Award Date

5-1-2020

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Anthropology

First Committee Member

Debra Martin

Second Committee Member

Pierre Liénard

Third Committee Member

Barbara Roth

Fourth Committee Member

Elspeth Whitney

Number of Pages

157

Abstract

The construction of gender in a society is based on a discursive relationship between culture and biology. Ideological components are often translated into structural factors, which condition access to social and biological resources and exposure to risk. Cumulative differential health outcomes for groups can become embodied in ways that affect the skeleton. By conducting population-level analyses of skeletal markers of health and trauma, bioarchaeologists work backwards to attempt to reconstruct social conditions. Archaeological and mortuary context is an important part of this process.

Cemeteries of the Mierzanowice Culture (MC) in southern Poland (2300-1600 BCE) offer a unique opportunity to study gender in prehistory. Burials in these cemeteries have been described as “bipolar” in orientation, with males and females aligned to opposite points of the compass in mirror-image poses. This study seeks to understand whether the apparent, idealized gender distinctions in MC communities became gender stratification in practice, and whether indeed these distinctions are as binary as they may first appear. The excavated portions of four MC cemeteries in southeastern Poland were examined, for a sample size of 178 individuals. In addition to sex and age estimation, data were gathered pertaining to biomechanical stresses (entheseal robusticity, osteoarthritis), signs of chronic disease or nutritional insufficiency, and trauma.

Results suggest that gender was at least not the primary factor with regard to the intensity of habitual labor, nor were divisions of labor so distinct that they could be clearly ascertained through patterns of entheseal robusticity. Patterns of trauma, however, suggest that while males may have experienced more occupational or accidental injuries, young adult females experienced higher rates of interpersonal violence. Finally, examination of mortuary context and anthropological data preliminarily supports the interpretation of a more nuanced approach to gender in MC communities than a static gender binary, including changes in gender roles or possibilities over the life course and potential gender variant categories (e.g., third genders or gender variants).

Keywords

Bioarchaeology; Bronze Age; Gender; Mierzanowice Culture; Paleopathology; Trauma

Disciplines

Archaeological Anthropology | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Gender and Sexuality

File Format

pdf

File Size

17.7 MB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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