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Cited by 66Archaeological and Geological StudiesGender and Feminist StudiesArchaeology and ancient environmental studies

BECOMING GENDERED IN EUROPEAN PREHISTORY: WAS NEOLITHIC GENDER FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT?

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Robb, John, Harris, Oliver J. T.·2018·American Antiquity
DOI 10.1017/aaq.2017.54
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Abstract

It is notable how little gender archaeology has been written for the European Neolithic, in contrast to the following Bronze Age. We cannot blame this absence on a lack of empirical data or on archaeologists’ theoretical naïveté. Instead, we argue that this absence reflects the fact that gender in this period was qualitatively different in form from the types of gender that emerged in Europe from about 3000 cal BC onwards; the latter still form the norm in European and American contexts today, and our standard theories and methodologies are designed to uncover this specific form of gender. In Bronze Age gender systems, gender was mostly binary, associated with stable, lifelong identities expressed in recurrent complexes of gendered symbolism. In contrast, Neolithic gender appears to have been less firmly associated with personal identity and more contextually relevant; it slips easily through our methodological nets. In proposing this “contextual gender” model for Neolithic gender, we both open up new understandings of gender in the past and present and pose significant questions for our models of gender more widely.

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  • Neolithic personhood may have been situational or contextual, rather in the manner of so-called 'Great Man' societies: authority or capacity in one sphere of action did not necessarily convey power in other spheres.

    “It may have been accompanied by a model of personhood which was situational or contextual, rather in the manner of so-called “Great Man” societies (Godelier and Strathern 1991): authority or capacity in one sphere of action did not necessarily convey power in other spheres (Fowler 2004; Robb and Harris 2018).”

    From Art (Pre)History: Ritual, Narrative and Visual Culture in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe (2020) · cites this paper as Robb and Harris 2018

    In “Neolithic Gender: It’s about Contextual Difference,” Robb and Harris propose that gender could be expressed differently across contexts; the Conclusion contrasts this with later, cross-contextual social personas. Their account supports the contextual aspect of the claim, but our copy does not say that authority or capacity in one sphere failed to confer power in another. (LLM, conf=0.83)

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  • Bronze Age society seems to have been much more gender-conscious; gender emerges as a key organising principal and an obligatory social category in contexts in which it often had not been marked before.

    “First, Bronze Age society seems to have been much more gender-conscious; gender emerges as a key organising principal and an obligatory social category in contexts in which it often had not been marked before (Robb and Harris 2018).”

    From Art (Pre)History: Ritual, Narrative and Visual Culture in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe (2020) · cites this paper as Robb and Harris 2018

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3 of the 110 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 21

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  2. Edwards, Benjamin, and Rachel Pope 2013 Gender in British Prehistory. In A Companion to Gender Prehistory, edited by D. Bolger, pp. 458-479.
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  9. Hitchcock, Louise, and Marianna Nikolaidou 2013 Gender in Greek and Aegean Prehistory. In A Com- panion to Gender Prehistory, edited by Diane Bolger, pp. 505-525. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, England.
  10. Holmes, Katie, and Ruth Whitehouse 1998 Anthropomorphic Figurines and the Construction of Gender in Neolithic Italy. In Gender and Italian Archaeology: Challenging the Stereotypes, edited by Ruth Whitehouse, pp. 95-126. Accordia Research Cen- ter, London.
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  16. Schulting, Rick J. 2015 Stable Isotopes and Neolithic Substance. In The Oxford Handbook in Neolithic Europe, edited by Chris Fowler, Jan Harding and Daniela Hof- mann, pp. 361-383. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
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  21. BECOMING GENDERED IN EUROPEAN PREHISTORY Vander Linden, Marc 2015 Bell Beaker Pottery and Society. In The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe, edited by Chris Fowler, Jan Harding, and Daniela Hofmann, pp. 605-620. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

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Related

Authors
Robb, J., & Harris, O. J. T.
Affiliations
  • University of Cambridge (GB)
  • University of Leicester (GB)
Corresponding author
Robb, John
ORCID
Venue
American Antiquity
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2017-10-17
Volume
83
Issue
1
Pages
128-147
ISSN
  • 0002-7316 (ISSN-L)
  • 2325-5064
DOI
10.1017/aaq.2017.54
OpenAlex
W2725286439
Cited by
66
References
110
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 3
FWCI
25.46
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified)
Locations
  • American Antiquity (publishedVersion)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Leicester Research Archive (University of Leicester) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Apollo (University of Cambridge) (submittedVersion)
  • Apollo
Funders
  • Northwestern University
  • Syracuse University
  • Wellcome Trust (096510, 096510/Z/11/Z, /Z/11/Z)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology › Archaeological and Geological Studies
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Feminist Studies
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
Keywords
gender archaeology, Neolithic, Bronze Age, gender identity, European prehistory, gender system

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