Exploring Sex and Gender in Bioarchaeology
Exploring Sex and Gender in Bioarchaeology
This volume brings together the latest approaches in bioarchaeology in the study of sex and gender. Archaeologists have long used skeletal remains to identify gender. Contemporary bioarchaeologists, however, have begun to challenge the theoretical and methodological basis for sex assignment from the skeleton. Simultaneously, they have started to consider the cultural construction of the gendered body and gender roles, recognizing the body as uniquely fashioned from the interaction of biological, social, and environmental factors. As the contributors to this volume reveal, combining skeletal data with contextual information can provide a richer understanding of life in the past.
This text is a must read for current and aspiring bioarchaeologists who want to consider the social, cultural, and biological influences that gender and sex have had on health in the past and who want to contribute further to conceptions of gender and sex in bioarchaeological research.
Sabrina C. Agarwal is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the coeditor of Bone Loss and Osteoporosis: An Anthropological Perspective and Social Bioarchaeology as well as founder and coeditor in chief of Bioarchaeology International. Julie K. Wesp is a professorial lecturer in the department of anthropology at American University. She is a contributor to New Developments in the Bioarchaeology of Care: Further Case Studies and Expanded Theory.
Preface
;Sabrina C. Agarwal and Julie K. Wesp
Chapter One. Sex, Gender, and Anthropology: Moving Bioarchaeology Outside the Subdiscipline
;Rosemary A. Joyce
Part I. Theoretical Approaches to Sex and Gender in the Past
Chapter Two. Bones, Biases, and Birth: Excavating Contemporary Gender Norms from Reproductive Bodies of the Past
;Dana Walrath
Chapter Three. Bioarchaeological Approaches to Nonbinary Genders: Case Studies from Native North America
;Sandra E. Hollimon
Chapter Four. Brave Old World: Ancient DNA Testing and Sex Determination
;Pamela L. Geller
Chapter Five. Embodying Sex/Gender Systems in Bioarchaeological Research
;Julie K. Wesp
Part II. Bioarchaeological Reconstructions of Gendered Identity, Health, and Disease
Chapter Six. On the Stories of Men and the Substance of Women: Interrogating Gender through Violence
;Shannon A. Novak
Chapter Seven. Understanding Sex- and Gender-Related Patterns of Bone Loss and Health in the Past: A Case Study from the Neolithic Community of Çatalhöyük
;Sabrina C. Agarwal
Chapter Eight. Sex and Frailty: Patterns from Catastrophic and Attritional Assemblages in Medieval Europe
;Sharon N. DeWitte
Chapter Nine. Mercury in the Midst of Mars and Venus: Reconstructing Gender, Sexuality, and Socioeconomic Status in Relation to Mercury Treatment for Syphilis in Seventeenth- to Nineteenth-Century London
;Molly K. Zuckerman
Chapter Ten. Bioarchaeology of Oral Health: Sex and Gender Differences in Dental Disease
;John R. Lukacs
Index
