 203-12.
Meiklejohn, C., ]. M. Wyman K. Jacobs and M. K. Jackes (1997) 'Issues in the
Archaeological Demography of the Agricultural Transition in Western and
Northern Europe: A view from the Mesolithic', in R. Paine (ed), Integrating
Archaeological Demography (Carbondale), pp. 311-26.
Newell, R. R. and T. S. Constandse-Westermann (1988) 'The Significance of
Skateholm I and Sketeholm II to the Mesolithic of Western Europe', in L. Larsson
(ed.), The Skateholm Project. 1: Man and the environment (Stockholm), pp. 164-74.
Price, T. D. (1985) 'Affluent Foragers of Mesolithic Southern Scandinavia', in
T. D. Price and]. A. Brown (eds), Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers: The Emergence of
culture complexity (Orlando), pp. 341-60.
Price, T. D. and]. A. Brown (eds) (1985) Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers: The emergence of
culture complexity (Orlando).
Price, T. D. and A. B. Gebauer (1992) 'The Final Frontier: Foragers to farmers in
Southern Scandinavia', in A. B. Gebauer and T. D. Price (eds), Transitions to
Agriculture in Prehistory, Monographs in World Archaeology, 4 (Madison),
pp. 97-116.
Saunders, S. R. and A. M. Katzenberg (1992) Skeletal Biology of Past Peoples: Research
methods (New York).
Tauber, H. (1993) 'Dating Methods', inS. Hvass and B. Storgaard (eds), Digging into
the Past: 25 years of archaeology in Denmark (Arhus), pp. 40-3.
 Chris Meiklejohn, Erik Brinch Petersen and Verner Alexandersen 23 7

Wechler, K.-P. (1989) 'Steinzeitliche Rotelgraber von Schopsdorf, Kr. Hoyerswerda',

Veroffentlichungen des Museums fiir Ur- wzd Friihgeschichte Postdam, 23, pp. 41-54.
Woodman, P. C. (1977) 'Recent Excavations at Newferry, Co. Antrim', Proceedings of
the Prehistoric Society, 43, pp. 155-99.
Zvelebil, M. (1999) 'Fat is a Feminist Issue': On ideology, diet and health in hunter-
gatherer societies, Chapter 13 in this volume.
15
The Gendering of Children in the
Early Bronze Age Cemetery at
Mokrin*
Elizabeth Rega

Biological sex, gender and age

Categories of social partitioning overlap to produce individual identity, and
even the most cursory glance at the ethnographic literature reveals that the
structuring principles - kinship, age grade, class - which produce and re-
inforce the distinctions of social life are not completely independent of
biology. The distinction which is principally, though not exclusively,
defined by relation to sex is termed 'gender'. The opposition between
biological sex as a reflection of reproductive potential and gender as a
pyscho-social construct is not novel, but is sufficiently essential to bear
reiteration. However, gender without at least the referent of biological sex
wouldn't be gender; it would be something else. This argument has pro-
found implications when dealing with the bodily remains of past peoples,
where the assignment of biological sex is less actively problematic than the
attribution of gender.
Gender has received considerable attention in archaeology of late,
although mainstream consideration of the issue is still not much in evid-
ence. Although there is no consensus concerning the role of a feminist cri-
tique in archaeological practice, it is indisputable that consideration of
gender has greatly affected a large number of recent publications in archae-
ology. Assumptions about age distinctions and their different social func-
tions in the past are more rarely discussed, however (Claassen, 1991).
Children clearly lack a direct voice in the process of archaeological theory-
building. Although some studies have broken new ground with regard to
the role of children in prehistoric societies (Hammond and Hammond,
1991; Lillehammer, 1989) the development of an 'archaeology of children'
in the mainstream of academia is as yet unfulfilled. The invisibility of chil-

238
 Elizabeth Rega 239

dren in the prehistoric record is mirrored by their virtual absence in any

substantive sense from the ethnographic literature until puberty (but see
Nag et al., 1978). This ingrained academic bias against the existence of
interactive and partially self-sufficient social personae in children is limiting
our collective archaeological imagination.
Children- or, as commonly (and negatively) defined, 'subadults' -are
gendered in ways that often escape attention. The notion of new-born
babies as, at least to some extent, a neuter third gender is clearly reflected
in modern middle-class British social practice. The transition to the genders
of 'girl' and 'boy' is marked around the age of 5 or 6, when it becomes
unacceptable to bring children into an opposite-sex toilet or let them run
naked at the seaside. Even without overt consideration of berdaches and
other inter-sex genders, the combination of biological sex with other
biological and social factors produces a multi-gendered structure.
In light of these considerations, I have examined the interactions of bio-
logical sex, age and gender in a prehistoric cemetery. With no intention of
involving my argument in the (false) nature/nurture dichotomy, I will
venture to say that biological sex in itself is not profoundly cultural. That
assignment of biological sex to people, either alive or as skeletons, is in part
cultural (Weiss, 1972) does not really render the principle of biological sex
ambiguous. Clearly there are difficulties with the application of this formu-
lation (Claassen, 1992; Bumstead et a/1990). The difficulties are method-
ological, however, not conceptual. I will proceed by utilizing data obtained
from analysis of the human skeletal material, as well as from the grave
goods and the spatial patterning of the cemetery.

Grave orientation and sex at Mokrin

Mokrin is an Early to Middle Bronze Age cemetery located in the Banat
region of Vojvodina in the former Yugoslavia. Excavated from 1958 to
1969, it is one of only two Maros group cemeteries to be excavated with
strict attention to provenience - and, importantly, where most of the
human skeletal material was retained. The Maros group is principally,
though not exclusively, known from its cemeteries, all flat cemeteries con-
taining primarily single-flexed inhumations and quantities of grave goods
(O'Shea, 1978).
A total of 312 graves were uncovered at Mokrin (Giric 1971).
Radiocarbon dates from Mokrin human bone fall between 2100 and 1800
(Cal) BC (Forenbacher, 1993). 1 Approximately two-thirds of the graves are
furnished with grave goods, most often one or two ceramic vessels, but also
with clothing fasteners, jewellery, tools and animal bone. Spatial orienta-
tion of the individual bodies is clearly a very important structuring princi-
ple within the cemetery. Several clusters of graves within the cemetery
240 The Gendering of Children

appear to form lines running roughly north-south: the claim that these
represent kin-groups or lineages (Giric 1971) is as yet unsubstantiated by
other evidence. Virtually all skeletons are aligned along a north-south axis,
facing east, oriented either with the head to the north (N-S) or with the
head to the south (S-N). This grave orientation at Mokrin is intriguing for
gendering studies in that the orientation of the graves appears to be corre-
lated with the biological sex of the individual. The females in the cemetery
are oriented with their head to the south (S-N, Figure 15.1). The males are
oriented with their head to the north (N-S, Figure 15.2).
In 1990, I examined 264 skeletons from the total of 298 excavated graves
at Mokrin containing bones. 2 The results of demographic analysis are pre-
sented elsewhere (Rega, 1997). In brief, in order to circumvent method-
ological inaccuracies inherent in the assessment of age-at-death, I have
assigned individuals to broad age categories using standard physical
anthropological techniques (Smith, 1991; Saunders, 1992; Katz and Suchey,
1986; Walker, 1991), rather than make point estimates of age. 3 No infants
under 1 year of age are present in the cemetery, suggesting that these indi-
viduals were interred elsewhere, possibly in habitation sites. To date, the
single house-floor burial recovered from a Maras habitation site has been
that of a newborn baby (Rega, 1992). There appears to have been no further

(!) @
0 @
®
@ ®
@@
G

Gr.288

Figure 15.1 A female grave from Mokrin, with basin, jug, bronze bracelets, bead
necklace and bone needles; no scale was present in the original and artefacts are not
to scale
Source: Based on Giric (1971).
 Elizabeth Rega 241

I
•
N'----------------------
Figure 15.2 A male grave from Mokrin, with basin, jug, head ornament (tubular and
spiral pendants) and knife; no scale was present in the original and artefacts are not
to scale
Source: Based on Giric (1971).

Gr. 5

Figure 15.3 A child's grave from Mokrin, with bone needle: her gender is female,
based upon grave orientation; no scale was present in the original and artefacts are
not to scale
Source: Based on Giric (1971).
242 The Gendering of Children

biological limitation on access to burial. The mortality profile and survivor-

ship curve indicates that the cemetery sample represents a biologically real-
istic population and, with the exception of those under 1 year of age, it
renders it unlikely that entire segments of the population are being omitted
from the analysis by virtue of their being accorded different mortuary
treatment.
Biological sex of the adult skeletons was determined employing standard
physical anthropological techniques (Phenice, 1969; Steele and Bramblett,
1988). 168 adult skeletons were examined, and out of this total, 22 could
not be assigned a sex due to poor preservation or ambiguous features. The
sex-specific mortality suggests no sex bias, either in number of females
versus males in the cemetery or different patterns of mortality relating to
age. Dietary differences, based upon trace element and stable isotope analy-
sis of the human bone, are also not apparent (Rega, 1997). Of the 146 adult
skeletons for which sex could be assigned, 137 (94 per cent) had a sex
assignment which corresponded with the grave orientation - that is,
females S-N, males N-S. Only nine individuals (6 per cent) had a biological
sex assessment which contradicted the grave orientation. While it may be
tempting and indeed profoundly interesting to hypothesize some sort of
gender-sex contradiction for these nine discrepant individuals, the 94 per
cent is, in fact, at the high end of the acknowledged accuracy of morpho-
logical sex estimation techniques, which tend to be 83-96 per cent accurate
(Steele and Bramblett, 1988). These cases where there is disagreement prob-
ably reflect the methodological inaccuracies inherent in the physical
anthropological techniques, not a sex-gender contradiction.

Gendered children
The gendering of grave orientation appears to extend to the 96 children
of Mokrin as well (see Figure 15.3). Trying to link this with biological sex,
however, is difficult. Sex determination on the skeletons of juveniles from
simple examination of the remains is generally held to be impossible
with any accuracy (Chamberlain, 1994), owing to the development of the
primary pelvic sex indicators only after puberty. It is therefore necessary
to utilize secondary traits - in this case, dental measurements - in an
attempt to assess sex on at least some of the children. The technique is
predicated on the fact that women's teeth are generally, although not
always, smaller than those of their male counterparts. In children, the
only fully adult structures present before puberty are the permanent
teeth.
All the unworn permanent teeth in the Mokrin sample were measured in
two dimensions. The data from 112 adult females and males from the adult
sample were collected and from this pool three canonical discriminant
functions were developed using the Statistical Package for the Social
 Elizabeth Rega 243

Sciences, these giving an accuracy of sex assignment for the adults from 69
to 79 per cent. The unknowns (children) were then assigned sex using the
adult-generated discriminant functions. In this way, a population-specific
standard was applied to the children. The combined results of the discrimi-
nant function analysis, where a highly probable discriminant function
score could be generated, are shown in Table 15.1. Not all the children
could be assigned a sex in this way: some did not have the teeth necessary
for the analysis. Some were assigned sex, but the probability of the assign-
ment being correct is low, because they fall into the substantial zone of
overlap between the female and male scores (see Figure 15.4). For the 17
children who could be assigned, their sex agrees with their orientation in
12 cases, or 71 per cent. Although at first glance this figure is not over-
whelmingly convincing, it is important to note that this figure of 71 per
cent agreement falls completely within the accuracy range (69-79 per cent)
of the dental discriminant function scoring of the 'known' sex individuals
used to generate the discriminant functions. More females than males are
accurately identified because the distribution of tooth size in the adults is
itself skewed. This means that small teeth often indicate female in this
sample, whilst large teeth can indicate either male or female. According to
the best methodology available to sex the juveniles, their sex therefore cor-
responds to their grave orientation. This cultural expression of biological

Table 15.1 Sex assignment for juveniles, by discriminant analysis of dental

metrics.

Grave no. Discriminant Sex Orientation

function assignment
137 man P3, P4, M1 F S-N
144 man P3, P4, Ml F S-N
169 man P3, P4, M1 F N-S
194 man P3, P4, M1 F S-N
220 man P3, P4, M1 F S-N
55 man Il, 12, C F S-N
190 man Il, 12, C M S-N
192 man Il, 12, C F S-N
199 man 11, 12, C M S-N
247 man 11, 12, C M S-N
255 man 11, 12, C F S-N
55 maxc, M1, M2 F S-N
113 maxc, M1, M2 F S-N
137 maxc, M1, M2 F S-N
194 maxc, M1, M2 F S-N
216 maxc, M1, M2 F N-S
223 maxc, M1, M2 F S-N

Notes: The sex assignments in bold agree with the gendered grave orientation.
244 The Gendering of Children

8
F
r 6
e
q <(
u
e
4 M
n • <( oo• ••
c
y 2 • •<(Cj?9 • 99 • M99 90 0 0
<?o 99<.( 9•<? o<? o<.fct9o Moo• oo•o o 09

-2·0 -1·0 0 1·0 2·0

Discriminant score
Figure 15.4 Discriminant function histogram for mandibular first and second
incisors and canine; black dots indicate children of unknown sex, symbols indicate
males and females of known sex
Source: Author.

sex is 'gendered', and it is very interesting that it is extended in a similar

manner to children older than 1 year of age.

Gendered grave goods

The range of archaeologically recoverable grave goods at Mokrin consists
largely of ceramic containers, both large and small, metal jewellery -
bracelets, torques, beads, pendants, finger and hair rings- as well as non-
metal jewellery, animal teeth and bone, shell, bone needles, polishing
pebbles, stone and metal axes and metal knives. Approximately two-thirds
of the graves at Mokrin contain some artefact, and although the quality
and quantity of grave furniture is held to be a reflection of an individual's
wealth or status during life (Giric, 1971), this assumption of complete iso-
morphism between individual 'possessions' in life and in death is clearly
untestable and almost certainly insupportable. Rather than to attempt to
pursue endlessly the notion of individual versus corporate display in the
funerary context, I think it is more useful to examine the types and poss-
ible function of the grave goods in relation to gender, independent of their
'true' ownership.
The grave goods from Mokrin can be divided into three broad categories:
ceramics, adornment and tools. The ceramics at Mokrin are largely of the
small jug and the larger basin variety, and are the most common grave
good. Stylistical analysis of the vessels has concentrated on establishing a
regional chronology, and no attention has been given to the function or
 Elizabeth Rega 245

variation of the ceramic assemblage across the cemetery. Space limitations

preclude further detailed analysis, except to state that the deployment of
vessels shows spatial differences most consistent with some sort of horizon-
tal level distinction, perhaps kin group. The common possession of two
vessels per grave - often a basin and a jug- suggests that perhaps both a
solid and liquid food offering was contained. This may be indicative of a
funerary offering, and it does not vary in frequency significantly with
regard to either age or sex. In this analysis, I will be concentrating on four
items of grave furniture: head ornaments, bead necklaces, knives and bone
needles.
Items of adornment are found in all manner of graves. Two frequent
items are the 'head ornament', which consist of a series of bronze tubes and
spiral 'eye-glass' pendants, probably sewn to a cloth head covering, and
bead necklaces. Bead necklaces are a common occurrence. In males, they
occur in approximately 16 per cent of the graves, consistently throughout
the age distribution, from child to adult (Figure 15.5). Females have peak
occurrences in the prime adult (55 per cent) and the 6-18 year categories
(43 and 56 per cent), and the total female average is close to 25 per cent.
Necklaces appear to be items worn (at least in death) universally to varying
degrees.
The head ornament is most commonly found in the graves of women,
and its frequency varies with age. It peaks in prime adult and teenage
women (34 per cent and 33 per cent), followed in frequency by young and
mature adult women (20 and 16 per cent, respectively). It is found with no
females under the age of 6, but in 7 per cent of the girls between 6 and 12
years of age. Head ornaments are found in lower frequencies in male
graves, with adults averaging 5-18 per cent. In stark contrast to the girls are
the frequencies found in the young boys' graves - 13 per cent in the under-
6-years category and 25 per cent in the under-12-years. Although the head
ornament may be an item of apparel worn by both genders, the age dis-
tribution in both genders suggests that perhaps it is an essentially adult
female item which may be placed on the grave of the male deceased by
female mourners - the mothers, wives and daughters.
The tools, of all the grave goods, appear to be the most strictly parti-
tioned along the lines of gender. Much was made in archaeological publica-
tions of the metal'daggers' recovered from male graves Oovanovic, 1972),
whose owners were declared high-status leaders. Meanwhile, the bone
needles recovered from a far larger number of female graves were com-
pleted ignored. This may represent yet another example whereby 'In effect,
archaeological convention peoples the past with men and robs women of
their artefacts' (Kehoe, 1992, citing Bird, 1988, p. 28).
It is the different age distributions of the artefacts which may hold the
key to gender and age division of at least some tasks. In the virtual absence
of flint-cutting tools, the metal-edged artefacts presumably had a high
 N
"'c:;,"
Artefact type t - - - - Head ornameni--J 1----- Bead necklace ----1 t - - - - Bone needle - - 1 1 - - - - - Knife - - - - - - 1

60
50
40
.ll?
"'
C1l
E 30
~ E:
~ 20
£
·;: 10
11:-:-:1 I !::-j I I.
l·fl<·tf:-:1
I I 11·.. :1 1 I
I t•.•.•JI f.•.;.t I L·.~.'ll t~.~-~~1 t.~.~:t I

.£/
"'
~ 20
30

Age-at-death 11 12 J YA PA MA OA AA 11 12 J YA PA MA OA AA 11 12 J YA PA MA OA AA 11 12 J YA PA MA OA AA

11 .................. Infant I = > 1year to 6 years PA ........ . . Prime Adutt = >30 to 40 years
12 ................. Infant II • >6 years to 12 years MA .................. Mature Adutt = > 40 to 50 years
Juvenile = > 12 years to 18 years OA .................. Old Adult = >50+ years
YA ......... . Young Adutt = > 18 to 30 years AA .................. Adutt of indefinite age= 18+

Figure 15.5 Mokrin grave goods, by sex and gender, percentage occurrence of item in graves; for age-at-death category delimitations,
see key; * indicates bracelet made from used bronze knife blade
Source: Author.
 Elizabeth Rega 247

utility value, and did function as tools as well as symbols. The metal knives
('daggers') are found only in 7 male graves (figure 15.2), and the mean fre-
quency is 9 per cent in the adult age categories. Significantly, no knives are
found in male graves below the age of 18. As presumably valued trade
items, there may have been a great deal of curation and inheritance of the
knives. Perhaps the males possessing knives in the grave had no person
(male kin?) to pass the knife onto. Alternatively, it is possible that these
individuals were deposited with a knife as a marker of some circumstance
of death or status, or even that the knife was 'polluted' and therefore ritu-
ally 'killed'. Whatever the exact circumstance of deposition, metal knives
are clearly associated with the graves of fully adult men.
In contrast, the bone needles appear exclusively in female graves, in fre-
quencies averaging 20 per cent. The peaks for their occurrence are in the
6-12-year range and with the adult age categories, and they occur, though
at lower frequency (6 per cent) with the children of the youngest age cate-
gory (Figure 15.5). Because of their relative ease of local manufacture, the
bone needles may be the remnants of a personal tool kit simply left with
the body, perhaps one which contained now archaeologically invisible
items, such as thread. The personal association may be sufficiently strong
that the items are not passed onto other individuals. This stands in contrast
to other items associated with textile manufacture -namely, loom weights,
which are found on Maros habitation sites but not in the cemeteries, and
which may be corporate rather than personal possessions. Use-wear studies
might strengthen this proposition, by establishing whether the needles
were actually used, or whether they were manufactured specifically for
mortuary deposition. Whatever the case, the associations of the age dis-
tribution suggests very strongly that at Mokrin, at least one female-
gendered activity- sewing- may also have been performed by girls.

Conclusions
In a specific sense, I have considered both gender and age distinctions in
the Early Bronze Age cemetery at Mokrin in Yugoslavia. The evidence con-
sists of data drawn from analysis of the human skeletal remains from the
cemetery, as well as from the material culture of the grave goods and layout
of the cemetery. The results suggest that gender, as encoded in the graves of
adults at Mokrin, closely corresponds to biological sex. Moreover, this gen-
dering is extended to children in the cemetery greater than 1 year of age.
Mortality pattern and chemical indicators of diet are indistinguishable
between the sexes. The vast majority of the range of grave goods are not
exclusive to one gender or age category, although differences in frequency
of necklaces and head ornaments are manifest. The only exclusive category
is the possession of personal tools. While females possess the bone needles
throughout childhood and into adulthood, males possess the corresponding
248 The Gendering of Children

tool (a knife) in the grave apparently only in the adult age categories. Thus,
it may be that female children assume adult female activities far earlier
than their male counterparts.

Notes
* I would like to thank Milorad Giric at the Narodni Muzeum in Kikinda, former
Yugoslavia for assistance and access to the Mokrin skeletal collection. jenny
Moore provided the initial impetus in considering the Mokrin children by invit-
ing me to participate in the 'Women and Children in the Neolithic' conference at
the British Museum in 1993. Alex Woolf contributed to my formulation of the
sex/gender dichotomy, Andrew Chamberlain to the discriminant function analy-
sis of the teeth. Colin Merrony provided the draft artwork and Sue Rouillard pro-
duced the final figures. Andrew, Colin, Mark Edmonds and Stuart Sumida read
drafts of this chapter and contributed to its translation into 'English' as well as its
final form. Grateful as I am for the assistance, the inevitable errors or omissions I
must claim as my own. Funding for this research was provided by the
International Research and Exchanges Board (!REX) and by the University of
Sheffield Research Grants.
1. Three additional accelerator dates from human bone collagen run by the
University of Arizona AMS Facility suggest a greater span of time than implied by
O'Shea (1991), the 1-8 range being 1520-2195 (Cal) BC. The implications for the
use-period are as yet unclear, although the small amount of grave intercutting
suggests continuous usage. No spatial patterning of the dates within the cemetery
is apparent.
2. For the 34 skeletons discarded from the sample, I have utilized the age-at-death
and sex estimates from the original physical anthropological report (Farkas and
Liptak, 1971) in my analysis of the grave goods, but not in the demography.
3. Demographic categories of age-at-death estimates are indicated below Figure 15.5.

Bibliography
Bumstead, M. P. et al. (1990) 'Recognizing Women in the Archaeological Record', in
S. M. Nelson and A. B. Kehoe (eds), Powers of Observation: Alternative Views in
Archaeology, Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 2.
Chamberlain, A. T. (1994) Human Remains (Berkeley).
Claassen C. P. (1991) 'Gender, Shellfishing and the Shell Mound Archaic', in]. Gero
and M. Conkey (eds), Engendering Archaeology: Women and prehistory (Oxford),
pp. 276-300.
Claassen, C. P. (1992) 'Questioning Gender: An introduction', in C. P. Claassen (ed),
Exploring Gender Through Archaeology, Monographs in World Archaeology Series 11
(Madison), pp. 1-9.
Farkas, G. and P. Liptak (1971) 'Physical Anthropological Examination of a Cemetery
in Mokrin from the Early Bronze Age', in M. Giric, Mokrin I: Nekropola ranog
bronzanog doba (Beograd).
Forenbacher, S. (1993) 'Radiocarbon Dates and Absolute Chronology of the Central
European Early Bronze Age', Antiquity, 67, pp. 218-20, 235-56.
Giric, M. (1971) Mokrin I: Nekropola ranog bronzanog doba (Beograd).
Hammond, G. and N. Hammond (1981) 'Child's Play: A distorting factor in archaeo-
logical distribution', American Antiquity, 46, pp. 634-6.
 Elizabeth Rega 249

Jovanovic, B. (1972) 'Metal Tools and Arms of the Early Bronze Age in Vojvodina', in
M. Giric, Mokrin II: Nekropola ranog bronzanog doba (Beograd).
Katz, D. and]. M. Suchey (1986) 'Age Determination of the Male os pubis' American
Journal of Physical Anthropology, 69, pp. 427-36.
Kehoe, A. P. (1992) 'The Muted Class: Unshackling tradition', in C. P. Claassen (ed.),
Exploring Gender Through Archaeology, Monographs in World Archaeology Series, 11
(Madison).
Lillehammer, G. (1989) 'A child is born. The child's world in an archaeological
perspective', Norwegian Archaeological Review, 22, pp. 90-105.
Nag, M. et a/. (1978) 'An Anthropological Approach to the Economic Value of
Children in Java and Nepal', Current Anthropology, 19, pp. 293-306.
O'Shea,]. M. (1978) 'Mortuary Variability: An archaeological investigation with case
studies from the nineteenth century central plains of north America and the early
bronze age of southern Hungary', unpublished Ph D dissertation, Cambridge
University.
O'Shea, ]. M. (1991) 'A Radiocarbon-based Chronology for the Maros Group of
Southeast Hungary', Antiquity, 65, pp. 97-102.
Phenice, T. W. (1969) 'A Newly Developed Visual Method of Sexing the os pubis',
American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 30, pp. 297-301.
Reg a, E. R. (1992) 'Analysis of the Human Skeletal Remains Recovered from the
1988-89 Excavations at Kiszombor Uj-Elet, Hungary', unpublished report on file at
the University of Michigan Department of Anthropology.
Rega, E. R. (1997) 'Age, Gender and Biological Reality in the Early Bronze Age
Cemetery at Mokrin', in E. Scott and]. Moore (eds), Invisible People and Processes:
Writing gender and childhood into European archaeology (Leicester) pp. 229-47.
Saunders, S. R. (1992) 'Subadult Skeletons and Growth Related Studies', in
S. R. Saunders and M. A. Katzenberg (eds), Skeletal Biology of Past Peoples (New
York).
Smith, B. H. (1991) 'Standards of Human Tooth Formation and Dental Age
Assessment', in M. A. Kelley and C. S. Larsen (eds), Advances in Dental Anthropology
(New York), pp. 143-68.
Steele and Bramblett (1988) The Anatomy and Biology of the Human Skeleton (College
Station).
Walker, P. L. et a/ (1991) 'Estimating Age from Tooth Wear in Archaeological
Populations', in M.A. Kelley and C. S. Larsen (eds), Advances in Dental Anthropology
(New York), pp. 169-78.
Weiss, K. M. (1972) 'On Systematic Bias in Skeletal Sexing', American Journal of
Physical Anthropology, 37, pp. 239-50.
16
Classic Maya Diet and Gender
Relationships*
fohn P. Gerry and Meredith S. Chesson

Introduction
In 1967, William Haviland published a paper in which he examined the
skeletal stature of a population of individuals excavated from the Classic
period Maya site of Tikal. Most of those that he measured were men, and
based on the calculated height differences between the low- and high-
status burials he argued that the rulers of the site had been nutritionally
privileged. His comments regarding the stature of Tikal's women were brief,
and they focused on the marked degree of sexual dimorphism in the popu-
lation (1967, p. 323). He allowed for genetic factors to explain the differ-
ences, but he also implied that dietary patterns and relative status were
significant: women were quite a bit shorter than men, presumably because
they did not eat as well, in turn reflecting their lower social standing
within the society.
To date, Haviland's interpretation regarding the co-variation of diet and
sex among the Classic Maya remains largely unchallenged. Other studies of
human osteology at Maya sites have been hampered by the paucity of well
preserved skeletons; the fragmentary remains make it difficult to determine
sex, let alone to identify the traditional signs of nutritional health and dis-
tress. Frank Saul's (1972) osteobiography of the Altar de Sacrificios skel-
etons is perhaps the most thorough study of Maya palaeopathology yet
published, and while he did find plenty of evidence for nutritional stress -
porotic hyperostosis, periodontal degeneration and linear enamel hypo-
plasia (LEH) - he did not find any patterns in the distribution of these
disorders along the lines of sex. 1 Nor did he interpret the stature of the
Altar females as indicative of poor nutrition or low social status.
Because human bones are so poorly preserved in the tropical lowlands of
Mesoamerica, most archaeological studies of Classic Maya nutrition have
instead focused on plant and animal remains, or on agricultural technique
250
 John P. Gerry and Meredith S. Chesson 251

and potential (for example, Harrison and Turner, 1978; Flannery, 1982;
Pohl, 1985). Such analyses focus on group activity rather than on individu-
als, marking differences in dietary behaviour as they relate to environment,
to temporal context, to social status and to settlement density, the relation-
ship between diet and sex, however, remains elusive. In recent years, epig-
raphers have found reference to food and ritual feasting in hieroglyphic
texts (for example, Taube, 1989), and art historians have identified tamales,
squash, and other edible resources in painting and sculpture (for example,
Reents Budet, 1994, pp. 119-20), but even these ernie data points, supplied
by the Maya themselves, provide little insight into male and female
consumption.
Indeed, prior to the development of archaeometric techniques for dietary
reconstruction, it was very difficult to forge a direct link between specific
subsistence regimes and specific individuals. In this chapter, we examine
the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios preserved in the bone colla-
gen of 116 Classic Maya skeletons; SO of them, were females and 66 were
males. These ratios, as chemical characteristics preserved in vivo, have been
found to correlate closely with diet, and in the case of Mesoamerica, they
reflect on maize, bean, meat and seafood consumption. The purpose of the
study is to determine whether or not the stable isotope data group
together and correspond meaningfully across the lines of gender, and
within several different status categories. Simply put, did men have privi-
leged access to certain foodstuffs? Were women second-class citizens when
it came to nutrition? Was food a socially controlled product with differen-
tial access dictated by gender? Our results indicate that the answer to these
questions is 'no', and that a strong parity existed between male and female
diets throughout the Classic period, and throughout the Maya status
continuum.
Moreover, the isotopic indices discussed are consistent with osteological
evidence that males and females had similar age and health profiles during
the Classic period, and with ethnohistorical evidence that men and women
fulfilled equally important roles in the traditional subsistence economy.
Previous analyses of the sexes in Classic Maya iconography also support
conceptualization of gendered systems in Mesoamerican settlements, as do
the roles of men and women in contemporary Maya communities.

Materials and methods

The sample population chosen for this study was excavated over the past
100 years from seven Classic period sites located throughout southern
Mesoamerica (Figure 16.1): Uaxactun and Holmul in the northeastern
Peten; Altar de Sacrificios and Seibal in the southwestern Peten; Baking Pot
and Barton Ramie in the Belize River valley; and the Main Group of Copan
and its satellite settlements in extreme western Honduras. These are all
252 Diet and Gender Relationships

Yucatan
/
/
Study Area /
/
'
'

,
..
d'

Figure 16.1 Map of eastern Mesoamerica, showing locations of sites from which
samples were drawn
Source: Authors.

inland sites and they all drew upon a similar floral and faunal resource
base. They also represent the whole spectrum of the Maya site hierarchy,
with Copan as the largest and most elaborate civic-ceremonial centre, and
with Barton Ramie as the most rural and least elaborate site of settlement.
 John P. Gerry and Meredith S. Chesson 253

The sampling strategy was non-random and opportunistic, meaning that

an attempt was made to select an equal number of males and females from
each site, as well as an equal number of early and later Classic burials.
They are all adults. Our definition of the Classic period includes the years
0-950 AD and is broken into two phases; the early phase (0-600 AD) is
marked by the presence of the traditionally defined Protoclassic and Early
Classic ceramic types, and the late phase (600-950 AD) is defined by the
presence of both Late and terminal Classic ceramic types.
The men and women in the sample population were not all treated
equally in death. They were found in a variety of mortuary contexts- some
in simple graves, some in complex tombs, some with fancy grave goods,
some without - and we assume that the variability is a reflection of the
Maya status hierarchy. Using a statistical clustering algorithm that mea-
sures the co-variation of grave construction, location, and furnishing, each
individual has been assigned to one of four status categories called High
Elites, Petty Elites, Junior Elites, and Commoners (Gerry, 1993, pp. 117-36).
The Commoner group is largest, with a total of 47 individuals; the High
Elite group is smallest, with a total of 18 individuals (see Table 16.1 for a
breakdown by sex).
The stable isotope ratios of each of the skeletons were determined via
mass spectrometry. 2 They are illustrated in Figure 16.2, which serves to
demonstrate the principles of dietary reconstruction employed herein by
comparing human isotope ratios to those of animal species with diets of
known isotopic composition.

Results
Taken as a whole, the isotopic composition of the sample population con-
forms to the expected profile for maize agriculturalists. Figure 16.2 shows
that the Maya isotope ratios are significantly more positive on both carbon
and nitrogen axes than are those of several animal species from the same
area. In the case of carbon, the separation of human and animal values is
due to differential consumption of CJ and C4 food resources. CJ plants
include almost all of the fruits, vegetables, root crops, herbs and other
edible forest products found in Mesoamerica. The most significant

Table 16.1 Contingency table showing distribution of male and female sample
skeletons in each status cluster

High elites Petty elites Junior elites Commoners Totals

Female 13 10 12 15 so
Male 5 14 15 32 66

Totals 18 24 27 47 116
254 Diet and Gender Relationships

SO%
15

10 ............
•• ,:,( :)• I:..: II

..
•.: ,·· Pi: ···.=:-,!•:.
•• • I •••#~ -
·.:~ ... :··~::· ·. •

5
..... :· .·.~·..'·. ": . .·· ··.
. .·

-20 -15 -10 -5

Figure 16.2 Scatterplot comparing the isotopic composition of animal (small dots)
and human (bold dots) populations. 813C refers to the ratio of 13C to 12 C as measured
against a carbon standard of known isotopic composition; likewise, 815 N refers to the
ratio of 15 N to 14N as measured against a nitrogen standard of known isotopic
composition (seen. 3, p. 262)

exception is maize. Maize, as a tropical grass, is a C4 plant. This simply

means that it produces a four-carbon compound during photosynthesis, a
chemical pathway that results in more positive stable carbon isotope
ratios than those present in C3 plants. 3 Clearly then, this figure shows
that maize was the most important staple in human diets; the Maya
carbon isotope ratios have an average value of -10.2 ± 1.32 per mil. Dogs,
as domesticates and scavengers, were the only animals that ate maize on
a regular basis; their carbon isotope ratios are also quite positive, averag-
ing -8.9 ± 0.87 per mil.
In the case of nitrogen, the separation of human and animal values is
due primarily to a trophic level effect, such that the dietary gaps between
herbivory and carnivory are manifest by increasingly positive isotope
ratios. Indeed, the nitrogen values for deer and peccaries fall within the
expected range for herbivores, and indicate that legumes formed a substan-
tial part of their diets; the nitrogen values for the Maya are somewhat more
positive, as they are for other carnivores such as pumas; and dogs, as omni-
vores, have nitrogen values that fall in between. The relative importance of
meat in Maya diets is further reflected on the carbon axis. Had they eaten
more meat, their carbon isotope ratios would be more negative than they
 John P. Gerry and Meredith S. Chesson 255

are, due to the fact that the animals themselves were C3 consumers. The C4
dogs were probably not consumed in great quantity because they constitute
only 2-3 per cent of the total number of animals excavated at most
Lowland Maya sites; deer, peccary, and other C 3 species are far more
common (Wing, 1981). Most of the human dietary protein was therefore,
derived from maize and other terrestrial plants such as beans and squash;
and apparently, as indicated by the Maya nitrogen values, marine resources
were not commonly consumed at these inland locales.
An examination of the isotope ratios as they break down according to sex
indicates that dietary behaviour was fairly constant throughout the Classic
period. Neither male or female isotope ratios exhibits significant change
between the early and late phases, and compared to each other, temporal
composites of their isotopic profiles are very similar (Figure 16.3). The only
statistically significant difference between the sexes is manifest during the
late Classic period, when male nitrogen values average about half a part per
mil more positive than female values (Table 16.2). This pattern might
suggest that men ate slightly more meat at that time than did women, but

-6

i
-8

o13C (%o) -10

No significant
difference at 95 per cent

1
confidence interval
-12

-14
Female Male
(N=43) (N = 63)

12

I
8
10
I
1
No significant
0 15N (%.) 8
! difference at 95 per cent
confidence interval

4
Female Male
(N=42) (N = 63)

Figure 16.3 Boxplots illustrating overlap of male and female isotope ratios through-
out the Classic period (gray shading indicates 95 per cent confidence intervals
around median values)
Source: Authors.
256 Diet and Gender Relationships

Table 16.2 Average isotopic values for males and females throughout the Classic
period

o13C CJ/00) oiSN (o/oo)

Time/Sex N= Mean St. dv. N= Mean St dv.
Early Classic
Female 7 -10.7 1.06 7 9.3 1.17
Male 10 -10.3 1.32 10 8.6 0.56
Late Classic
Female 36 -10.4 1.46 35 8.6 1.03
Male 53 -10.1 1.31 53 9.1 0.94
All Classic
Female 43 -10.5 1.39 42 8.7 1.07
Male 63 -10.1 1.30 63 9.0 0.91

such an interpretation is not supported by the carbon data, which should

be more negative if men had privileged access to C3 animal resources. The
true source of variability probably lies elsewhere, and in fact, two-way
ANOVA statistics indicate that regional location is a much more significant
factor in this case than is sex (Table 16.3).

Table 16.3 Two-way ANOVA statistics demonstrating the significance of sex and
regional location as factors to explain dietary variability in the sample population"

Analysis of variance for o13 C

178 total cases, of which 25 are missing
Source df Sumo{ Mean F-ratio Pro b.
squares square
Sex 2 2.65491 1.32746 1.09 0.3390
Region 2 66.5114 33.2557 27.3 0.0000
Interaction 4 5.25326 1.31331 1.08 0.3695
Error 144 175.380 1.21791
Total 152 265.559

Analysis of variance for o15 N

178 total cases, of which 28 are missing
Source df Sum of Mean F-ratio Pro b.
squares square
Sex 2 0.804843 0.402421 0.683 0.5068
Region 2 61.0522 30.5261 51.8 0
Interaction 4 1.38832 0.347080 0.589 0.6711
Error 141 83.0848 0.589254
Total 149 159.983

Note: a These statistics are derived from a sample population inclusive of the 116 individuals
discussed in the chapter, plus 62 skeletons for which sex could not be determined.
 John P. Gerry and Meredith S. Chesson 257

i2

iO
I
Belize group
I
Petengroup

Copan group

-i3 -i1 -9

813 C(%o)
Figure 16.4 Schematic scatterplot showing isotopic separation of regional groups
Source: Authors.

Actually, regional factors are responsible for almost all of the statistically
significant isotopic variation within this population. Figure 16.4 shows that
there are three distinct areas in which all of the sites and skeletons sampled
share similar isotopic signatures. Uaxactun, Holmul, Altar, and Seibal group
together in the Peten; Barton Ramie and Baking Pot group together in the
Belize River valley; and the ceremonial centre of Copan and its satellite set-
tlements group together in Honduras. These differences seem to be a func-
tion of settlement density and its impact on the availability of natural
resources versus local dependence on domesticated crops (Gerry, 1993). In
short, low-density site inhabitants, represented here by the Belize Valley
Maya, had relatively easy access to the full array of tropical forest food
products, and their agricultural efforts, while important, could be easily
supplemented by hunting, fishing, tree cropping, root cropping, and other
low-intensity subsistence strategies. High-density site inhabitants, as at
Copan, could not exploit wild resources to the same extent, and they were
probably more dependent on agricultural produce as a result. In fact, very
high population levels probably produced a positive feedback mechanism
in which the exploitation of natural habitats and the demand for cultivated
crops went hand in hand.
In this study, we have corrected for the geographic variability by evaluat-
ing male versus female isotope profiles within each regional group and
within each site. A series of two-sampled t-tests reveals no significant differ-
ences at the 95 per cent confidence level. Moreover, there are no significant
differences found between male and female diets within each status group;
the only exception is a 1 part per mil difference in mean nitrogen values
258 Diet and Gmder Relationships

among the commoner population from the Peten, and this result is statisti-
cally dubious due to the small female sample size - only three individuals.
These results compare favourably to White and Schwarcz's (1989) isotopic
study of diet at the site of Lamanai in Belize. Though their Early and Late
Classic period sample sizes were too small to test, they did find that the
Post classic and Historic period men and women shared similar dietary pat-
terns, and they imply that men and women had access to the same range
and proportion of protein resources (White and Schwarcz, 1989, p. 462). In
another study, at Pacbitun, the Classic period men and women shared
similar nitrogen isotope values, but their carbon isotope ratios do display sta-
tistically significant differences, suggesting that men consumed more C 4
foods than did women (White, Healy and Schwarcz, 1993, pp. 359-60).

Comparative research
In sum, we find that the bulk of isotopic evidence supports an argument in
favour of dietary equality between Classic Maya women and men.
However, we also want to examine briefly two other data sources for
comparisons with the isotopic results. First, what do the ethnographic and
ethnohistoric sources tell us about dietary behaviour and the relative status
of Maya women and men? Secondly, how do Classic period art and icono-
graphy enrich our understanding of gender relations?

Ethnography and ethnohistory

In the ethnographic and ethnohistoric literature, descriptions of food and
diet are fairly common, but little attention is given to the differences in
men's and women's dietary behaviour. One notable exception is provided
by Vogt's studies of modern Maya communities in the highlands of
Chiapas, Mexico. In Zinacantan, the male appetite takes precedence on all
occasions (Vogt, 1976, p. 39). At ordinary meals, men are served first and
they sit in chairs; women eat later and sit on the ground. At ritual meals,
male participants sit according to rank at a table while women remain at
the hearth. These patterns are usually only broken for older, post-
menopausal women (Rosemary Joyce, personal communication). The
inequality is obvious: the order in which one is served and the location at
which one eats are symbolic of social and political rank. Still, it is
significant to note that the inequality does not result in differential con-
sumption. In modern Zinacantan, men, women, children, and adults all
have access to the same quantity and quality of food (Vogt, 1976, p. 38),
and the isotopic data discussed above for the Classic period most likely
reflects similar dietary patterning.
Additional ethnographic data on Zinacanteco gender systems is provided
by Devereaux (1987). She demonstrates that a paradox exists between the
ideology of gender complementarity - in which both women and men
 fohn P. Gerry and Meredith S. Chesson 259

hold equal status in the economic and social arenas- and the reality of
women's lives, in which their social and economic roles are actively deval-
ued. The relationship between status and dietary behaviour in Zinacantan
epitomizes this paradox, representing a gap between the ideology of sexual
equality and the reality of marked status differences. But the ideal of male
and female complementarity is deeply rooted, and Devereaux finds that
women do provide crucial resources to the community and to their house-
holds, and must be recognized as active participants in the social,
economic, and ritual spheres of the community.
Concepts of the complementary nature of men and women's lives also
play a central role in the sixteenth-century ethnohistoric documents.
McCafferty and McCafferty (1988) have found a strong ideological correla-
tion between men's roles as warriors and women's roles as weavers in Aztec
society, reflecting the importance of warfare and textile production to the
maintenance of their Empire. Illustration from the Codex Mendoza (1964)
show that these roles were defined very early in life. It is also interesting to
note that women who died in childbirth were named as warriors, and they
assumed a special position in the cosmos along the pathway of the sun;
they are joined in parallel section along the pathway by male warriors who
died in battle (McCafferty and McCafferty, 1988, p. 52). Indeed, the six-
teenth-century documents reflect a strong appreciation of women's produc-
tive and reproductive roles in the Aztec Empire, and some scholars have
argued that the gap between gender ideology and gender reality was not so
pronounced then as it is now Qoyce, 1994; McCafferty and McCafferty,
1988).
Ethnohistorically, women are acknowledged not only as weavers and
mothers, but also as cooks and as those who tended the gardens, raised
deer, dogs, peccaries, turkeys, and other small animals for meat consump-
tion, and as those who held and provided the offerings of food for public
rituals. The Spanish priest Diego de Landa praised the Maya women of
Yucatan for their contributions toward the cultivation and management of
food; he said, 'They are great workers and good housekeepers, since on
them depends the more important and the most work for the support of
their houses' (Tozzer, 1941, p. 127). Statements such as these provide the
foundations upon which Pohl (1991) argues that women did yield econ-
omic power, and that their roles within the subsistence arena afforded
them a measure of social status. Perhaps more importantly, the fact that
women controlled edible resources so completely almost certainly implies
that they ate meat, vegetables and other foodstuffs in proportions equiva-
lent to those consumed by men.

Iconography and art

Archaeological interpretations of Prehistoric Maya gender relations do rely
heavily on these ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources, but the material
260 Diet and Gender Relationships

culture also provides insight. Classic period representations of women and

men appeared on a wide range of media, most commonly on large-scale
stone sculpture, murals, polychrome painted vessels, and ceramic figurines
Ooyce, 1994, pp. 6-8). The monumental art decorated elite residences and
public ritual buildings, and incorporated a combination of text and
imagery. Generally, biological marking of individuals - the overt depiction
of sexual characteristics - was not employed by the Classic Maya in these
media. The identification of women and men relied instead upon the indi-
vidual's costume and, to some extent, on the action performed. Women
and men were represented as active participants in both political and ritual
scenes, but the texts accompanying the images usually mention women
only as vehicles for the legitimation of male rulers. For example, women
are often highlighted and named as mothers, to establish a link of kinship
between generations of male kings. Traditionally, researchers have taken
these texts to represent the whole story, and have therefore interpreted
women's roles in Classic Maya elite society as peripheral in importance.
However, recent alternative reconstructions have been offered by Joyce
(1990), who stresses that these representations are highly political in
nature, and that while the texts do have a male bias, the images represent
women as important actors in the political and ritual arenas. She also
points out that the images, more so than the text, would have carried par-
ticular weight in a society where literacy was not widespread.
Smaller-scale representations of human figures had a much less public
audience. Painted polychrome ceramic vessels circulated primarily among
elite Maya individuals, and they contain textual information and display
most of the same stylistic conventions as the large-scale public art. In con-
trast, hand-held figurines, which are found in both elite and non elite con-
texts, are often anatomically correct and they include depictions of women
as actors in the domestic realm. They especially highlight the economic
contributions of women as weavers, food preparers, mothers and as the
tenders of small animals - in sum, as important actors centred around the
domestic space. joyce argues (1994, p. 5) that the differential representa-
tion of the sexes in public and private art stems from the nature of control
over the different media, and she concludes, as did Devereux, that

women's work was crucial to political process in Classic Maya society,

through the provision of textiles and food used both in ceremony and
for the subsistence of the extended households that made up the Classic
Maya labour force.

Finally, mortuary data from Classic Maya sites throughout the lowlands
reinforce the conclusion that women held positions of authority within the
society. Wealthy female burials were found at several of the sites sampled
for this study, and our statistically derived status groupings define a High
 John P. Gerry and Meredith S. Chesson 261

Elite population cluster in which females outnumber males by more than

two to one. At Altar de Sacrificios, the single most elaborate burial at the
site contained an elite female, entombed in an elaborate limestone crypt
that was absolutely full of pottery, jade, shell, pyrite, obsidian and other
exotic tools and ornaments. But despite the obvious royalty of this woman,
and despite the lack of an equivalent or near-equivalent male burial, the
original interpretation of Alter's burial programme reads as follows:

'If one were to judge the importance of men versus women at Altar de
Sacrificios by the richness of the grave furniture buried with them, the
overall picture would be that ... men were held to be of greater import-
ance than women'. (Smith, 1972, pp. 214-15).

We feel that this statement reflects the androcentric background from

which Classic Maya women have only recently emerged, and in which the
hypothesis of male nutritional privilege was originally proposed. The
mortuary data, along with the iconographic and ethnohistoric data, sug-
gests that both men and women had authority within Classic Maya
communities.

Conclusions
Social relations permeate every aspect of the production and consump-
tion of food, and many times gender ideologies play a predominate role
in the organization of this social interaction. (Brumfiel, 1991; Hastorf,
1991; Pohl, 1991; Vogt, 1976). Our research has characterized the
nutritional profile of classic Maya women and men in order to explore
any differences based on gender throughout the status continuum. In
conjunction with ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources, we hope to
enhance our understanding of the complex and multi-dimensional rela-
tionships between gender and food, and between men and women, in
Classic Maya communities.
The isotopic data that we have discussed reflect quantitative differences
in dietary behaviour among our sample population, but these differences
are clearly associated with geographic and ecological variables rather than
with social factors such as status and sex. Men and women exhibit similar
dietary patterns within their respective status groups and throughout the
status continuum. So the relative status of Classic Maya men and women
may have been marked by the timing or the location of food consumption,
as it currently is in communities like Zinacantan, but it was not marked in
terms of nutritional intake.
We view this isotopic data as one element in the discussion of gender
relations, and for this reason we have integrated archaeological, ethno-
graphic, and ethnohistoric information into our discussion. Our results
262 Diet and Gender Relationships

echo numerous other analyses in demonstrating the presence of women as

active participants in the social hierarchy, whether as elite women negoti-
ating their own positions of power or as non-elite women providing essen-
tial products to their households and to their communities.

Notes
* The preparation of bone collagen samples and the mass spectrometry were con-
ducted in the Hoffman Laboratory stable isotope facility at Harvard University,
although some of the data was obtained in cooperation with Harold Krueger at
Geochron Industries. We wish to thank the organizers of the conference, Moira
Donald and Linda Hurcombe, for inviting our participation in the conference and
the publication. Earlier drafts of this chapter were read by Ian Kuijt. The authors
would like to thank especially Rosemary Joyce for her support, critical commen-
tary, and guidance. We take responsibility for all errors presented within this
chapter.
Porotic hyperostosis is marked by spongy lesions that form on the outer surface
of cranial vault bones, especially the parietals; the condition is symptomatic of
anemia caused by iron deficiency. Periodontal degeneration includes such defects
as caries, abscesses and alveolar resorption, and is symptomatic of infection or
vitamin deficiency. Linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) is characterized by a horizon-
tal grooving or pitting of the enamel surface on incisors and/or canines; it is
indicative of a temporary cessation of enamel growth during infancy or child-
hood and is caused by disease or dietary stress.
2 Preparation procedures include selecting a small cortical bone fragment from
each individual, cleaning it thoroughly, chemically demineralizing it and
removing any organic contaminants (see Sealy, 1989, for detailed protocol). At
this point, all that is left of the bone is a flexible collagen pseudomorph - the
organic bone fraction - which is freeze-dried, weighed, and combusted. The
resultant gases are cryogenically purified and isolated as carbon dioxide and
nitrogen, and the stable isotope ratios of each sample are measured in a mass
spectrometer against an appropriate reference standard. Diagnostic indices used
to determine the integrity of collagen composition include percentage yield cal-
culations and atomic percentage carbon to nitrogen ratios (Ambrose and Norr,
1992), and any samples with signs of post mortem chemical alteration are
discarded. More than 90 per cent of the samples chosen for this study yielded
reliable isotopic data.
3. The stable carbon isotopes are 13 C and 12 C. Their ratio in any given sample is
measured in a mass spectrometer against a universal standard with a ratio of
known value. PeeDee Belemnite (PDB), a marine carbonate from South Carolina,
is the standard for carbon; atmospheric N 2 is the standard for nitrogen. Because
the relative distance (delta= 5) between sample and standard is always very small,
it is measured in parts per 1000 (per mil = 9·6o). Ratios are expressed as 513 C or
515 N, where the ovalue (in this case for 13 C) is computed as follows:
0 = [[LlC/ 12C(sample)- 13C/ 12C(PDB)] + LlCfl 2C] X 1000'?bo
o values are computed the same way, using the ratios of 15 N to 14 N. The PDB
15 N

and atmospheric nitrogen standards are both assigned ovalues of O!Ji>O, providing
a fixed point of reference for samples of unknown value.
 fohn P. Gerry and Meredith S. Chesson 263

Bibliography
Ambrose, S. H. and L. Norr (1992) 'On Stable Isotopic Data and Prehistoric
Subsistence in the Soconusco Region', Current Anthropology, 33, pp. 401-4.
Brumfiel, E. M. (1991) 'Weaving and Cooking: Women's production in Aztec
Mexico', in]. M. Gero and M. W. Conkey (eds), Engendering Archaeology: Women
and Prehistory (Oxford) pp. 224-54.
Codex Mendoza (1964) 'Codex Mendoza' in]. C. Nufiz (ed.), Antigiiedades de Mexico
Basadas en/a Recopilacfon de Lord Kingsborough, val. 1 Mexico, pp. 1-149.
Devereaux, L. (1987) 'Gender Difference and the Relation of Inequality in
Zinacantan', in M. Strathern (ed.), Dealing With Inequality (Cambridge) pp. 89-111.
Flannery, K. V. (ed.) (1982) Maya Subsistence: Studies in memory of Dennis E. Puleston
(New York).
Gerry,]. (1993) Diet and Status among the Classic Maya: An isotopic perspective, PhD
dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.
Harrison, P. D. and B. L. Turner II (eds) (1978) Pre-Hispanic Maya Agriculture
(Albuquerque).
Hastorf, C. A. (1991) 'Gender, Space and Food in Prehistory', in J. M. Gero and
M. W. Conkey (eds), Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory (Oxford)
pp. 132-62.
Haviland, W. A. (1967) 'Stature at Tikal, Guatemala: Implications for Ancient Maya
demography and social organization', American Antiquity, 32(3), pp. 316-25.
joyce, R. A. (1990) The Construction of Gender in Classic Maya Monuments, paper pre-
sented in the symposium 'The Engendered Subject: Practice and Representation in
Mesoamerica', American Anthropological Association Meeting (New Orleans).
Joyce, R. A. (1994) Work, Ritual, Politics and Status: The changing position of women in
Prehispanic Maya states, revised version of paper presented at the 92nd Annual
Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (Washington, DC).
McCafferty, S.D. and G. G. McCafferty (1988) 'Powerful Women and the Myth of Male
Dominance in Aztec Society', Archaelogical Review from Cambridge, 7(1), pp. 45-59.
Pohl, M. (1991) 'Women, Animal Rearing, and Social Status: The case of the forma-
tive period Maya of Central America', in D. Walde and N. D. Willows (eds), The
Archaeology of Gender: Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Chachmool Conference
(Calgary) pp. 392-9.
Pohl, M. (ed.) (1985) Prehistoric Lowland Maya Environment and Subsistence Economy
(Cambridge, Mass).
Reents-Budet, D. (1994) Painting the Maya Universe: Royal Ceramics of the Classic period
(Durham, NC).
Saul, F. P. (1972) The Human Skeletal Remains of Altar de Sacrificios: An osteobiographic
mwlysis (Cambridge, Mass.).
Sealy,]. C. (1989) Reconstruction of Later Stone Age diets in the southwestem Cape, South
Africa: Evaluation and application of five isotopic and trace element techniques, PhD
dissertation, University of Cape Town.
Smith, A. L. (1972) Excavations at Altar de Sacrificios: Architecture, settlement, burials,
and caches (Cambridge, Mass.).
Taube, K. A. (1989) 'The Maize Tamale in Classic Maya Diet, Epigraphy, and Art',
American Antiquity, 54(1), pp. 31-51.
Tozzer, A.M. (1941) Landa's Relacion de las Casas de Yucatan (Cambridge, Mass.).
Vogt, E. Z. (1976) Tortillas for the Gods: A symbolic analysis of Zinacanteco rituals
(Cambridge, Mass.).
264 Diet and Gender Relationships

White, C. D. and H. P. Schwarcz (1989) 'Ancient Maya Diet: As inferred from isotopic
and elemental analysis of human bone', Journal of Archaeological Science, 16,
pp. 451-74.
White, C. D., P. F. Healy and H. P. Schwarcz (1993) 'Intensive Agriculture, Social
Status, and Maya Diet at Pacbitun, Belize', Journal of Anthropological Research, 49,
pp. 347-75.
Wings, E. S. (1981) 'A Comparison of Olmec and Maya Foodways', in E. P. Benson
(ed.) The Olmec and their Neighbors: Essays in Memory of Matthew W. Stirling
(Washington, DC) pp. 21-8.
Index

Aboriginal 20, 126 of point manufacturing 164

identity 25 of stone knapping 164-5
activity areas 158, 160-2, 165 armlet 147
see also area arrows/arrowheads 155, 161, 188,
activity patterns 166, 234 214
adolescent 143, 226 art 22, 33, 43, 47, 49, 60, 65, 75-6, 79,
adulthood 247 154,213,251,258,260
adze 146, 161 arthritis 233
age 44, 61, 63, 77-8, 102, 151, 153, Athenian society 5
157,166,173,178,225-7,229-32, Athenian vase 49
239, 245, 247, 251 axe 146, 180
age categories 173, 177, 226, 238, 240 decorated antler 231
tasks of 245 miniature 145
Aleuts 189
Al-Hiba, of Southern Iraq 116 babies 84, 118, 239-40
altar 60, 25 7 bark 188, 191, 202
Altar de Sacrificios 261 see also bast
alternative gender 73 Barton Ramie, Belize River valley
see also two-spirit 251-2, 257
ambiguity 10, 11, 14, 48, 166, 227, basketry 74-5, 89, 91-2, 102, 104-6,
242 189, 190, 195, 232
ancestors 63, 114, 126 Bass Point 22, 26
identity of 212 bast 139, 191, 200
Ancient Near East 80 beads 139, 141, 145-7, 149, 162, 190,
androcentric bias 24, 27, 33-5, 37-8, 244
41-2,57,60-1,64,261 manufacturing of 162, 166
androgynous 48 necklaces 245
anthropomorphic figurines 46 ostrich eggshell 155, 163
antiquities 35-7, 40, 45 tooth 228
antler 142, 144, 148, 185, 190-1, 193, headwork 73, 106
195 beliefs 209, 212
axes 231 belts 139, 230
in burial 230 buckles 177
shedding of 143 berdache 72, 82-3, 239
toggles 148 see also two-spirit
worker 141, 143-5, 151 Berlin-Schmockwitz, Germany 230
archaeological housework 39, 40 bestiality 181-2
Archaic periods 44, 216 bias 3 7, 39, 43, 178, 260
Arctic 188 billhooks 141
area binary oppositions 56, 61, 63, 165
of bead manufacture 162-4 binary sexual division 59, 66
of butchery 162, 166 biological sex 15-16, 61, 81, 106, 171,
of cooking 161 173,227,238-40,242,247
of manufacture 156 birds 187-8, 202, 214
of plant food processing 164 skins of 191
265
266 Index

birth 128, 130 canoes 26, 189

birth-spacing 217 dugout 229
bisexual 5, 10 caps 47
blades 230-1 Caravaggio 11
blade-knife 228 carbohydrates 190, 195, 214
Bl0ksbjerg 229 carpentry 141, 144
blood 188, 213-14 cattle-herding 172, 179, 181
boats 211 celibacy 129
see also canoes Celtic 149
bodypaint 182 cemetery 225, 239, 242, 245, 247
B0gebakken 229-30,232 see also burials
Boldbaner 223 ceremonial 23, 78, 127, 189, 213, 252
bone 156, 191 vessels 76
arrowheads 161 Chaco 125
fish spears 22 chariot races 43
necklace 149 Chiapas, Mexico 258
needles 245, 247 child burials 44, 229-30
point 163, 227 childbearing 215
bow drill 127 childhood 9, 15, 247
bows 155 children 8, 10, 15, 22, 44, 58, 63, 64,
boy 73-4,79,127,239 106, 114, 116, 119, 126, 141, 145,
bracelet 10, 13, 141, 244 147, 151, 176-8, 192-3,215-18,
braid 145, 150-1 226,230-1,234,238-9,242-5,
manufacture of 147 247-8,258
ornamental borders 139 care of 114, 192
breastfeeding 130 survival of 217-18
see also lactation chisel 146
bronze 40, 145 Christianity 7, 15
sickles 172-3 Chukchi, of Siberia 127
spoons 149 Cirencester, Britain 13
Bronze Age 15, 43, 46, 91, 137, 170, cists 173
172-6, 180-1,247 Classical Antiquity 4, 6, 44-5, 125
brooch 146-147 Classic period, Maya 250, 255, 258,
brothels 13 260-1
brothers 78, 151 classification 169, 173, 175
burials 13, 44, 62-4, 147, 149, 151, of tasks 115
213,222,226-7,229-30,234,242, clay 75, 89
250,253,260-1 procurement of 74, 77, 101-2, 116,
clothes 226 118
context of 222 tablets 43
dog 230 see also pots and pottery
furniture 230 clothing 10, 12, 91, 106, 180, 188-90,
goods 229 191,195,199,230
ground 176 fasteners 239
multiple 228 of fishskin 188
ritual 225, 230 Colombian 125
see also graves and skeletons colonialism 25, 28-9
butchering 156, 164-5 combs, antler and bone 137-152
area of 162, 166 matching sets of 140, 145, 147,
buttons 141 149-50
Byzantine 35 conception 130
 Index 267

continuous time 100, 114, 131 domestic 73, 129, 139

control 21, 65, 101-2, 106, 124-6, fires 125
128, 130-1, 210, 213, 216, 227, group 127
256 household production 142-S
cooking 73, 114, 116, 123, 125-7, 259, space 128
155, 161, 189, 192 tasks 43, 183
pots 77 domestication 115, 130-1, 180
utensils 145 Dragsholm 230
Copan, Honduras 25 1-2, 25 7 dress 47, 177, 182
cordage 104, 189-91, 195, 199-200 codes 10
costume 227 ornaments 171
craft 49, 73, 75-6, 88 dresses 173, 176
domestic 142-4 ofwool 174
innovation 73, 78 dyes 90, 102, 106, 190
production 71, 74, 81, 88, 92
specialization 88-109, 144-S, 150 earrings 10, 12, 44
creatress 125 effeminate 8, 12, 13, 59
cremated bones 171 efficiency 23-4, 80, 100, 111-17
sexing of 173, 177 egalitarian 210-11, 216-17, 234
cremation 172, 178, 223, 225, 228-9 Egtved, Denmark 169, 172
pits 176-7 elderly 114, 119, 230
crime 7-8 elders 127, 141, 151
cross-cultural 76-7, 80, 91, 182 elite 4-6, 253, 260-2
data 175 embroidery 90, 106, 175
generalisations 24 energy of production 123, 129-30
cross-dressing 7, 73, 227 ephors 38, 40, 42
crypt 261 equal opportunities 40
cultivation 126 legislation S7
cults 14, 180 Eretria 40
curator 38-40, 44 Erteb0lle 222-3
ethics 37
dagger 46-47,141,147,174,191,245, code of 21
247 ethnic groups 173
Danebury, Hampshire 148 ethnocentrism 33, 35, 37, 41, 60,
daughters 126, 245 112
death 12, 127-8, 176, 214, 226, 228, ethnographic analogy 26-7, 43, 72,
229,231 89, 116, 127-9, 141, 156-7, 165,
debitage 230 170-1,173,175,186,200,213,258
Dene 188 evil spirits 126
deviancy 16, 48, 72 excavation 45, 47, 223
dichotomy 56, 58, 61, 65, 157, 169, 239 excavators 39
diet 216, 258-9 exchange 91,142,217-18
ofwomen 231 exhibition 33-S, 42, 44, 46, 60
digging stick ISS, 190, 192, 195 expert see specialist
dildo 11, 12
disease 217 family 10, 105, 117, 127-9, 143, 155
display 39, 44-S, 49, 64 extended 74
ornaments 173 hearths 155
distribution 142, 151, 161, 212 nuclear 10
division of labour 153, 157, 165, 193, Fellstalle, Schwabian Alb, Germany
214,225 200
268 Index

female fourth gender 72, 83

activity 39 see also two-spirit
dominance 41 fowling 222
fire spears 126 frescoes 13, 43, 46-8
images 43 fuel 78, 116, 195
reproduction 178 funeral 175, 177
femininity 58, 59, 65 offering 245
feminism 21, 24, 28, 56 pyre 125
feminist 20-1, 24-S, 27, 37-39, 58, 66, rites 175-6, 178, 182
71, 131, 153, 166 see also death and burials
critiques 27, 34
literature 28 G/wi, central Kalahari 154-S
researchers 1S7 gamma-analysis 13
theory 22 garden keepers 218
feminized behaviour 8, 10, 13 Garton Slack, Yorkshire 148-9
fertility 63, 130, 215, 217 gastrapods 22-3
fibulae 145, 174, 177 gathering 116, 154-S, 192, 210, 222
fieldwork 38 gay 3, 7, 9-10, 12-14, 16
figurines 46-7, 128 sex 9
Venus 127, 199 Ge 125
fire gender
of the hearth 126 boundaries 81
means of making 127 categories 72
fish 23,26,187-8,202,214 crossing of 76, 78, 81, 91, 242
bones 22 discriminations 39, 41
hooks 23 dynamics 37
skins 191 identity 3, 15, 45, 63
traps 189 imbalance 41
fishing 22, 26, 172, 192-3,210,216, relations 25-6, 29, 64, 119, 157, 258
257 roles 8, 46, 47, 71, 77, 80
flint artifacts 115, 116, 245 segregation 156
blade 191 symbolism 90
knife 229 theory 22
micro-blades 112 gender-learning 15
sickles 173 genderless 15
technology 115 gifts 146, 154, 155
food 22-3, 72, 102, 130-1, 141, 155-6, girls lOS, 114, 142, 177,217,239,247
189, 191-2, 195, 202, 209,211, glass beads 13
213-14,216,218,225,251,257, Glastonbury Lake Village, Somerset
258,260 137, 144, 146, 149, 150
consumption of 261 goddesses 43, 44, 125
plants 215 gods 74
preparation of 42, 155 of smiths 125
ritual 245, 259 gold 44
sharing 26, 215-16 G0ngehusvej 7, 223, 229, 230
taboos 214, 215, 216 graves 12, 44, 62, 170-8, 183, 223,
foraging see gathering 225,228-9,247,253
forbidden 9, 12, 28, 127, 155 furniture 244
forging 118 goods 12-13,148-9,222,228-30,
forts 12 234,239,244,247,253
 Index 269

markers 16, 229 hunting 23-4, 42-3, 72-4, 90, 114,

orientation 240, 242-3 154-6, 161, 187, 191-3, 210, 213,
Great Mackerel rockshelter, Sydney 22 217,222,257
Greek Archaeological Service 35, 38-41 equipment/weapons 161, 163, 165,
Greek vases 11 202
grindstones 161, 162, 164-5 husband 77-8, 117, 155-6
use of 23, 116
ideology 35, 176,209,211,216,258
Hacilar 128 imperialist 3 7
haematite 161, 230 Indians, of Alaska 188
hair 149 of the Northwest Coast 189
pins 230 of the Subarctic 188
styles of 10, 46, 182 of the Woodlands 189
Ham Hill, Somerset 149 infants 16, 177, 226, 229, 230, 240
Harlem Renaissance 7 carrying of 189
harness 139 inhumations of 223, 225, 228, 230,
harpoons 195 239
see also spears mortality of 14, 215
head ornaments 245, 247 see also babies
headdress 46 innovation 75-6, 79-81, 89, 91, 102,
health 209, 215-17 112, 115, 118
hearth 123-9, 131-2, 147, 155-6, 158, see also crafts
161-4,185,258 intermittent time 100, 114, 116, 131,
of family 155 142
symbolism of 127 Inuit 186, 188-9, 191, 195, 202
Hebrews 15 Irgenhausen, Switzerland 90
Hellenism 35 Iron Age 91, 92, 137, 141, 143-4, 147,
Hephaestus 125 170
Hestia 125 iron
heterosexual 6, 7, 10-12, 15 knives 141
heterosexuality 8 shears 149
hides 193 sickles 177
chewing of 232 tools 176
Holmul, northeastern Peten, iron-working 91-2, 101
Mesoamerica 251, 257 smelting 129
Holocene 23 Islamic 6
homoerotic 6, 12, 14, 16 isotope analysis 251, 253-5, 257-8,
homosexual 7-10, 13, 16, 73, 76 261
homosexuality 4-6, 8, 14, 72
honey-collecting 217 jewellery 10, 13, 42, 44, 46-7, 146,
Hopi 75-6, 79, 82 226,230-1,239,244
Hostiin Klah 74 Jomon, of]apan 223
household 42-3, 49, 74, 77-8, 91, 112, Jubilee Shelter, South Africa 157-8,
116-17, 127, 129, 131, 141-3, 154, 163-5
259-60, 262 juveniles 217, 242-3
housewife 117, 119 see also children
housework 114, 119 Jylland 223
human-less 37, 44, 45
hunter-gatherers 209, 211-18 katoi 8
world view 210 hllns 118, 129, 131
270 Index

kin group 106, 240 Maiden Castle, Britain 143

kings 260 male
kinship 211 bias 35, 38
knapping 100 brothels 13
area of 161 dominance 4
knife 144-6, 174, 195,245 gaze 65
Knossos, Crete 48 manhood 48
Kongemose 223 manliness 8
Koryak, of Siberia 127 manufacture 143, 154-7;
Kua, central Kalahari 154-S marine resources 222, 232, 255
Kutse, central Kalahari 156 marital status 61
!Kung, northern Kalahari 154-6, 164, marriage S-6, 8, 10, 39, 77, 130, 178,
213-15 211
brokering 154
lactation 214, 218 ritual 154
Lamanai, Belize 258 Marxism 37, 42
lamps 14 masculine 8, 58-9, 65
Lankhills, Winchester, Britain 13 behaviour 5,9, 15,59
Lascaux, France 199 masculinism 62
leadership 73 masculinist 24, 56
leather 141 maternity 125
goods 12 matrilineal 78, 81, 211, 213
legislation 39, S7 matrocentric 46
changes in 41 mats 74, 105, 188-91, 195
inequality of 39 Maya 250
legitimation 126, 260 Meare Villages, East and West, Somerset,
Lepenski Vir, Danube Gorge, former Britain 137, 140, 144, 147, 150
Yugoslavia 60-2, 65, 128 meat 157, 161, 186, 193,213-16,255,
lesbian 6, 12 259
life cycles 61, 182 medicine man 74
life expectancy 216-18 medieval 11, 13, 15
light 127 megaron 43
lily-crown 48 men's
liminal 131 area 141
lineages 240 sacred sites 28
linear enamel hypoplasia 215, 233, menstruation 126, 214
250 blood of 126
lithic artefacts 199, 201-2 pads for 190
see also flint and stone Mesolithic 60, 63-S, 128, 189, 216,
loom 74, 78, 115, 151 222-3,225,229,231,234
back-strap 139 metal 90, 124, 178, 245
warp weighted 138 axes 244
weights 138, 149, 247 jewellery 244
see also textiles and weaving knives 244, 247
Lugbara, of Uganda 126 production of 118, 131, 141
lust 14, 15 metallurgy 91, 102, 106, 114, 130,
144-S
macho 11 microlithic blades 42
Magdalenian period 189, 193, middens 22
199-200 middle-aged 175
Maglemosegard 223 women 116
 Index 271

Middle Ages 6 newborn see babies and infants

Minoan 47-48 Northern Territory, Australia 26
mirrors 44 Northwest Coast cultures, of America
Mokrin, Vojvodina, former Yugoslavia 223
239,240,244,247 nutrition 212, 261
Mollegabet II 229
morality 6, 8, 15, 67, 119 Oatia 13
mortality of 234, 242, 247 ochre 63-4, 161, 230
infant 217 old people 77, 91, 102, 192,213,
ofwomen 217 258
mortuary data 261 men 213
see also burials women 177
mosaic 13 Old Stone Age 185
mothers 77, 245, 259-60 Olenii Ostrov, Karelia 225
mourners 245 ore 118, 130
Moveros, Spain 78 organic
Mura, of Cameroon 114 clothing 90
murals 13, 16 tools 201
see also frescoes organization of production 71, 80
Murcielagos, Spain 104-6 ornaments 175, 200, 261
murder 228-9 ostrich eggshell 161-3
museum display 34 Ottoman 35
museums 33-54, 75, 188 ovens 77, 128-9
Archaeological Museum of Volos in ownership 150, 156, 209, 210, 214
Thessaly 42
Chora Museum 43 paintings 11
Herakleion Museum 42, 46, 47 see a/so frescoes
Museum of Northern Arizona 76 palace 43, 46, 48
National Archaeological Museum in Palaeolithic 42, 185-6, 191, 199, 202
Athens, Greece 36, 39, 40, Paradijon, Philippines 71, 76-7, 79
42-4 parents 143
National Museum of Decorative Arts, partners 213
Greece 39, 45 passivity 5, 44
Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum patriarchy 67
42,44 patrilineal 78, 81, 126, 211
musical instruments 47 pelvis 228, 242
mussels 22-3, 192 pendants 230, 244
Mycenaean 43-44 penis 14, 56, 66, 126
perception 27, 41, 77, 89, 92, 106,
Naiken 210 153
national identity 20 perspectives 27, 63, 71, 209
Navajo, Native Americans 72, 74-5 Petralona Cave, Chalkidiki 42
necklace 13, 146-7, 150, 190, 247 phallocentric 56, 57, 60, 62, 64, 66
ofbone 149 phallocentrism 58
Nederst 230 phallus 14, 16, 56, 66
needles 190, 244 Phoka, of Malawi 129
ofbone 195 Pincevent, France 189
Neolithic 42, 89, 105, 128, 131, 189, pins 177
225,234 pits 158, 162, 185, 229
nets 189-90, 195,211 pit-traps 211
New Archaeology 42 planting 116
272 Index

plants 90-2, 101, 104-S, 161, 191, prejudice 20, 67, 89, 175, 181, 193
193,195,200-2,214,250 prestige 41, 146, 210
C3 plants 253-4 Priapus 14
collecting 24, 192, 103, 116, 153-4, priestesses 43
192 Priest-King 48
as craft materials 89, 102, 106-7, fresco 47
189, 191 private and public spheres 43
fibres 90 private possessions 210
food processing 164 processual archaeology 3 7, 111-12,
foods 23, 215 120
Pleistocene 23 see also New Archaeology
ploughing 180-2 production 77, 128
poison 155 specialization 73
polished stone ofyarn 147
adze 91 projectile points 195
axe 92, 100, 102 prostitution 5, 8, 43, 49
polishing pebbles 244 protein resources 258
political correctness 56-8, 66 puberty 214, 239, 242
polluted 247 see also age
Pont d'Ambon, France 189 Pueblo 72, 74-6
population 218 Pylos 43
control 218
positivism 111, 120 Qeqertaussuk, Greenland 188, 190
possessions 244, 247 Qilakitsoq, Greenland 188
post-contact, Australia 27, 29 quem 141, 145-7
post-excavation 38, 40 quills 188
post-medieval 16 quivers 155
post-menopausal women 130, 258
post-modernism 3, 25, 169 racism 7, 27-8, 57, 157
post-processual 3, 4, 11 Rajasthani 78
post-structural 56 rank 209,225,230,234,258
pots 78, 106, 115, 128, 130-1, 176, see also social organisation
239,244 religion 89, 127
baking pots 251, 257 ceremony for 125
potters 49, 72, 74-9, 11-18, 129 reproduction 178-9, 217-18
social organization 78 cycle of 130
pottery 39, 42-3, 46, 49, 73-5, 88, 90, rescue excavations 40
92, 101, 116, 145-7, 149, 161-3, Richborough, Kent 149
261 rings 244
distribution system 79 Rio Grande weavers 79
finger-prints on 81 rite de passage 5, 15, 182, 234
Hopi 79 ritual 60, 89, 126, 154, 172, 176-7,
pottery production 71, 77, 90, 102, 129 180,210,213,225-6,229,259
firing 78, 129 activity 47, 80
household and relationships 77-8, burial patterning 231
81 feasting 251, 258
wheel 78, 115, 129 killing 229, 247
preconceptions 3 messages 234
pre-contact, Australia 29 prohibitions 215
pregnancy 130,212,214-15,218 property 213
see also childbirth scenes 260
 Index 273

spaces 260 sharing 156, 162, 164, 210-14

traditions 212 shears, iron 149
rock art 157, 179, 181-2 shell 23, 26, 162, 191, 193, 213-14,
Roman 5, 11-16, 125, 137, 149 244,261
rondelles 200 fish hooks 22, 26
roots 188-9, 195, 202 shellfishing 26
Rose Cottage Cave, South Africa shields 180
157-8, 163-5 shoes 13, 46, 189, 191
rugs 74 shrines 46
rulers 250, 260 sickles 42, 141, 169, 171, 175-7, 179,
rules 213-14 183
rural 9 bronze 172-3
rushes/reeds 75, 102 flint 173
iron 177
sacred 21, 63, 75, 127 Sindos, Northern Greece 44
saddlemaking 73 Sjrelland 223
San, of Southern Africa 154, 156-7, Skateholm, Sweden 223, 229-30,
161, 164-5 233
Schopsdorf, Germany 230 skeletal remains 21, 62-3, 128, 147,
sculpture 40, 42, 47, 60 171-3, 176-7,217,222,225,240,
secret 100-1 242,247
sedentism 216 charred 149
Seibal, southwestern Peten, infant 149
Mesoamerica 251, 257 stature 250
semiotic 4, 12-13, 16 skeleton 62-3, 147, 171, 173, 177,
sewing 73, 192, 195, 247 217,222,225,239-40,253,25
needles 175 adult 242
sex 14-16, 61, 225-7 ambiguous features of 242
association with costume 227 skill 88, 117, 143, 153, 192, 210
biological variation of 227 slash and burn cultivation 123, 131
changes 8 slaves 49, 228
identification of 226, 229 smelting 130
toys 11 social
sexist 33, 41, 45 agency 92
sexual classes 8, 28-9, 64-5, 137, 157, 225,
acts 11, 127, 181-3 238
ambiguity 48 organization 46, 88, 117,21-1,258,
attitudes 16 262
behaviour 10-11, 16 relations 39, 42, 56, 57, 59, 91-2,
dimorphism 72, 226, 250 154,209-10,261
division of labour 42, 71, 170,210, status 74,231,251
231 sons 78, 151
equality 259 South Scandinavia 172, 17 5-6
experiences 8 Southeast Norway 17 6
identities 14, 16 space 239
politics 28 see also area
reproduction 212-13 specialist 100-1, 106, 145
symbolism 129 antler worker 143
variation 228 craft production 144, 150, 164
sexuality 3-4, 11-16, 126, 132 spindle whorls 138, 145-7, 201
shamanism 73, 83 spinning 49, 141, 201
274 Index

spoons, bronze 149 toiletry items 43

stable isotope analysis 232, 242, 251, Torres Strait Islander 20
253 totem groups 173
state patronage 36 toys 44, 145
Stationsvej 19, 223 trade 142, 150
status 44, 49, 56, 58, 60, 66, 80, 83, transvestism 8, 72
88-91, 106--7, 116-17, 127, 142, traps 156, 195
153,210,211-14, 216-17,244-S, Tukanoan 125
247,250,253,259,261 Turquoise Boy 75
group 257, 260 two-spirit 72-S, 77
ofwomen 33
stone 164, 244 Uaxactun, northeastern Peten,
adzes 23 Mesoamerica 251, 257
artefacts 22-3, 166, 185, 191 Ule, Sweden 176--7
knapping 160 Upper Palaeolithic 189, 225, 234
lined pits 63
palette 149 V<enget Nord 223, 229
working 24, 106, 165 values 26, 33-4, 67, 66, 101-2, 104,
Stone Age 153, 157, 193 110
straps 139 system 80
Stwby Egede 223, 228-9 of time 111
subculture 3-4, 7, 9, 14 Vedb<ek, Denmark, (B0gebakken and
gay 6, 8, 11-12, 16 Boldbaner) 222-3, 226-7, 229
subsistence 23, 77, 90-1, lOS, 116, Veracruz, Mexico 116
154, 251, 257 Verberie 189
activities 156, 183, 257 vessels 47, 189
economy 172 Vesta 125
subversive 14, 60 Viables Farm, Hampshire, Britain
Swiss lake village 90 147-8
sword 180-1 Vindolanda, Britain 13
symbolism 36, 42, 128-30, 175-6, virgin 125
179,218,229,258 vitamins 195, 216
symbols 46, 132, 209, 211, 247, 258 Vlasac, Danube gorges 62,-4, 215-17
Vulcan 125
taboos 74, 78, 129, 182, 212 vulva 128
of food 214-16
see also forbidden warfare 43, 73-4
tanning 73 warriors 259
Tarahuma, Mexico 116 women who died in childbirth as
tattoos 10 259
technology 79, 80, 88, 112 We'wha 74
Tewa 82 wealth 211
textiles 39, 43, 78, 89-92, 101-2, weaponry 44,47, 171, 173-S, 191-3
104-6, 138-9, 141 weaver 72, 74, 141, 259-60
manufacture of 247 weaving 49, 73, 75, 78, 102, 106, 115,
third gender 72-3, 81, 83 137, 142, 149, 151
see also two-spirit see also textiles
Tikal 250 Western Desert, Australia 23
time 23, 88, 100, 110-22, 112 Western Inuit, of Alaska 188
tintinabula 14 White Shell Girl 75
Tlingit 211, 213 widow 78
 Index 275

wildfire 125-6, 129 Woodland period 216

wives 49, 77-8, 127, 130, 155, 245 wool 90, 138
womanhood 48 dresses of 17 4
womb 125-6
women's yarn 147, 151
area 141 young 91,175,229
labour 23 individuals 4, 7-8, 11, 13, 230-1
status 25 mothers 116
studies 56 women 130, 177
technology 23 see also children and age
wood 188, 190-3, 195 yucca brushes 76
artefacts 17 4
carving 76 Zinacantan 261
collection of 118 Zuni 71, 74, 76
wood-carving 76 Zvejnieki, Latvia 225