Archaeologists distinguish between sex, which is biologically determined, and gender, which is regarded as a social construct. Gender is the identity assigned to different sexes. In any human society there is some difference between the roles of men and women. There are obvious anatomical differences between male and female originating from the idea that women give birth. Gender explains these differences and specifies what is to be done about them. There is a great difference from one society to another. In the early stages of hominid development, males were up to twice the size of females but this distinction had largely disappeared by the time the modern human had emerged. Gender differences were far more extreme in late nineteenth – and early twentieth-century in West European societies, than they were among historically known food-foraging peoples. Males are frequently portrayed ad the active sex in human evolution. For example, hunting was seen as the key humanising activity in evolution. Since then the importance of scavenging and the likely role of women in the transition from gathering to horticulture has been recognised.
Jane Spector – studying gender differentiation in archaeological contexts necessitates prior background work in ethnographic contexts, dealing with tasks performed by women and men, areas within settlement used for such activity, equipment and value assigned to task. This makes it possible to suggest far more about gender roles in prehistory but it will be a long time before the results of such work are ready to be used when establishing the differing roles.
Ethnographic studies are employed to gain insights into task differentiation between males and females. The underlying problem with this is that most anthropologists are male. This has led to criticism, as males appear to be more interested in male activities and have failed to observe female tasks and behaviour.
Cave paintings found in the Ural Mountains are an example of how women were viewed in the Stone Age society. Vladimir Shirokov says that the paintings, which date from the Upper Paleolithic period of human development, are thought to describe what young men needed to know about the world in order to survive. There are paintings depicting animals such as mammoths, bison, horses, deer, etc. Shirokov believes that these were educational aids to train boys to hunt. There were also pictures of a stylised figure of a woman, with three lines of red dots between her legs. Presumably this was an indication of the fertility of women and their ability to reproduce. This demonstrates how prehistoric art can assist archaeologists in their research of the differences of roles between the sexes.
Another way in which archaeologists can differentiate between the roles of males and females is by studying skeleton bones. If a person carries out a particular task for their whole life, a mark will be left. For example, men’s marks are known to have come from hunting, and paddling (kayaks), whereas women’s has come from activities such as basketry, weaving and food production.
Abu Hureyra, in northern Syria, is a site where the skeletal remains found; demonstrate examples of bodies being affected by particular tasks. Theya Molleson wrote an article about the daily grind in Abu Hureyra, an early Near Eastern agricultural community left revealing marks on the skeletons of the inhabitants. One of the first skeletal traits noticed were signs of extra and sometimes excessive strains caused by the carrying of loads, most likely game, grain and building materials. Women had to kneel and grind the grain using a quern whilst on their knees. This was done for many hours a day, which strains the toes and knees and puts additional pressure on the hips and, especially, the lower back. The bone abnormalities appeared among the people of Abu Hureyra as a result of various activities. Carrying loads on their heads deformed the bones of the upper spine; the pitting found in the vertebra indicates disk damage. Pounding grain in a mortar and pestle and operating a quern strongly developed the arm muscles.
When determining the sexes at Abu Hureyra, measurements of the first metatarsal bone of the foot demonstrated that it was generally larger in males, and by this means I was determined that most of the bones showing the saddle-quern effects were from females. It was concluded that the women and girls in the household usually prepared the grain, whereas the men hunted and cultivated food plants.
The gendered division of labour/roles is generally accepted to be universal in anatomically and behaviourally “modern” human groups, although it is uncertain when in the evolution of our species it developed. It is a great common presumption that the primary function of gender is to organise labour. Gender did not arise specifically as a means of organising economic and other activities, but there is a link between gender and the division of labour. Gender is normally the primary factor, as well as age, that determines who does what.
