Gender and Childhood (Other Keyword)
26-50 (93 Records)
This is an abstract from the "The Health and Welfare of Children in the Past" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Diet and health are deeply intertwined, and childhood is a critical period where nutrition can have significant short- and long-term effects on the growing individual. Breastfeeding, weaning, and childhood dietary habits are culturally-mediated practices, and how a developing body is fed is a critical cultural experience with biological...
The Entanglement of Health, Race, and Resistance at the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Health, Wellness, and Ability" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Childhood illness and death at Federal Indian Boarding Schools are one of the most tragic aspects of these failed institutions. Preventable communicable diseases spread like wildfires in the close-quarters and overcrowded conditions of dormitories. Racist policies maintained poor nutrition and hard physical labor also contributed to illness...
Entering the "Valley of Death": Isotopic Evidence of Vulnerable Survivors at Roman Period Kellis, Egypt (2018)
Breast-fed infants living in communities with adequate food access experience particularly high health risks during complementary feeding between ages 6 to 36 months. The most vulnerable of these die in this period, characterized as the "valley of death," which represents a biocultural reality. The majority of those who survive are "vulnerable survivors." The Kellis 2 cemetery sample (Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, AD 50-450) provides a unique opportunity to analyze effects of biocultural disruptions...
Evolving Narratives of Mother Washington (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ideal gender roles feature prominently in biographies written about George Washington. Once his father passed away, a young Washington was raised by his single mother, Mary Ball Washington. The narratives of Washington’s life, and his mother’s influence upon him, are dynamic, reflecting prevailing gender ideologies of the times in which they were written....
An Exploration of the Demographics of Non-Adults in Medieval Hospital Cemeteries in England (AD 1050-1600). (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Health and Welfare of Children in the Past" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the medieval period (AD 1050-1600) in England, hospitals were associated with the Church and most were governed by Church rule. Distinct types of hospitals were founded: leper hospitals, general infirmaries, and alms houses. These sites provided care, shelter, and spiritual nourishment for those in need. Many hospitals had admission...
Exploring Childhood Health Through Lead Trace Element and Isotope Analyses: A Case Study of Historic Populations in Newfoundland, Canada (2018)
Lead was ubiquitous throughout the cultural environments of the Atlantic World during the 18th and 19th centuries and can be toxic to humans, particularly children. There is a long history of examining human lead exposure using trace element and isotope data in archaeological remains, but most studies have sampled bone tissue, which is prone to diagenetic alteration. More recently, researchers are sampling tooth enamel, which is more likely to retain a biogenic record of lead exposure. Since...
Feeding Vessels in Later European Prehistory (2018)
Small vessels with spouts, from which liquid can be poured, are known from settlements and graves of the European Bronze and Iron Ages. Sizes, shapes and decorations are highly variable, and although they generally fit the period-specific style, they represent a functional type. One explanation for this vessel form is libation – the act of pouring a liquid as a sacrifice to a deity. Recent discoveries, however, reinforce an association with children’s graves and suggest a function as feeding...
Female Firsts: Hidden Figures: The Women of Irish Archaeology (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Female Firsts: Celebrating Archaeology’s Pioneering Women on the 101st Anniversary of the 19th Amendment " session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2018, among the top five hashtags in Ireland was #repealthe8th. On May 25, 2018, the amendment that largely banned all abortions was repealed. With this vote, many Irish women felt their voices were finally heard. With women's rights and activism at the forefront in Irish...
Fetal Burials at San Giuliano (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Etruscan Centralization to Medieval Marginalization: Shifts in Settlement and Mortuary Traditions at San Giuliano, Italy" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The burial of unbaptized fetuses at San Giuliano exposes friction between the institutional church and medieval Italy's laity. The church's theology of Original Sin, baptism, and salvation left young children especially vulnerable to dying unbaptized and being denied...
Foodscapes as Gendered Landscapes in West Africa (2018)
Food is an integral part of how people interact with landscape, and tasks associated with food production, preparation, and consumption are often strongly gendered. Using gendered taskscapes (Logan and Cruz 2014) as a starting point, we forward the notion of foodscape as a lens through which to see the varied and multi-scalar forms that gender may take on a landscape. Using case studies from both ancient and modern West Africa, we examine how tracing food production, preparation, and consumption...
Gender and Space in Campsites of Dukha Reindeer Herders (2018)
The division of labor by sex and gender among small-scale societies is well known, but how differences in gender roles are reflected in variation in human spatial behavior has received considerably less attention. Understanding how and why individuals of different gender use space is critical to the development of middle range theory linking gendered human behavior to its archaeological correlates. Over five field seasons, we have collected data on the spatial distribution of people and...
Gender at Chiribaya Alta: A Multiple Correspondence Analysis of Funerary Offerings (2018)
Chiribaya Alta is a Late Intermediate Period cemetery site located in the Osmore drainage of Southern Peru and is the largest, most elaborate site associated with the Chiribaya polity. Previous univariate mortuary analyses at Chiribaya Alta have identified gendered grave goods, related to roles during life. These analyses, however, assume a binary distinction between males and females by only testing graves with sexed skeletons. Here, we use a multivariate technique, multiple correspondence...
Gender Complementarities and the Construction of Late Moche Political Landscapes (2018)
Recent investigations at the Late Moche center of Huaca Colorada in the southern Jequetepeque Valleys suggests that gender complementarity constituted an overarching structuring principle that underwrote Late Moche conceptions of ecology, cosmos, political authority, and the power of sacred places. The dualistic layout of the huaca’s ceremonial nucleus resonates with general Andean philosophies that moral order was founded on the balanced if dialectical interdependence of male and female...
Gender Divisions in Eating and Working: A Bioarchaeological Analysis of an Ancient Muisca Community (Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia, 1000–1400AD) (2018)
The Muisca inhabited a large territory in Northern South America (within present-day Colombia) and are often presented as a "classic chiefdom society." The roots of these interpretations can be traced back to European historical documents discussing Muisca socio-political life, which emphasized the role of social status and hierarchy within Muisca culture. The Muisca in particular have been held captive by the recordings of historical authors, and social structures observed through a European...
A Gender Paradox? A Case Study from the Ancient Maya (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bioarchaeology engages with past behaviors to answer sex and gender roles that are influenced by biological and cultural components leading to social presentation of the individual. The skeletal sample for this study focuses on 55 individuals from Copan, Honduras by incorporating available mortuary data, ceramic phases, dental development, physiological...
Gendered Figurine Iconography at Los Guachimontines, Jalisco, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Gender is one of the primary identity categories that provides structure to the social organization of societies. It sets expectations for the activities, status, presentation, and spatial organization of individuals within a community. This study aims to interrogate the social role of gender in the Teuchitlán tradition of Jalisco, Mexico, through a survey of...
Gendered Trouble: Reconsidering the Role of Females in the Masculinized Spaces of Violence in an Early Bronze Age Population (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Women of Violence: Warriors, Aggressors, and Perpetrators of Violence" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mierzanowice Culture (~2400–1600 BCE) communities in the Central European Early Bronze Age buried their dead in a formalized and gendered manner, in which males and females typically assumed mirror-opposite orientations in their respective graves. Furthermore, the archetypal "warrior" grave—whether simply an...
The Grand Portage of the St. Louis River: Reinterpretations and Language Revitalization (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Heritage Sites at the Intersection of Landscape, Memory, and Place: Archaeology, Heritage Commemoration, and Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Grand Portage of the St. Louis River is both a historic route and a series of historic sites originally documented as a fur trade connection between Lake Superior and the Mississippi River Basin. Although often considered a “contact period” site, the trail has...
Household Garden Plant Agency in the Creation of Classic Maya Social Identities (2018)
Domestic gardens are a well-established aspect of Classic Maya residential settlement, and they are rightly considered important components of food security and even food sovereignty strategies utilized by the ninety-nine percent. Taking inspiration from the emerging field of human-plant studies, I argue daily interactions with household garden plants exerted a profound influence on not only the daily habits of ancient Maya populations, but also on their memories and sense of social identity. ...
The Impacts of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Women in Archaeology (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Numerous studies have demonstrated the most immediate impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic upon the sciences have fallen on younger women and women with young children. These studies highlight how social crises, such as global pandemics, exacerbate existing disparities in social, political, and economic structures. To date no study has yet identified its...
In Small Things Collected: Domesticity in World War Two Era Flagstaff (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Historical Archaeologies of the American Southwest, 1800 to Today" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From the 1980s to 1990s, Northern Arizona University ethnomusicologist Joann Kealiinohomoku collected artifacts she found in the backyard of her Flagstaff home and kept them in a variety of food jars. While Dr. Kealiinohomoku had no discernible methodology in collecting the artifacts and left behind no notes or evidence...
Infancy and Breastfeeding at Cerro Jazmín: Isotopic Data from a Late-Terminal Formative Population in the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca (2018)
We present isotopic results from 25 adults and children from Cerro Jazmín. Bone collagen (n= 17) and bone and enamel apatite (n=21) isotopic data provide C, N, and O values describing diet and breastfeeding patterns. Carbon values suggest a narrow diet heavily based on maize and little animal protein. Individuals between 0-3 years of age had significantly higher nitrogen and oxygen values than adults, suggesting that these infants may have still been breastfeeding at the time of death. Weaning...
Interpreting Increments – What Can Isotopic Evidence Tell Us about Care in the Past? (2018)
Maternal and infant care practices are deeply individual, as well as being affected by both cultural and environmental factors. Disentangling the various processes which lead to decision-making in the past is difficult, and bioarchaeologists must use multiple lines of evidence to begin to understand behaviours. New incremental isotopic techniques mean that it is now possible to look at individual maternal and infant experiences through tissue chemistry. However, incremental isotopic results are...
Is a Woman’s Place in the Household? Gender, Prestige, and Feminized Archaeology (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Leaky Pipelines: Exploring Gender Inequalities in Archaeological Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists consider the household the smallest unit of economic and social production and acknowledge household activities have bottom-up effects on society. However, studies of households are not as headline-grabbing as “lost” cities and royal tombs and may be undervalued in terms of impact factor and...
Just Beyond the ‘Land of Women’: Examining Gender in Early and Late Medieval Ireland (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Mind the Gap: Exploring Uncharted Territories in Medieval European Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1996, historian Lisa Bitel published "Land of Women: Sex and Gender in Early Ireland," a critical study of medieval gender, which remains influential over 20 years later. While more recent historical and literary research is available, there have been relatively few archaeological investigations of gender...