Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T21:35:13.209Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Engendering context. Context as gendered practice in the early Bronze Age of the Upper Thames Valley, UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Joanna Sofaer Derevenski
Joanna Sofaer Derevenski*
Affiliation:
University of Southampton, UK
*
[email: jrsd@soton.ac.uk]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the use of context in relation to the articulation and understanding of gender. Context can be regarded as gendered practice. Focusing on mortuary settings in the early Bronze Age of the Upper Thames Valley, it examines ways that people took gender into account in complex decisions involved in burial and the construction of difference. Here, men and women were conceptualized in distinct ways that were not necessarily equivalent. Difference was expressed in terms of degrees of complexity of intersections between sex and other social categories. Beaker burial contexts were active and engendered material media for social relations.

Cet article examine l'utilisation du contexte pour l'articulation et la compréhension des sexes. On considère que le context reflète la différence des sexes à travers les pratiques funéraires. En se concentrant sur les complexes mortuaires de l'âge du bronze ancien dans la vallée supérieure de la Tamise, on examine de quelle manière le sexe des défunts fut pris en considératon au moment de prendre les décisions complexes se rapportant à l'inhumation et à l'expression de la différence. Ici, hommes et femmes furent pensés/conçus de manière distincte et pas forcément équivalente. La différence fut exprimée en fonction du degré de la complexité des intersections entre le sexe et les autres catégories sociales. Les contextes funéraires à gobelets étaient les médias actifs et matériels sexuées des relations sociales.

Zusammenfassung

Zusammenfassung

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Verwendung des Kontextes in Beziehung zur Artikulation und dem Verständnis des Geschlechts. Kontext kann als ‘Geschlechts-Praxis’ angesehen werden. Mit Blick auf die frühbronzezeitlichen Bestattungssitten des oberen Themse-Tales, untersucht er die Art und Weise, mit der die Menschen das ‘soziale Geschlecht’ in komplexe Entscheidungen des Begräbniswesens und der ‘Konstruktion von Unterschieden’ einbezogen. Dabei wurden Männer und Frauen in unterschiedlichen Formen konzeptualisiert, die nicht notwendigerweise gleichwertig sein mußten. Der Unterschied wurde in Abstufungen einer Komplexität von Überschneidungen zwischen dem ‘biologischen Geschlecht’ und anderen sozialen Kategorien ausgedrückt. Becher-Bestattungen waren aktive und auf das soziale Geschlecht bezogene materielle Medien sozialer Beziehungen.

Keywords

Bronze Ageburialcategorizationcontextdifferencedisplaygenderpracticeâge du bronzecatégorisationcontextedifférenceexposerinhumationpratiquesexeBestattungBronzezeitDarstellungKategorisierungKontextPraxis‘soziales Geschlecht’Unterschied
Type
Articles
Information
European Journal of Archaeology , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , 2002 , pp. 191 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Sage Publications 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andersen, M. and Collins, P.H., 1992. Race, Class and Gender: An Anthology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Anon., , 1931. Notes. Antiquaries Journal 11:280–281.Google Scholar
Anon., , 1941. Notes and news. Archaeological notes. Oxoniensia 6:85–87.Google Scholar
Anon., , 1973. Notes and news. A new beaker from Radley. Oxoniensia 38:384–385.Google Scholar
Arber, S. and Ginn, J., eds, 1995. Connecting Gender and Ageing: A Sociological Approach. Buckingham: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Ardener, S., ed., 1981. Women and Space: Ground Rules and Social Maps. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Atkinson, R.J.C., 1946–1947. A middle Bronze Age barrow at Cassington, Oxon. Oxoniensia 11–12:5–25.Google Scholar
Atkinson, R.J.C., 1952–1953. Excavations in Barrow Hills Field, Radley, Berks. 1944–1945. Oxoniensia 17–18:14–35.Google Scholar
Barclay, A. and Halpin, C., 1999. Excavations at Barrow Hills, Radley, Oxfordshire. Volume 1. The Neolithic and Bronze Age Monument Complex. Oxford: Oxford Archaeological Unit.Google Scholar
Barrett, J.C., 1990. The monumentality of death: The character of early Bronze Age mortuary mounds in southern England. World Archaeology 22(2): 179–89.Google Scholar
Barrett, J.C., 1994. Fragments from Antiquity. An Archaeology of Social Life in Britain, 2900–1200 BC. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Boast, R., 1991. The categorisation and design systematics of British beakers: a re-examination. Unpublished PhD dissertation: University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Bottomley, G., De Lepervanche, M. and Martin, J., eds, 1991. Intersextions: Gender/Class/Culture/Ethnicity. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P., 1973. The Berber house. In Douglas, M. (ed.), Rules And Meanings: 98–110. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P., 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bradford, J.S.P., 1951. Excavations at Cassington, Oxon 1947. Oxoniensia 16:1–4 Google Scholar
Bradley, R., Chambers, R.A. and Halpin, C.E., 1984. Barrow Hills, Radley 1983–4. Excavations: an Interim Report. Oxford: Oxford Archaeological Unit.Google Scholar
Braithwaite, M., 1984. Ritual and prestige in the prehistory of Wessex c.2200-1400 B.C. In Miller, D. and Tilley, C. (eds), Ideology, Power and Prehistory: 93–110. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brodie, N., 1997. New perspectives on the Bell-Beaker culture. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 16(3):297–314.Google Scholar
Brück, J., 2001. Monuments, power and personhood in the British Neolithic. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 7(4):649–667.Google Scholar
Case, H.J., 1977. The Beaker culture in Britain and Ireland. In Mercer, R. (ed.), Beakers in Britain and Europe: 71–101. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports International Series S26.Google Scholar
Case, H.J., 1993. Beakers: deconstruction and after. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 59:241–268.Google Scholar
Case, H.J., 1995. Some Wiltshire beakers and their contexts. The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 88:1–17.Google Scholar
Clarke, D.L., 1970. Beaker Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Conkey, M.W., 1991. Contexts of action, contexts for power: material culture and gender in the Magdalenian. In Gero, J. and Conkey, M. (eds), Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory: 57–92. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Donley, L., 1990. A structuring structure: The Swahili house. In Kent, S. (ed.), Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space: 114–126. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gero, J.M., 1996. Archaeological practice and gendered encounters with field data. In Wright, R.P. (ed.), Gender and Archaeology: 251–280. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, A.L., 1987. Identifying gender representation in the archaeological record: A contextual study. In Hodder, I. (ed.), The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings: 79–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, A.L., 1990. Sex, gender and material culture patterning in late Neolithic and earlier Bronze Age England. Unpublished PhD dissertation: University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Giddens, A., 1984. The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Gilchrist, R., 1994. Gender and Material Culture. The Archaeology of Religious Women. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Goody, J.R., 1948. On some human remains from Radley, Oxfordshire. In A. Williams, Excavations in Barrow Hills, Radley, Berkshire, 1944. Oxoniensia 13:15–17.Google Scholar
Gullestad, M., 1993. Home decoration as popular culture. Constructing homes, genders and classes in Norway. In del Valle, T. (ed.), Gendered Anthropology: 128–161. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hawkes, C.F.C., 1955. Grave Groups and Hoards of the British Bronze Age. Inventaria Archaeologica GB 1–8. London: Garraway Ltd.Google Scholar
Hodder, I., 1987. The contextual analysis of symbolic meanings. In Hodder, I. (ed.), The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings: 1–10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hooks, B., 1984. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Boston, MA: South End Press.Google Scholar
Kinnes, I., Gibson, A., Ambers, J., Bowman, S., Leese, M. and Boast, R., 1991. Radiocarbon dating and British beakers: The British Museum programme. Scottish Archaeological Review 8:35–78.Google Scholar
Krogman, W.M. and Iscan, M.Y., 1986. The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine. Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas.Google Scholar
Lanting, J. and Van Der Waals, J.D., 1972. British beakers as seen from the continent. Helenium 12:20–46.Google Scholar
Last, J., 1998. Books of life: biography and memory in a Bronze Age barrow. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 17(1):43–53.Google Scholar
Leeds, E.T., 1934. Recent Bronze Age discoveries in Berkshire and Oxon. The Antiquaries Journal 14:264–276.Google Scholar
Leeds, E.T., 1936. Round barrows and ring-ditches in Berkshire and Oxfordshire. Oxoniensia 1:7–23.Google Scholar
Leeds, E.T., 1938a. Further excavations in Barrow Hills Field, Radley, Berks. Oxoniensia 3:31–40.Google Scholar
Leeds, E.T., 1938b. Beakers of the Upper Thames District. Oxoniensia 3:7–30.Google Scholar
Lorber, J., 1994. Paradoxes of Gender. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lucas, G., 1995. Genealogies. Classification, narrative and time: an archaeological study of eastern Yorkshire 3700-1300 BC. Unpublished PhD dissertation: University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Lucy, S., 1994. Children in early Medieval cemeteries. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 13(2):21–34.Google Scholar
Meskel, L. L., 1999. Archaeologies of Social Life. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mizoguchi, K., 1995a. Re-aligning mortuary archaeology: a study of British late Neolithic and early Bronze Age mortuary ‘human’ practices. Unpublished PhD dissertation: University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Mizoguchi, K., 1995b. The ‘materiality’ of Wessex beakers. Scottish Archaeological Review 9–10:175–185.Google Scholar
Moore, H., 1986. Space, Text and Gender: An Anthropological Study of the Maralcwet of Kenya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, H., 1988. Feminism and Anthropology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Moore, H., 1990. Paul Ricoeur: action, meaning and text. In Tilley, C. (ed.), Reading Material Culture: 85–120. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Moore, H., 1994. A Passion for Difference: Essays in Anthropology and Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Pader, E.-J., 1982. Symbolism, Social Relations and the Interpretation of Mortuary Remains. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports International Series 130.Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, M., 1999. The Archaeology of Death and Burial. Stroud: Sutton.Google Scholar
Parrington, M., 1977. Excavations in Barrow Hills Field, Radley, Oxon. 1976. Oxoniensia 42:30–41.Google Scholar
Parrington, M., 1978. The Excavation of an Iron Age Settlement, Bronze Age Ring-Ditches and Roman Features at Ashville Trading Estate, Abingdon (Oxfordshire) 1974–76. Oxfordshire Archaeological Reports 1. London: Council for British Archaeology Research Report 28.Google Scholar
Philippi, D., 1987. The conjuncture of race and gender in anthropology and art history; a critical study of Nancy Spero's work. Third Text 1:34–54.Google Scholar
Pierpoint, S., 1980. Social Patterns in Yorkshire Prehistory 3500–750 BC. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 74.Google Scholar
Riley, D.N., 1982. Radley 15, a late Beaker ring-ditch. In Case, H.J. and Whittle, A.W.R. (eds), Settlement Patterns in the Oxford Region: Excavations at the Abingdon Causewayed Enclosure and Other Sites: 76–80. London: Council for British Archaeology Research Report 44.Google Scholar
Roberts, D.F., 1950. Skeletal material from Radley and Cassington. Oxoniensia 15:109–10.Google Scholar
Shanks, M. and Tilley, C., 1982. Ideology, symbolic power and ritual communication - a reinterpretation of Neolithic mortuary practices. In Hodder, I. (ed.), Symbolic and Structural Archaeology: 129–154. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shennan, S., 1982. Ideology, change and the European early Bronze Age. In Hodder, I. (ed.), Symbolic and Structural Archaeology: 155–161. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A., 1987. Cups that cheered. In Waldren, W. and Kennard, R. (eds), Bell Beakers of the Western Mediterranean: 81–114. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports International Series 331.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A., 1991. Sacred and profane substances: The ritual use of narcotics in later Neolithic Europe. In Garwood, P., Jennings, D., Skeates, R. and Toms, J. (eds), Sacred and Profane. Proceedings of a Conference on Archaeology, Ritual and Religion. Oxford 1989. Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 32:50–64. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Sofaer Derevenski, J., 1997. Engendering children, engendering archaeology. In Moore, J. and Scott, E. (eds), Invisible People and Processes: Writing Gender and Childhood into European Archaeology: 192–202. London: Leicester University Press.Google Scholar
Sofaer Derevenski, J., 1998. Gender archaeology as contextual archaeology. A critical examination of the tensions between method and theory in the archaeology of gender. Unpublished : University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Sofaer Derevenski, J., 2000. Rings of life: the role of early metalwork in mediating the gendered life course. World Archaeology 31(3):389–406.Google Scholar
Sørensen, M.L.S., 1997. Reading dress: The construction of social categories and identities in Bronze Age Europe. Journal of European Archaeology 5(1):93–114.Google Scholar
Sørensen, M.L.S., 2000. Gender Archaeology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Tarlow, S.A., 1999. Bereavement and Commemoration: an Archaeology of Mortality. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Thomas, J., 1991. Reading the body: Beaker funerary practice in Britain. In Garwood, P., Jennings, D., Skeates, R. and Toms, J. (eds), Sacred and Profane. Proceedings of a Conference on Archaeology, Ritual and Religion. Oxford 1989. Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 32: 33–42. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Treherne, P., 1995. The warrior's beauty: the masculine body and self-identity in Bronze-Age Europe. Journal of European Archaeology 3(1):105–144.Google Scholar
Tringham, R., 1991. Households with faces: the challenge of gender in prehistoric architectural remains. In Gero, J. and Conkey, M. (eds), Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory: 93–131. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Trotter, M. and Gleser, G.C., 1952. Estimation of stature from long bones of American Whites and Negroes. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 10:463–514.Google Scholar
Tuckwell, A., 1975. Patterns of burial orientation in the round barrows of east Yorkshire. Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology, London 12:95–125.Google Scholar
Williams, A., 1948. Excavations in Barrow Hills Field, Radley, Berkshire, 1944. Oxoniensia 13:1–17.Google Scholar
Yuval-Davis, N. and Anthias, F., eds, 1989. Women-Nation-State. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar