Transgender archaeology is an approach to archaeology that encompasses how transgender studies and its theoretical approaches can be a tool to understand past cultures and communities around the world.[1] This approach diversifies cisgender approaches to archaeological practice.[1] In 2016, a special issue of the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory was dedicated to papers that challenged a binary approach to gender.[2] Researchers such as Mary Weismantel have discussed how understanding past gender diversity can support contemporary transgender rights, but have called for transgender archaeology to "not re-populate the ancient past ... but to offer a subtler appreciation of cultural variation".[3] Jan Turek, writing in 2016, described how archaeological interpretation can be limited since "current gender categories do not always correspond with those of a former reality".[4]
This approach draws on and can be applied to a range of disciplines in the field, including figurative analysis,[5][6] bioarchaeology,[7][8] and others.[9] For figurines from coastal Ecuador, many of these objects combine both masculine and feminine attributes through either physical characteristics or dress.[10] These figures, interpreted as potentially non-binary or transgender, are found in the Tumaco-La Tolita culture, as well as from Bahía and Jama Coaque cultures.[5] Similarly, analysis of late Bronze Age figurines from Knossos demonstrated that for both faience figurines and ivory bull-leaper figurines, "sexed differences are not clearly marked in a binary fashion".[11] Alberti argues that any sexed differences are highly dependent on the socio-religious context of the figurines, rather than specifically gendered identities.[11] The importance of context is also echoed in work on non-binary and intersex visibility in Roman archaeology.[12]
Bioarchaeological estimates of sex are based on identification of potentially dimorphic features, yet neither gender nor biological sex are entirely binary categories.[13][14] However, some characteristics that are often viewed as sexually dimorphic may not, depending on the age of the individual whose body is being analysed.[7][15] For example, cranial robustness tends to be associated as a male characteristic, yet it can also be considered a female characteristic because the effects of menopause can produce the same.[7] Additionally, the categorisation of sex uses a spectrum of female, probable female, ambiguous sex, male and probable male.[7] This is dependent on the confidence of the researcher in the estimation, rather than focus on the possibility of "sex-gender fluidity" in the past.[7]
Studies that support interpretations of gender fluidity include ones on pre-Columbian Maya burial practices,[7] multiple Hidatsa genders during the pre-Columbian era,[16] mortuary practices in Chumash communities,[17] communities during the Copper Age on the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria,[18] the excavation and interpretation of a 5,000 year old person by the Czech Archaeological Society,[19] the reassessment of grave Bj.581 at Birka,[20] non-binary gender expression in Inuit cultures,[21] Roman Galli,[22][23] a 1,000 year old person who likely had Klinefelter syndrome from Finland,[24] the life of Elagabalus,[25] prehistoric burials in Europe,[26] historical archaeology around the Engabao community in Ecuador,[27] material cultures in medieval England,[28][29] dress in eighteenth-century Ireland,[30] and many others.[31]