Stone age non binary woman.

[deadpan]

Wtf is going on with the daily mail online. I don't like the mail btw, they did great work on the post office scandal but that's about as far as my slight admiration goes.

They have seemed pretty good on GI too, but why do they have this ridiculous headline, and not only that, in their science news.

My main question for them though is, how did they know the skeleton was a female skeleton if we're all "assigned"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15613181/Stone-Age-woman-buried-MAN.html

Whilst anybody with a functional brain can safely disregard the majority of what the DM endearingly likes to think of as journalism, I suspect what's going on here is that the female skeleton in question was buried according to their social/communal standing, rather than this being the irrefutable proof of neolithic gender fluidity the DM 'article' suggests.

That she may well have performed tasks normally reserved for men is not the same thing as suggesting she lived as a man. I suspect she was simply an example of an especially self-assured, prominent woman who took no shit.

They call her a non-binary woman, though. So clearly they haven't liberated themselves from the binary of non-binary woman versus non-binary man.

I wonder how a non-binary non-binary person would be buried.

What a load of bollocks this all is.

Wtf was the binary at that time? Who's got the time machine and checked? Bearing in mind not that long ago culturally in the UK there would have been many little boys skipping around in pink with that seen as a code of masculinity rather than time to call Mermaids.

Did she identify herself as non binary? Has she left her pronouns etched somewhere?

Or was this done to her by others, in which case who knows how she actually felt about it or its meaning?

All this means is that a biological woman was found in a burial style that is fucking with previous assumed knowledge, it's about the breadth of womanhood, not a sign that a woman has somehow ascended above the boring, limited, box of other 'women' towards the glory state of approaching being a man.

This looks like DM rage-bait to me.

I'm having trouble figuring out what your problem is, is it the use of 'non-binary'

I read a lot nonfiction books about prehistory and early humans as I find it really interesting. Modern consensus seems to be that our modern strict male/female social roles really impacted how (usually male) researchers interpreted burial sites etc. But now archaeologists tend to think that there weren't such strict social roles. Hence finding female skeletons buried in a way that male skeletons were often buried.

Lo and behold, even if you do what seems to be a traditionally man’s job, and they bury you in the (theoretical) style of a man, you remain a woman. It’s like gender roles are separate from sex.

😂

That doesn't mean they identified as non binary. I can't say "that doesn't mean they were non binary" because no one is non binary.

Quite. How would women have survived without some among them like that.

This is just the DM shit-stirring.

It is notable and interesting when you find male or female burials which deviate significantly from expected patterns. It does raise questions about what kind of role they had in life and whether our archaeological theory needs a new rethink.

I have no idea if they'd identify as non-binary if you magicked them up into the 21st century.

I think more importantly is why the people who are actually saying this according to the article - French National Centre for Scientific Research - aren't being questioned.

And of course the DM has published it as a wind up.

Because they know they will get lots of clicks.

It is amazing that in the 21 Century anyone is suprised that in different periods of history that were all exceptions to the norms of men did this, women did that.

It seems like every month someone discovers a burial of a woman that doesnt conform to what male dominated society assumes is the norm.

I didn't post it at the time, but currently some museum somewhere in the UK is changing how it explains many of its historical collections to show how they are part of how history is really "queer".

Who knew that women who dressed as men to get acess to better jobs, escape from home etc., were really trans not women escaping sexist stereo types.

Apparently the research is from 2023:

AI Overview

A 2023 study by French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) researchers and colleagues found that approximately 10% of prehistoric, Neolithic, and Bronze Age burials in Central Europe contained individuals whose gender expression did not conform to traditional male-female binaries. Analyzing over 1,200 graves, researchers identified individuals buried with items typically associated with the opposite sex, suggesting more fluid gender roles.

Key Findings on Non-Binary Burials:

Significance: While the majority of burials followed binary gender norms, a "small but significant" minority (10%) indicated non-binary identities, according to this IFLScience article.

Examples: Examples included a male skeleton in Italy buried with traditionally feminine objects like hair spirals, and a female skeleton in Germany buried with typically masculine items such as fishing gear and boar tusks.

Evidence Basis: The study, published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, utilized grave goods to determine gender roles, note these ResearchGate search results.

Context: The researchers noted that these individuals were not treated as marginal, suggesting they were accepted and integrated members of their communities.

Limitations: The team acknowledged that 70% of the burials lacked sufficient data for full analysis, and determining sex based solely on skeletal remains has limitations.

This study suggests that while binary, sex-matched, and gender-matched burials were dominant, they did not account for the entire, diverse, prehistoric population.

Hmm, I think we are all in violent agreement - the only thing this burial demonstrates is that things which were previously believed to be coded as male, probably weren’t. Strict gender stereotyping is a luxury many Stone Age communities would not have been able to support

Shame they didn’t have tombstones as a quick check of pronouns could have confirmed it.

Yes I think so. Of course a long time ago, there would have been no need for someone to 'come out' as non-binary if gender roles were less strict, as archaeologists are increasingly thinking. Though today I think it's more needed as a sort of shorthand for deciding not to stick to society's norms. And to find other like minded people. If our society was less rigid about it I think we'd see far fewer non binary and indeed trans people

Oh FFS.

First we have decades of male archaeologists looking for any excuse to explain ‘male-coded’ artefacts found with women other than the flaming obvious conclusion that the women used them. Now the GI loons are getting in on the act.

PLEASE someone conclude that women are perfectly capable rounded human beings with a variety of skills. PLEASE 🤯

Let's confuse the f*ck out of future Alice Robertses by being buried with football jerseys, power tools, etc

It must be terribly exciting to have a whole new angle to wang on about in your research and published wotsits, I can see all sorts of people jumping with glee, oh look! We can do stone age gender! I can bang out several thousands of words about this, yippee! Has annoyed the crap out of me on the odd podcast, you can feel the frisson of excitement, ooo, gender!
Same shit, different age, of course women couldn't possibly be just boring old cunty women doing non-stereotypical things, that might mean they actually existed in their own right rather than just in relation to the cock bearers, the actual real human beings.
I wish it would all just fuck right off.

Wow! That is such a revelation.
I hope someone can invent a time machine soon so they can nip back to the early 1990s. I'd make an exciting case study as the only female in my entire department at college.
I was clearly non binary without knowing it and not just doing what I chose to, as obviously females can't do that, not now, not in the 1990s and definitely not in the stone age...

I'm honestly not sure the gender stereotyping really is that rigid in reality, beyond the heavy sexist marketing of clothes and toys- there are plenty of little boys running around in princess dresses in nursery, no one these days is going to harass a boy not to cry, girls are encouraged that they can be and do anything they want - misogyny continues to be the big problem, but when you hear the emotive tales of 'I had to transition so I could cry and not park properly and be looked after and wear frilly knickers' - it's usually talking about the person's own inner sexism/misogyny and sex addiction rather than anyone really imposing this.

Let's be honest, there is no such thing as nonbinary.

Yeah, now I’m going to disagree, because, by your own description, ‘coming out as non-binary’ implies that everyone else has decided to stick to society’s gender stereotypes. That’s an assumption I strongly disagree with.

I don't think it does. Societal norms of gender stereotypes are just that, norms, because most people stick to them. Some people decide not to stick with them and just sort of quietly get on with their lives, and other people decide not to stick to them and make that more public. But they're norms because they're normal.

Also, this is some thing of a false analysis.

Most people without wealth or status would just have had a simple burial, cremation or whatever.

Graves with articles of value at the time would be as much about those doing the burying as the person themselves. For all any of us know a woman buried with a sword may never have used one, but because she was respected in some way was given this male status trophy to be buried with.

And even if there were such a thing as non binary in these earlier centuries how it was presented would necessarily be in ways are said to be non binary today.

But normal in what sense? The "magazine standard" for women is certainly dresses and make-up. But is that normal? Because so few I know wear dresses, and make-up's minimal. Out on the streets, most are in jeans and t-shirts. I don't think it's as simple as "deciding not to stick with" gender stereotypes, because those stereotypes are themselves a spectrum - with a tree's worth of confusing little branches and roots in every direction. Stereotypical jobs? The original "computers" were women, now ICT's coded male. Stereotypical mannerisms? Maggie Thatcher adopted the iron woman persona partly to be accepted in a man's political world. Now female leaders are free to embrace a wider range of personae. No one simply "accepts or rejects stereotypes", it's so much more complex, but the word non-binary implies we do. Which goes back to, I think, what Dragon disagrees with. I do, too.

Again I don't really understand what we're disagreeing on. Yes gender stereotypes are mushy and change. I'm saying that some people just live their lives, fitting with some stereotypes and not others, and other people choose to make more of a declaration of rejecting stereotypes which I think is more of a political or ideological thing.