Sex differences in activity-related osseous change in the spine and the gendered division of labor at Ensay and Wharram Percy, UK

Sex differences in the distribution of vertebral degenerative and plastic change were examined and compared within and between samples of 51 individuals from the historically and ethnographically documented 16th–19th century site of Ensay, the Outer Hebrides, and 59 individuals from the medieval site of Wharram Percy, the Yorkshire Wolds. Both populations have a known gendered division of labor between males and females and known activity-related stresses on the spine. Osseous changes normally associated with degenerative joint disease (osteoarthritis) of the apophyseal facets and osteophytosis of the vertebral bodies were scored and reported separately. Inter- and intrasite differences were found in the frequency and distribution of osseous change down the spine. Overall, the Ensay sample was more highly stressed than that from Wharram Percy. Furthermore, differences between males and females at Ensay could be identified as relating to different types of activities. Distinctions between males and females at Wharram Percy were less marked, suggesting broadly similar lifestyles. These results accorded with expectations regarding contrasting levels of activity-related stress at the two sites and the division of labor between males and females. In particular, the prevalence and distribution of facet remodeling, facet sclerosis/eburnation, and osteophytosis in Ensay females could be related to load-bearing using creels (a form of basket), which disrupted “normal” patterns of osseous change along the spine. Importantly, morphologically distinct osseous modifications recorded on the apophyseal facets produced dissimilar distributions, suggesting that they may have different etiologies. These results highlight the need for a high degree of discrimination in recording, analyzing, and exploring activity-related osseous chang

Rings of life: the role of early metalwork in mediating the gendered life course

This paper explores the changing role of early metalwork in mediating age-gender dimensions of social identity in the Copper Age of the Carpathian Basin. Taking a life course approach, it suggests that metal was used to convey difference within exceptionally complex and contrasting constructions of male and female life. Variation in the use of metal throughout the Copper Age was linked to shifts in the pattern of age-gender life course constructions. The expansion of metalworking in the early Copper Age may be regarded as a socio-cultural development of the categorization of the person originating in the late Neolithic, enabling those categories to be maintained and refined. The decline in metal production at the end of the Copper Age can be related to a reconfiguration of age and gender relations. The design of metal objects played an important role in expressing the performed relationship between biological and social life change. In mediating the life course, metal objects acted as foci of time, powerful symbols of life stages and events

Age and gender at the site of Tiszapolgár-Basatanya, Hungary

Two fundamentals for the place of the individual in society are age and gender; well-studied cemeteries can provide an good archaeological base for their study. This examination of the Copper Age site of Tiszapolgár-Basatanya, Hungary, explores the relationship between age and gender though the course of prehistoric lives and how it might be possible to distinguish sex from gender in archaeological contexts

Gender archaeology as contextual archaeology : a critical examination of the tensions between method and theory in the archaeology of gender.

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