The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Is archaeology complicit in erasing past identities that do not conform to modern "normalized" roles? Recently, the discovery of a female Viking with "male" funerary goods sent ripples through the discipline (Hedenstierna-Jonson et al. 2017), female leaders in the Andes are downplayed as "matriarchs" (Zorich 2013), and Hatshepsut's gender representation in Egypt is considered an attempt as "passing" as a male Pharaoh (Matiq 2016). These shocking findings project modern biases on past societies, specifically with regard to which bodies were excluded and silenced. Whose story is reconstructed in archaeological interpretation?

While traditional archaeology remains constrained by expectations of assemblages as reflective of the "intrinsic" qualities exemplifying the dichotomous nature of "the other" (i.e. male or female, oppressed or oppressor, "normal" or not), Queer theory has gained ground in exploring and challenging heteronormative interpretations of the archaeological record. In this session, we explore queer theory as a theoretical and methodological "tool for deconstructing the normative" (Blackmore 2011). Participants will reconsider specific artifacts, events, or "cultures" that have "normal" interpretations, and explore different readings from a queer approach. We explore different aspects of identity that construct individuals of past societies while disentangling our restrictive understandings of sex, gender, class, and race.

Other Keywords
Historic • Queer Theory • Ethnohistory/History • Geoarchaeology • Historical Archaeology • Mortuary Analysis • Colonialism • Ceramic Analysis • Household Archaeology • Paleolithic

Geographic Keywords
Republic of Panama (Country) • Netherlands Antilles (Country) • Aruba (Country) • Republic of Ecuador (Country) • Republic of Peru (Country) • Republic of Colombia (Country) • Republic of Chile (Country) • South America (Continent) • South America: Andes • Republic of El Salvador (Country)

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  • Documents (8)
Documents
  • The Gender(ed) Revolution: Female Priests and the Mary Magdalenas of the 16th Century Taki Onqoy Movement (Ayacucho, Peru) (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Scotti Norman.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Interpretations of past identities have until recently often been considered in dichotomous binaries, in which individuals are either male or female, peasant or elite, ritual specialist or commoner. With the application of queer theory to archaeological analyses over the past decade,...

  • Misidentification on the American Frontier: Queer Perspectives on Identity Classification in Historical Archaeology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Katrina Eichner.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As archaeologists we link patterns of performance and daily practice to identity categories. Theses classifications depend on normalized understandings of idealized behaviors. However, the groupings we use to discuss past actors rarely fully encompass the extent of behaviors in which...

  • Queer (Re)Collections: How Anatomical Collections Obscure Identities (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam Zimmer.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Anatomical skeletal collections have often been framed as encompassing "the poorest of the poor" or the most marginalized of a given society. This framework has shaped the way that these collections have been studied for decades. A queered understanding of how these collections were...

  • Queer Eye for the Cave Guy: Exploring Non-Normativity in Upper Paleolithic Burials (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan Klembara.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of Upper Paleolithic burials in Europe have illuminated several aspects of Upper Paleolithic lifeways, from health and diet, to status and social organization. These studies, while recognizing the rarity of Upper Paleolithic burials, interpret the Upper Paleolithic burial...

  • Queer Feminist Science in Hawaiian Archaeology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kirsten Vacca.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Queer theory is an important tool for critically analyzing ideas about the past that are normalized and reproduced to the detriment of descendant populations. This approach is particularly relevant when investigating the social structures that governed daily life in the past....

  • Queering Colonization in Early Colonial Belize (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Brenda Arjona. Chelsea Blackmore.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological narratives of colonial contact have dramatically shifted from a focus on colonizer/colonized dichotomies to discussions about plurality, ethnogenesis, and hybridity. However, much of the work in Mesoamerica continues to define the practice of colonization through a...

  • Ungendering Sex in Moche Ceramics (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Weismantel.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Moche ceramic art (Peru, first millenium) is a corpus of veristic images including explicit depictions of sex acts and human genitalia. Because anatomical sex is so visible in these artifacts, the temptation to collapse sex and gender is strong – but what if we begin, instead, by...

  • The Witching Hour: Demonization of Female Bodies and the (mis)Construction of Gender during the Spanish Evangelization of Huarochirí (Lima, Peru) (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Hernandez Garavito.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1660, Francisca Melchora, widow of the lord of the Huarochirí people in the Viceroyalty of Peru, became immersed in a witchcraft criminal case. However, she was not accused of being a witch herself, but instead of hiding accused women and resisting a Spanish lieutenant sent to...