Gender at Chiribaya Alta: A Multiple Correspondence Analysis of Funerary Offerings

Summary

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 analysis, to analyze the graves at Chiribaya Alta. Sex is not included in this analysis and thus, the MCA groups graves without assuming a binary construction of sex. Instead, sex information is only used in the interpretation phase of the analysis. Our MCA confirms that Chiribaya graves are differentiated by gender based on funerary objects but shows greater variation in the graves of females in comparison to males, suggesting that women’s gendered activities were more variable than those of men. Furthermore, the overlap in the graves of males and females suggests that these gender categories are not binary opposites, and thus we suggest an alternative system for conceptualizing gender identity in the Chiribaya polity.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21448