A sort of follow-up to my insomniac gender/profession rambling

[oloriel]

Found via ladyelleth.
A short article about the discovery of the remains of a female Austrian metal worker... from 4000 years ago.

Of course, that sort of knowledge is even harder to come by. For all the gender bias in written records, at least there's written records...

(My cynical inner conspiracy theorist can't help but ask, of course, why of all the bones (and look at the pic, there are quite a lot of them), the pelvic ones would be missing... someone disappearing evidence, mayhaps?)

More details in German here.

So much, at any rate, for "natural" division of labour, etc. :D

Comments

[shadowbrides.livejournal.com]

Fascinating! it bothers me quite a lot how much is simply assumed about gender roles in my archaeology classes so far. Think 'oh these two pots of human ash were buried next to each other, both with lots of gold, one with a weapon, this must mean they were a f/m couple'etc.

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

hah, that's the place, where my sister works. as an archaeologist. specialized in "Ur- und Frühgeschichte". Have to ask her about the stuff :)

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

fun thing: I do even know the archaeologist quoted in the article :)


...ansonsten drück ich dich mal ganz fest und schick dir alle meine lieben Gedanken.

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

sister is actually writing an article about this lady and tells me that the whole work group is excited over the fact that it might be a metal worker LADY. She doesn't know about the pelvis - didn't think about it. Says, it might be burrowed in a lower plane because the graves at that time and in that area were often not layed out straightly. It doesn't matter anyhow, because they can be absoutely sure about the sex from the skull and the form and size of the spot where the neck muscles started. So there is no discussion about it being a male or female skeleton anyway.
They are just struggling with some people who doubt that this lady really was a smith as she has just some tools for fine metal work and no real heavy hammer amboss stuff with her.