Gender Archaeology

Погребения женщин с предметами вооружения являются панкультурным феноменом для обществ степной/лесостепной полосы Евразии раннего железного века. Предлагаемая статья посвящена систематизации и интерпретации женских захоронений с оружием саргатской культуры Зауралья и Западной Сибири. Включение саргатских данных в общий контекст развития скотоводческих обществ Евразии позволит расширить наши знания о древних социальных структурах и месте, занимаемом внем женщинами

The following contribution was conceived as a short overview of the
international and Romanian literature on gender archaeology, with the
purpose of underlining the importance of both theoretical studies and change of mentalities in Romanian archaeology. Using mainly the anglo-saxon bibliography, I have outlined the importance of perceiving gender archaeology as another alternative in discussing social relations in ancient societies and not as a biased tool in finding women in the past. Sadly, the Romanian contributions to the subject are almost absent, but there is a growing concern related to gender relations in the ancient world, dr. Nona Palincaș being the front (wo)man in this direction of study.

This chapter investigates the depiction of female genitalia in Roman society both in the Mediterranean and the north-west provinces. It begins by outlining a number of basic premises shaping the investigation and an explanation of the central hypothesis, namely that the faithful depiction of female genitalia was a taboo in Graeco-Roman society. This is followed by two parts examining and comparing the depictions of female genitalia, first, on women in Mediterranean culture and, second, the north-western provinces. In a third part, “disembodied” symbolical depictions of female genitals and their possible use as apotropaia are discussed for both the Mediterranean culture and the north-western provinces.

This paper aims to talk about the relationships between gender and space. First, I examine the idea of material space relations and gender through the work of the architect Peg Rawes and the philosopher Luce Irigaray, before presenting examples from Portuguese Chalcolithic walled enclosures, where gender roles are dependent on the interpretations of the built space, and the specific case study of Castanheiro do Vento, to question the fragmented character of these constructed spaces. I also present some examples of human burials in walled enclosures and anthropomorphic
representations from late prehistory to question the fragmentation of the body and the ambiguity of the images. Lastly, I finish by concluding that the recent approaches to construction, to the use of space, and to the materials and contexts, including burials and engravings, seem to be telling us something about the construction of collective identities in prehistory, namely the concepts of fragmentation and ambiguity. This paper tries to question and understand the relationships between space and gender and will approach how space can be constructed in prehistory as well as how gender can be constructed in our understanding of past architectures.