Are grave goods any good? A combined post-processual and post-humanist approach to the limitations of using grave goods to infer biological sex and gender

Solomou, Anastasia
(2022) Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) 43 ‘Revolutions’, 2022 — Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom (15.December.2022)

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The development of gender and feminist theory within the past decades has brought the complex and culturally determined nature of biological sex and gender to the fore (Butler 2004; Lorber 1996). This has driven archaeologists to reconsider the way in which past identities are interpreted in archaeological research (Jordan 2016; Harrell 2014; Arnold 2012; Costin 1996). Nonetheless, within the funerary arena, binary, heteronormative interpretive frameworks remain abundant in the literature (Ghisleni et al. 2016), largely drawing from the engendering of grave offerings (Weglian 2001). This paper discusses the limitations surrounding the inference of biological sex and gender though grave offerings. I approach this question by implementing three theoretical frameworks: a) theories of identity and b) performativity, and c) a materialistic approach, allowing a multi-facetted exploration of the nature of grave goods in relation to biological sex and gender through means that are widely familiar within the realm of theoretical archaeology. I argue that grave offerings are socially constructed polysemic enactive signs (Malafouris 2013; Hodder 2012), which afford the display of intentionally manipulated identities (Harris and Cipolla 2017). This renders their signification often illegible to individuals who are not culturally inducted, including modern researchers. Furthermore, they are situated within funerary contexts, where social roles were suspended and renegotiated andwhich do not passively reflect the societal organisation, including potential sex or gender divisions (Parker Pearson 1999). By acknowledging these limitations, we can further limit the essentialist transferring of notions of our present-day western culture to temporally and often spatially distant societies.
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Solomou, A. (2022). Are grave goods any good? A combined post-processual and post-humanist approach to the limitations of using grave goods to infer biological sex and gender. Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) 43 ‘Revolutions’, 2022, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/271078