First off, let me say it's not just men, or male academics, or anthropologists and archaeologists who are sexist. We're all sexist -- we were born into a world rampant with sexism. We can, if we choose, unlearn some of it, and that requires being conscious about sexism around us and within us.
When I did research on "Celtic" women, I learned of a significant sex bias: if a grave has weapons in it, the skeleton will be listed as male, even if there are indications to the contrary. Indications to the contrary are usually considered anomalies and not, well, indicators to the contrary (one academic went so far as to suggest the male warrior was perhaps a transvestite, given the anomalous artefacts found in "his" grave, when in fact the warrior in question was female).
Very often, in the case of Iron Age Europe, it is not the skeleton at all that is sexed. The associated goods are still considered diagnostic, and even in cases where a skeleton is preserved, it is often not studied by physical or forensic anthropologists.
It is painful to acknowledge that Hochdorf and Vix are the only properly studied and published elite "Celtic" skeletons of around 500 BCE of which I am aware. This is not an adequate database on which the build a model of "Celtic" dimorphism. Even if more skeletons were preserved, it is particularly disheartening to read in Brothwell that "there is a constant danger of incorrect sexing, and indeed ... there is a 12 per cent bias in favour of males" (1981, 59). We may add that, in the case of Iron Age Europe, there is an almost overwhelming bias in favor of the particular scholar's list artifactually-based criteria. This leads to such bizarre phenomena as the resexing of skeletons from female to male based solely on the presence of weapons in the tomb. (
Sex and Gender)
Enter genetic testing and the wonders of DNA. Diagnosis by artefact is subject to sexist worldview bias, but diagnosis by DNA, well, that's harder to get confused about. Blood just doesn't lie!
And so I read with interest the recent report from Reuters Tehran:
These days Iranian women are not even allowed to watch men compete on the football field, but 2,000 years ago they could have been carving the boys to pieces on the battlefield.
DNA tests on the 2,000-year-old bones of a sword-wielding Iranian warrior have revealed the broad-framed skeleton belonged to woman, an archaeologist working in the northwestern city of Tabriz said on Saturday.
"Despite earlier comments that the warrior was a man because of the metal sword, DNA tests showed the skeleton inside the tomb belonged to a female warrior," Alireza Hojabri-Nobari told the Hambastegi newspaper.
He added that the tomb, which had all the trappings of a warrior's final resting place, was one of 109 and that DNA tests were being carried out on the other skeletons.
Hambastegi said other ancient tombs believed to belong to women warriors have been unearthed close to the Caspian Sea. (
Bones Suggest Women Went to War in Ancient Iran)
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Thanks for sharing this. No doubt all folks who get to live by nature's rhythms and not those of alarm clocks and punch clocks know the magic of these "blue" times of daynight.
I had a brief look at your blog and look forward to having time to actually read it!