5,000-year-old 'Ivory Lady' upends what's known about sex and gender in prehistoric societies
5,000-year-old 'Ivory Lady' upends what's known about sex and gender in prehistoric societies
The new technique used by a team of European archaeologists opens up a new window on the past and may signal a sexual revolution for archaeology.
Thought the irony of transphobes saying when they discover trans people’s skeletons, they’ll only see us as our AGAB. Apparently figuring out a skeleton’s sex is not so cut and dry. Fascinating story regardless.
The whole transphobic claim of being seen as our AGAB by future archeologists is especially ridiculous considering that modern ones are already saying things like this:
While the skeleton’s biological sex is not in dispute, Gowland cautioned that nothing is known about the Ivory Lady’s gender identity, and scholars shouldn’t impose modern gender norms onto past populations.
I thought the article was interesting, but I didn’t really get the point of what OP said. :/
As much as I love any option to wind up transphobes.
This in no way indicates the skeleton lived a trans life. Just that the roles of men and women were not as defined as modern historians have claimed.
This is more a critisism of common era historians for assu.ing any body found with tools they think relate to male roles. And assuming pre history also only expected men to carry swords etc.
While it is entirely possible that this lady. And probable that some others. Lived as a man. Their is no evidence to support this over the idea that living ad a woman was not as restrictive as cultures expect today. Pre 5k years ago. We really have no way to know. Other then to use modern science to I'd many past bone examined. And assumed by biased historians.
I believe you misunderstood me. I didn’t suggest the owner of said skeleton was trans; rather, the pervasive transphobic comment suggesting archaeologists digging up our skeletons will see us ‘as we really are’, i.e. our AGAB, is a load of proverbial horseshit when we literally have a case here where scientists had difficulty determining the skeleton’s sex in the first place, by what they thought was a male pelvic bone. I simply like how reality isn’t quite as cut and dry as transphobes like to think, and thought it funny a news article flipping the table on their argument (as absurd as it is anyhow, because who gives a shit what other people think of their skeleton thousands of years from now).
“In the past, it was not uncommon for an archaeologist to find (remains) and say, ‘OK, this individual has a sword and a shield. Therefore, he’s a man.’ Of course, deeply mistaken, because it assumes that in the past gender roles were the way we conceive them today,” García Sanjuán said.
Just to put it out there, but no serious archeologist has believed this for a while.
Consider the two clearly gay women burried together in an Old Norse tomb, with their cannabis seeds and Swastika-engraved Buddha statue. The idea that male dominance and disarming of women is universal is not something anyone can believe after making a serious study of history.
Just consider the Albanian women who took up male identities to become warriors. Note that I'm still referring to them here as women since arguably these historical practices are less about trans identity and more about social positions.
two clearly gay women
Or perhaps, to phrase it like a historian - roommates accidentally buried together
Transphobes stubbornly incorrect. More at 11.
Almost every historical culture has had at least 3 gender roles, third gender usually being 'effeminate male'
Turns out that not all societies are (and were) as patriarchal as the modern ones imposed upon us by capitalism and colonialism are, too.
The field of "archaeology" seems to be better about illuminating such facts than the field of "history" is. But that could be anecdotal based on my exposure to archaeologists, historians, and their material.
I'm confused by your comment. The new technique better identifies skeletons without a Y chromosome, which correlates largely (not 100%, very little is 100%) with AGAB.
As far as I can glean (given the dire nature of internet search these days and the amount of noise because of this discovery), the initial identification of the skeleton as male was little more than sexist presumptions about status: the grave was superlatively high status, ergo it had to be a man.
Is your comment simply that mistakes have been made by archaeologists in identifying sex? This isn't the first, won't be the last. They come from researchers reading their own society-based assumptions about gender roles & presentation back onto other times. I don't see how the new findings are a slam against transphobes; this new technique appears to give a far more reliable way to identify a skeleton's chromosomes and thus (in the majority of cases) its likely AGAB.My comment isn’t about the techniques they were using. It’s a social comment on an absurd argument some transphobes like to use against transfolk saying people digging up our skeletons won’t ever see us as our gender identity, but as our AGAB (assigned gender at birth). As if anyone gives a flying fuck what someone thousands of years in the future thinks about our remains.
It was funny to me seeing this scenario pop up in the news, and the skeleton had been misgendered from the folks who initially examined the pelvis to determine the skeleton’s sex (reinforced afterwards with certain gendered assumptions around the objects found near it). It flips the table on the transphobe’s argument, showing how it isn’t quite as cut and dry as they’d like to believe.
Yes, I understand you weren't talking about the techniques and it was social commentary.
So identification WAS from examination of the pelvic bones? Where did you see that? Might you have a link you could kindly share or any information to help me find it? I love archaeology and search is turning up the now usual mass of sensationalist articles. Thanks :)
Lol you telling me they just straight up never had a way to determine sex before and just said eh, they’re probably a dude they had a knife. SCIENCE.
Also that knife is sick.
Old science, yes. People forget how young modern science is, electricity was only "discovered" less than 300 years ago, the internet only became public 28 years ago, carbon dating isn't even 100 years old yet, DNA wasn't even broken down into it's parts and structure until the 1950s, Einstein's theory of relativity is barely over a century old. Archeology is hundreds if not thousands of years old, and even modern archeology probably started before the US was even a country