Problematic at Best: Assigning Sex to Prehistoric Remains with Consistency

Summary

Historically, the sex of prehistoric human skeletal remains has been visually assessed by researchers who are (hopefully) knowledgeable about the population being examined. However, methods of assigning sex can be largely subjective and often lead to inconsistent results. In this study, we consider human skeletal remains from the Medio period (A.D. 1200–1475) from Paquimé, a site in northern Chihuahua, Mexico, that was the economic and political center of the Casas Grandes region. The sexes of the human skeletal remains from this site have been assessed on three separate occasions (Benfer 1968; Butler 1971; Waller 2017) using a variety of methodologies, and have yielded significantly different results. We examine how these inconsistent analytical methods can influence more general interpretations of Paquiméan society, and consider how these results might be applied to broader studies of gender roles and status within prehistoric societies.

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): 22546