A Census of Women in the Upper Paleolithic

Summary

Binary models of gender are often uncritically applied in paleoanthropology, even if the biological sex or gender identity of a specimen or representation is ambiguous. In the Upper Paleolithic, indicators ranging from simple bifurcating lines to overt representations of secondary sex characteristics may be used to identify an illustration, engraving, or piece of portable art as "male" or "female." These taxonomic rubrics are rarely stated explicitly. Still, the impression given by an overview of the relevant literature is that Paleolithic artists (usually assumed to be male) overwhelmingly objectified females in their works, with corresponding interpretations of the meanings of these representations and the artists’ intent that reflect modern biases.

We present an empirical survey of human representations in Paleolithic art using an explicit classification scheme that relies on unambiguous markers of biological sex to identify representations as biologically male or female. We attempt to resolve the many ambiguous instances by comparisons to less ambiguous representations and assess the likelihood of abstract representations (disembodied "vulvas" or "breasts") to be intentional representations of females. Within this context, we discuss the difficulties inherent in recognizing sex (much less gender) in Paleolithic art and the consequences of unfounded assumptions in scientific and popular discourse.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Not Just Good to See: Global Perspectives on Scenes in Rock Art

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16390