Are swords for boys and jewellery for girls? Exploring ‘epistemic violence’, sex and gender through a comparative analysis of ‘female warrior graves’ across the world.

Sex estimation is one of the most important parts of osteological research and mortuary analysis. Since its origins it has remained fixed in binary ideas of our modern gender roles and female/male fixed binary identities. This potentially leads to bias, especially when often sex is estimated based on the associated grave goods the individual was buried with. This thesis aims to explore whether it is true there are bias in the way we approach mortuary analysis, in order to do that a comparative analysis was conducted of graves were the individual was buried with swords and other male associated grave goods, which lead to the original excavation team to estimate the sex as male. These burials where later on revisited and different estimation methods proved that the individual did not belong to the male sex. The thesis aims to analyse these case studies through the lens of gender theory and Gender archaeology in order to explore more nuanced ways of conducting sex estimation that will...Show moreSex estimation is one of the most important parts of osteological research and mortuary analysis. Since its origins it has remained fixed in binary ideas of our modern gender roles and female/male fixed binary identities. This potentially leads to bias, especially when often sex is estimated based on the associated grave goods the individual was buried with. This thesis aims to explore whether it is true there are bias in the way we approach mortuary analysis, in order to do that a comparative analysis was conducted of graves were the individual was buried with swords and other male associated grave goods, which lead to the original excavation team to estimate the sex as male. These burials where later on revisited and different estimation methods proved that the individual did not belong to the male sex. The thesis aims to analyse these case studies through the lens of gender theory and Gender archaeology in order to explore more nuanced ways of conducting sex estimation that will minimize the bias that is brought into the field.Show less

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Are swords for boys and jewellery for girls? Exploring ‘epistemic violence’, sex and gender through a comparative analysis of ‘female warrior graves’ across the world.