Gender and the Archaeology of Death

Burials are places where archaeologists reasonably expect gendered ideologies and practices to play out in the archaeological record. Yet only modest progress has been made in teasing out gender from these mortuary contexts. In this volume, methods for doing so are presented, cases of successful gender theorizing from mortuary data presented, and comparisons made between European and Americanist traditions in this kind of work. Cases are broad in temporal and geographic scope--from Inuit burials in Alaska and Oneota mortuary rituals to Viking Scandinavia, Neolithic China and Iron Age Britain. Methods for identifying and analyzing gender are suggested for cultures at various levels of social complexity with or without documentary or ethnoarchaeological evidence to assist in the analysis. A volume of great interest for those attempting to develop an archaeology of gender. Visit Bettina Arnold's web page