Archeologists uncovered the body of a lone girl decked with artifacts associated with hunting, masculinity, and power amid a group of Stone Age burial mounds dedicated to prominent males. The rationale for this odd arrangement of bones is open to speculation, but the researchers believe it may provide insight into how this Neolithic European civilization regarded sex and power.
The finding was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America very recently. The enormous burial mounds discovered at Fleury-sur-Orne, Normandy, France, are thought to be among the earliest funerary constructions in Western Europe, dating from roughly 4600 to 4300 BCE. They belonged to the Cerny civilization and include a remarkable set-up that includes elevated mounds that span up to 300 meters (984 ft) in length and are used to bury only one or two persons.
The researchers employed a variety of archeological approaches to uncover identify and affiliations of whoever was buried here, as they were definitely of social value. The crew discovered 19 remains at the cemetery, 14 of which were in excellent enough condition for DNA analysis. This indicated that 13 of the corpses were male, while one was female, which was unexpected. Even stranger, the single female was buried with arrowheads, a Cerny emblem generally associated with powerful males. “A simply biological sex bias in the burial customs of this otherwise masculine monumental cemetery,” the researchers believe.
“The existence of just one woman in Fleury-sur-Orne, equipped with a masculine symbol, highlights the centrality of male identity in the regional representation of Cerny culture,” the research authors wrote. “The male-gendered artifact’s attribution extends beyond biological sexual identification. This suggests a sine qua [essential] non-condition for this lady, and hence a male gender, which has gained her admission to this magnificent cemetery through burial ceremonies,” they continue.
The victims’ genetic makeup offered some information about how power was distributed in the Cerny civilization. Two sets of persons were recognized as father and son, one buried together in the same monument and the other buried in the same tomb. This suggests that this civilization used a “patrilineal” system, in which authority was passed down through the male line, and women were merely “married in” to the clan.
However, scientists discovered no further biological connections between the many distinct remains discovered at the cemetery, suggesting that the group came from a range of separate lineages. The lone female’s presence does throw off the overall appearance of the site. However, there are several additional examples of women in powerful positions that are generally associated with masculinity. As these examples demonstrate, gender conceptions and assumptions are fluid and vary greatly among cultures.
