The Social Anthropology of a Neolithic Cemetery in the Netherlands [and Comments and Reply]

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Fibiger

et al. 2012

164

123

Community differentiation is a fundamental topic of the social sciences, and its prehistoric origins in Europe are typically assumed to lie among the complex, densely populated societies that developed millennia after their Neolithic predecessors. Here we present the earliest, statistically significant evidence for such differentiation among the first farmers of Neolithic Europe. By using strontium isotopic data from more than 300 early Neolithic human skeletons, we find significantly less variance in geographic signatures among males than we find among females, and less variance among burials with ground stone adzes than burials without such adzes. From this, in context with other available evidence, we infer differential land use in early Neolithic central Europe within a patrilocal kinship system.

mentioning

confidence: 64%

Community differentiation and kinship among Europe’s first farmers

Bentley

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Fibiger

et al. 2012

164

123

“…This does not mean, however, that LBK scholars have ignored gender, or rather the categories of man and woman (e.g. Jeunesse 1997; Moddermann 1988; Nieszery 1995; Pavúk 1972; Röder 1998; van de Velde 1979a, b; Veit 1993; 1996). A review of how LBK gender has been interpreted is instructive of how difference defined-by-lack has led to the reproduction of modern binary gendered hierarchies.…”

Section: Gender In the Early Neolithic: The Case Of The Lbkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As envisioned for the LBK to date, patrilocality has mostly operated in archaeological narratives to place male actors as the central driving force for the society, controlling resources and amassing prestige through material culture, architecture, or social ties, targeted at maintaining descent through the male line (e.g. Moddermann 1988; van der Velde 1979a, b; 1990). In other words, it has naturalized binary gender hierarchies, in which power and status, achieved through amassing critical resources, are ultimately to be found in male control of biological reproduction.…”

Section: Lbk Kinship and Gender Hierarchymentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking Gender Differently: New Approaches to Identity Difference in the Central European Neolithic

2019

CAJ

Gender in the European Neolithic has seen little debate, despite major scholarly interest in identity and social relationships. This article considers how gender operated in the Linearbandkeramik (LBK, c. 5500–5000 cal. bc), the first farming culture of central Europe. A new theoretical approach is developed from the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, and the feminist philosopher Braidotti, proposing that how difference and variation are conceived is an important element in how identity is experienced and performed. The concept of ‘difference-within-itself’ is introduced and applied to an assemblage of c. 2350 burials from the LBK via correspondence analysis. The results of this analysis are combined with variation in daily activities and health between male-sexed bodies and female-sexed bodies to argue that differences between males and females shaped lifeways in the LBK, providing different and varied ways of participating in social life. It is concluded that there was diversity and fluidity in female identities, while male identities had more limited possibilities and were subject to further social constraints. The implications of these gendered differences for models of LBK social organization are then considered.

“…Such an imagery contrasts starkly with how the female sex has been characterized. Dominating among the settlement rather than the cemetery burials, women are often considered to have a rather low status (van de Velde, 1979a(van de Velde, , 1979bVeit, 1993Veit, , 1996Jeunesse, 1997: 53;Hofmann, 2009). Female graves also give the impression of containing fewer and less high status grave goods, though this is largely because they tend not to have polished stone objects (Hedges et al, 2013: 378).…”

Section: Embodied Identities In the Lbk Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

Ageing, Childhood and Social Identity in the Early Neolithic of Central Europe

Fibiger

2014

Eur. j. archaeol.

In this paper, osteological and archaeological data are brought together to further our understanding of childhood in the early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik culture (LBK; c. 5500-5000 cal BC). In many characterizations of LBK society, fixed representations of sex or identities based on subsistence strategies pervade, with children rarely considered and then only as a specialized and separate topic of study. As a challenge to this view, a summary of the current models of childhood in the LBK culture is presented and debated with reference to the burial rites of children. A period of 'middle' childhood is proposed for the LBK culture. The osteological evidence suggests that childhood could be a time of dietary stress, perhaps with sex-based differences from childhood, and examples of the diseases and traumas suffered are discussed. Finally, the possibility that the children were actively contributing to acts of personal violence is raised. While the recognition of identity making as a continuous process remains a powerful exploratory route to investigating prehistoric societies, we argue that this should not discourage us from seeing identity as formed over the entire lifecourse.