From Ivory Man to Ivory Lady: gender bias in ancient archeology
The analysis of gender in ancient remains such as bones or skeletons is difficult. Prehistoric societies often mutilated or incinerated human remains as part of burial rites making it very challenging for scientists to extract any useful information. Human remains are often very poorly preserved after thousands of years specially in warmer climates; looting, animal scavenging and soil chemistry also play a role in the poor conservation of the remains. Under these conditions, scientists rely on sexual morphological traits to determine the sex of the remains, primarily by examining the pelvis and the cranium which is in itself a challenging task. Thus, scientists have relied on artefacts and other materials found at the site of the burial on which to base their decisions.
Hominins have survived as “hunter-gatherers”, gathering whatever edible food they could find and hunting wild animals for their meat (protein) intake. Traditionally, succumbing to gender bias, scientists have attributed the role of hunters to men and gatherers to women. Thus, if fighting and hunting implements are found near or surrounding the remains, the sex is determined to be male.
Ancient DNA has been used in the past wherever available that can deliver a precise sex determination but DNA preservation in hot and dry regions is extremely poor. A new scientific technique has recently been developed that now enables scientists to determine the sex of the remains: sexually dimorphic amelogenin peptides in tooth enamel, that is generally sufficiently well preserved even after thousands of years, are analysed by nanoflow liquid chromatography - tandem mass spectrometry to successfully deliver an exact sex determination of the remains. Cf below:
Marta Cintas-Peña, Miriam Luciañez-Triviño, Raquel Montero Artús, Andrea Bileck, Patricia Bortel, Fabian Kanz, Katharina Rebay-Salisbury & Leonardo García Sanjuán, Amelogenin peptide analyses reveal female leadership in Copper Age Iberia (c. 2900–2650 BC), Scientific Reports volume13, Article number: 9594 (2023
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-36368-x)
The results of analyses that are being carried out are certainly going to revolutionise the gender bias of the past as the following sensational findings beautifully demonstrate.
Valencina in Sevilla, SW Spain, is a massive 450 hectares Copper Age (c. 3200–2200 BC) site that has led to the discovery of the largest collection of human bone and exquisite artefacts identified in any Iberian copper age site.
Discovered in 2008, one particular burial was found to be highly remarkable. At the time of death, the individual buried was between 17 and 25 years of age. The person was a local and the fact that the bones contained a high level of mercury indicates that the individual was highly exposed to cinnebar The individual had been buried along with a large ceramic plate that contained traces of cannabis and wine, a small copper awl and many ivory objects including a full tusk weighing 1.8 kg, of an African elephant. Of particular interest was a dagger made of rock crystal and an ivory handle decorated with beads made of mother of pearl.
The individual buried was clearly of a very high social position, the person was no doubt wealthy and powerful. Based on all the artefacts found on the site, archeologists concluded that the individual was male and the young individual was called the “ivory man”.
The new amelogenin peptide analysis described above has now shown that the individual was in fact a female - the IVORY LADY.
This study shows that many previous conclusions on the gender of ancient remains is flawed and influenced by gender bias attributing the role of hunters to men and of gatherers to women. The Ivory Lady had very clearly attained a socially prominent and powerful position that no man in Copper Age in Valencina could have attained. Prehistoric archeology needs to be revised to take into account that gender bias was for sure either non-existent or not as pronounced as today.
