Reassessing the gender ideology of the supra-regional corded ware culture
Abstract
The Corded Ware culture (c. 2900-2200 BC; hereafter ‘CWC’ for the phenomenon itself or ‘CW’ as the adjective) is a widespread prehistoric phenomenon encountered throughout Europe and was characterised by standardised burial practices and material culture. Recent studies incorporating scientific methods have revived the traditional hypothesis, that the sudden appearance of the CWC was caused by mass migrations from the Pontic Caspian steppe. Among other things, this new archaeological culture is typically associated with the introduction of a binary gender system and the establishment of a patriarchal society.
However, such a narrative is largely rooted in andro- and ethnocentric, Western assumptions: biological sex is equated with gender, grave goods are taken as a direct representation of identity, and weapons (i.e. the CW ‘battle-axe’) are associated with masculinity. Moreover, burials under barrows are overrepresented in the ‘grand narrative’ of the CWC, while other funerary and depositional contexts are underrepresented.
This paper aims to investigate CW gender, while taking the abovementioned problems into account. The emphasis is placed on the expression of gender through material culture and its selective deposition (i.e. specific objects deposited in specific contexts). Two regions have been selected as a case study: Southern Jutland (102 burials, 13 depositions (i.e. buried objects without a body), 29 single finds) and Bavaria (90 burials, three depositions, 32 single finds). The co-occurrences of various object categories in different depositional contexts are studied in each region. The results are contextualised in comparison to the extensive network analysis by Q. Bourgeois and E. Kroon (2017), which consisted of 1161 CW burials and resulted in the recognition of striking burial norms, but only takes the funerary context into account. The present comparative and multi-contextual study adds nuance to the binary reading of CW gender and suggests that CW gender may have been constructed through an interplay of normative supra-regional versus idiosyncratic local identities. The supra-regional and local burial styles do not necessarily convey a ‘male’ and ‘female’ gender identity but emphasise the larger CW community and local values respectively. Thus, this study argues that the core value displayed in burials is the CW community, rather than gender and particularly ‘male-dominant’, martial values as suggested in the grand narrative of this period.
