Exploring gender in prehistoric Italy

Whitehouse, Ruth D.

doi:10.1017/s0068246200001768

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Insights into the cultural logic underpinning Copper Age bodies, both real and imagined, are provided by the diacritic signs defining personal identity on stelae and in articulated burials. The first is gender, which was expressed in a dichotomized form that differs from the more fluid representations of gender typical of Neolithic Italy (Robb 1994a(Robb , 2007Whitehouse 1992bWhitehouse , 2001). In both stelae and burials, maleness is denoted through weapons, while femaleness is expressed through ornaments, especially necklaces.…”

Section: Funerary Practices and Ideas Of The Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

From the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in Central Italy: Settlement, Burial, and Social Change at the Dawn of Metal Production

Dolfini

2019

J Archaeol Res

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The Late Neolithic and Copper Age were a time of change in most of Europe. Technological innovations including animal traction, the wheel, and plow agriculture transformed the prehistoric economy. The discovery of copper metallurgy expanded the spectrum of socially significant materials and realigned exchange networks away from Neolithic “greenstone,” obsidian, and Spondylus shells. New funerary practices also emerged, signifying the growing importance of lineage ancestors, as well as new ideas of personal identity. These phenomena have long attracted researchers’ attention in continental Europe and the British Isles, but comparatively little has been done in the Italian peninsula. Building on recent discoveries and interdisciplinary research on settlement patterns, the subsistence economy, the exchange of socially valuable materials, the emergence of metallurgy, funerary practices, and notions of the body, I critically appraise current models of the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition in light of the Italian regional evidence, focusing on central Italy. In contrast to prior interpretations of this period as the cradle of Bronze Age social inequality and the prestige goods economy, I argue that, at this juncture, prehistoric society reconfigured burial practices into powerful new media for cultural communication and employed new materials and objects as novel identity markers. Stratified political elites may not be among the new identities that emerged at this time in the social landscape of prehistoric Italy.

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Section: Funerary Practices and Ideas Of The Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

From the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in Central Italy: Settlement, Burial, and Social Change at the Dawn of Metal Production

Dolfini

2019

J Archaeol Res

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“…Indirect examples are also documented, such as bone callus resulting from injuries due to a throwing weapon (Jeunesse et al, 1993). More widely, Neolithic iconographies showing men with bows involved in hunting and warfare are well known in the Spanish Levant painting, South Italian caves, or certain Çatal Höyük buildings (Hodder, 2006;López-Montalvo, 2011;Mellaart, 1967;Whitehouse, 2001).…”

Section: Men Values: Courage Strength and Known-howmentioning

confidence: 99%

Funerary Practices as a Testimony of Ideology in Western Linearbandkeramik Culture

Augereau

2021

Open Archaeology

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The Linearbandkeramik (LBK) is behind the spread of the Neolithic way of life in a large part of Western Europe. This period is often regarded as the beginning of social inequalities whose ideological frameworks deserve to be highlighted. According to social anthropologists, funerary practices are relevant for this debate as they reflect the symbolic thought in relation to death. In addition, as they are perpetuated by the living, funerary practices are pertinent in addressing the ideological values, symbolic systems, and thoughts that support social organisation. Whilst examining how grave goods are allocated amongst the LBK population, we have identified a small group of dominant men characterised by a specific burial kit (adzes, arrows, lighter set, and red deer antlers), a richer protein intake in diet, and their local origin. Comparing them to other social categories characterised by minor marking of identity in grave goods, poorer protein intake in diet, and of diverse origin, we aim to explore the ideological frameworks and values sustaining the social LBK system. LBK dominant ideology appears to revolve around hunting and exploits in warfare, manhood, and virility, in short around violent behaviours perhaps linked to a territorial competition.

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“…The statements made by a leading scholar in the field, one of the most respected individuals in Italophone Etruscan archaeology, exposed the lack of engagement and deliberate avoidance of archaeological theory in the sub-discipline. The large body of work by many, largely female, scholars on the complexities of gender in pre-Roman Italy, summarised by Whitehouse (2001) and typified by the papers collected in Whitehouse (1998) and Herring and Lomas (2009), was entirely ignored. While the original statements and implications regarding the position of the spear and the gender of the individual buried with it are understandable in the rush of discovery and the desire to share information with an agog media, the follow-up interpretation is deeply dissatisfying, and bears comparison to other examples of confused reassessments when gender stereotypes are challenged by archaeological evidence.…”

Section: Androcentric Assumptions Exposedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leaping to conclusions: archaeology, gender and digital news media

Shipley

2015

Antiquity

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In the autumn of 2013, a discovery was made in the Doganaccia necropolis close to the ancient Etruscan city of Tarquinia. A sepulchre was uncovered, mercifully and unusually unlooted. Inside were the remains of two individuals and a range of grave goods, allowing the tomb to be typologically dated to the late seventh or early sixth century BC. One of the individuals had been cremated, while the other was laid out in a supine position. Both were placed on funeral benches similar to those known from Etruscan tombs across the region (Steingräber 2009). This excavation was as unusual as it was spectacular—the equally vigorous efforts of nineteenth-century enthusiasts (Leighton 2004: 12) and twentieth-century tomb robbers (van Velzen 1999: 180) have left little of the Etruscan burial record undisturbed. Unsurprisingly, there was a great deal of media excitement over the burial, as its excavator, distinguished Etruscan scholar Alessandro Mandolesi, spoke with the press of his impressions of the remains and their relationship to the artefacts found in the tomb. Little of his exact words remain in the public sphere, but the impression he provided to the press was clear in the flurry of media reports that followed his statement. The ensuing media interest and archaeological developments present a number of serious issues for the practice of archaeology in an age in which digital media can magnify the impact of any major discovery. In addition, the interpretation put forward exposed the continued androcentrism inherent in many sub-disciplines of archaeology, which, 30 years on from Conkey and Spector's (1984) transformative publication, remain locked in deeply problematic interpretative patterns. This interpretation of the Tarquinia burial is emblematic of a far wider phenomenon, both within and beyond Italy, which has serious implications for future archaeological practice. This article unpicks both the media storm and interpretative paradigms that characterised this case study, and queries archaeological responsibility and visibility in an age of 24-hour news.

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Exploring gender in prehistoric Italy

Cited by 11 publications

References 18 publications

From the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in Central Italy: Settlement, Burial, and Social Change at the Dawn of Metal Production

From the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in Central Italy: Settlement, Burial, and Social Change at the Dawn of Metal Production

Funerary Practices as a Testimony of Ideology in Western Linearbandkeramik Culture

Leaping to conclusions: archaeology, gender and digital news media

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