Stone Age societies embraced ‘complex identities’ and flexible gender roles, experts have revealed, after unearthing the skeleton of a woman who was buried like a man 7,000 years ago.
Studies of 125 skeletons across several cemeteries in Hungary have found that while the majority of people were buried according to their gender, some defied the norm.
Men, for example, were typically buried on their right side surrounded by polished stone tools.
Women, on the other hand, tended to be found lying on their left side and with shell bead belts.
But several skeletons have been unearthed that don’t align with expectations – and it could shed a whole new light on gender fluidity in the Neolithic.
One older adult female burial was particularly unusual, the researchers said. Hers was the only female skeleton found buried with polished stone tools.
What made her especially unique was distinct patterns on her toes that indicate a kneeling activity common in men.
This discovery, of a female buried with ‘traditionally masculine attributes’, suggests society ‘tolerated exceptions and was already experiencing the complexity of identities’, the researchers said.
A typical male burial from the Csőszhalom cemetery. It shows the skeleton of a man buried on his right side with a polished stone tool next to his left shoulder
The study, carried out by a team from the French National Centre for Scientific Research, focused on two different Hungarian cemeteries.
At the first, Polgár–Ferenci–hát, they found no clear differences in burial treatment between the sexes.
But at the second, Polgár–Csőszhalom, which dates back to 4800BC, there were definitive distinctions in how different genders were laid to rest.
‘The position of the body and the inclusion of grave goods appear to have been strongly influenced by the biological sex of the deceased,’ the researchers wrote in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology.
However, it was also here that the female individual who was buried like a man was uncovered.
Of all skeletons who were buried with polished stone tools and which had evidence of a typically–masculine kneeling pattern, nine were men and just one was a woman.
‘The findings suggest that society at Csőszhalom was structured around gendered roles, yet allowed for individual variation,’ the scientists wrote.
‘Females may have assumed roles traditionally associated with males (and possibly vice versa), and some individuals were treated in death with funerary markers characteristic of both sexes.’
The left image shows a typical female burial at Polgár– Csőszhalom, where she is placed in a flexed position on the left side, and adorned with a girdle belt made of beads. On the right, a male individual buried in a flexed position on his right side, accompanied by flint tools and apolished stone tool, representing male burial customs
At the Csőszhalom site the researchers also found a relatively high frequency of spinal wear–and–tear, also called spondylosis, across both male and female remains.
In modern–day humans, this higher frequency is usually linked to athletes engaged in activities such as throwing sports, gymnastics and rowing.
‘The majority of documented human societies manifest, to varying extents, normative expectations regarding the roles at–tributed to individuals on the basis of their biological sex,’ the researchers wrote.
‘This study enhances our understanding of prehistoric social organization by revealing both recurring sex–related patterns of behaviour and local flexibility in the expression of gender roles.’
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE STONE AGE?
The Stone Age is a period in human prehistory distinguished by the original development of stone tools that covers more than 95 per cent of human technological prehistory.
It begins with the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins, ancient ancestors to humans, during the Old Stone Age – beginning around 3.3million years ago.
Between roughly 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, the pace of innovation in stone technology began to accelerate very slightly, a period known as the Middle Stone Age.
By the beginning of this time, handaxes were made with exquisite craftsmanship. This eventually gave way to smaller, more diverse toolkits, with an emphasis on flake tools rather than larger core tools.
The Stone Age is a period in human prehistory distinguished by the original development of stone tools that covers more than 95 per cent of human technological prehistory. This image shows neolithic jadeitite axes from the Museum of Toulouse
These toolkits were established by at least 285,000 years in some parts of Africa, and by 250,000 to 200,000 years in Europe and parts of western Asia. These toolkits last until at least 50,000 to 28,000 years ago.
During the Later Stone Age the pace of innovations rose and the level of craftsmanship increased.
Groups of Homo sapiens experimented with diverse raw materials, including bone, ivory, and antler, as well as stone.
The period, between 50,000 and 39,000 years ago, is also associated with the advent of modern human behaviour in Africa.
Different groups sought their own distinct cultural identity and adopted their own ways of making things.
Later Stone Age peoples and their technologies spread out of Africa over the next several thousand years.
