Gay/Transexual Caveman Found

Buceph

Thought this was interesting.

First homosexual caveman found
Archaeologists have unearthed the 5,000-year-old remains of what they believe may have been the world's oldest known gay caveman.

The male body – said to date back to between 2900-2500BC – was discovered buried in a way normally reserved only for women of the Corded Ware culture in the Copper Age.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8433527/First-homosexual-caveman-found.html


So much for homosexuality occurring because of modern decadent society.

Sir Ophiuchus

Argh. It's actually a really interesting find, but classifying the man as homosexual/transexual/whatever is a really, really bad thing to do, reporting-wise, and it's an irresponsible generalisation from an academic standpoint.

The work homosexual was only coined in the 1880s, and homosexuality as an identity and distinct social construct is really a concept of the 20th and 21st centuries. For example, free Roman males had sex with their male slaves all the time - some preferred it to sex with women. But they did not consider themselves "homosexual", or any analogous identity - the focus was on things that were done, not identities.

A better analogy might be the two-spirit people that existed in a number of Native American tribes and engaged in non-sex-normative behaviour, like taking a male "wife" as a man, or performing "womanly" household tasks, while also filling a shamanic role. The context of the burial, etc, implies something like that may have been going on with this person. They may even have lived as the opposite gender or engaged in same-sex sexual contact or relationships. But that doesn't mean they were homosexual or transgender in the modern understanding of those terms, to apply them retroactively is a mistake.

Sorry for the rant, but this is the sort of thing that undermines the academic study of sexualities and gender identities.

Cavehill Red

It's a male buried in a style usually reserved for females.
There have been plenty of females of this era buried in a style reserved for males.
The usual conclusion is that, just as those females were probably hunters rather than gatherers, so this male was probably a domestic childminder and gatherer rather than hunter or warrior.
As the previous poster said, it's beyond preposterous to make any conclusions about sexual preference from this. People were buried according to their societal roles. Kings (and queens) buried with loads of treasure, plebs thrown under a few rocks.
So if this male was a domestic worker rather than a hunter, then he would be buried as one. That's all.

Buceph

If you read the full article, it goes on to hint that the original paper is dealing more with gender normative roles, rather than sexuality. Which still says something about what is "right and proper." It's a sensationalist headline (pretty typical of the Telegraph on their "society" pieces) but there's something of value in the actual study.

Sir Ophiuchus

Buceph wrote: »

If you read the full article, it goes on to hint that the original paper is dealing more with gender normative roles, rather than sexuality. Which still says something about what is "right and proper." It's a sensationalist headline (pretty typical of the Telegraph on their "society" pieces) but there's something of value in the actual study.

Oh, I did, and I agree. I just didn't like the tendency to misrepresent and misinterpret the findings. I think the researcher was maybe trying to dumb it down, and misspoke; I do get the impression the reseach itself is being conducted correctly.

Buceph

YouTookMyName

Queen of the Stone Age? No one knows....

Nebit

Buceph wrote: »

Thought this was interesting.




http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8433527/First-homosexual-caveman-found.html


So much for homosexuality occurring because of modern decadent society.

Again i would state that I dont think the proper analyses has been done to determine the actual sex of the person, it isnt unlikely to fine a female skeleton with high male metric ratios. I believe as of yet sex has only been determined via metrics, but if a serious case is made proper analyses may be carried out to get a better insight into the person.
Also as already stated previously, there has been some speculation into burials corresponding with roles within a society.

wonderfulname

Archaeologists in Prague say they've uncovered a Stone-Age man buried in a position usually reserved for women — but media claims of a "gay caveman" may be exaggerated, according to some researchers.
The skeleton, which dates back to about 2,500 to 2,800 B.C., was found in the outskirts of Prague. The culture the man belonged to (known as the Corded Ware culture for their pottery decorated with the impressions of twisted cord) was very finicky about grave rituals, reported Iranian news network Press TV, which visited the excavation site. According to the Czech news website Ceskapozice.cz, Corded Ware males were usually buried on their right sides with their heads facing east. This man, however, was buried on his left with his head facing west — a traditionally female position.
"We found one very specific grave of a man lying in the position of a woman, without gender specific grave goods, neither jewelry or weapons," lead archaeologist Kamila Remisova Vesinova of the Czech Archaeological Society told Press TV.
More science news from MSNBC Tech & Science
Vesinova and her colleagues told reporters that the man may have belonged to a "third gender." This designation is for people who may be viewed as neither male nor female or some combination of both. In some cases, third-gender individuals are thought to be able to switch between male and female depending on circumstance. Modern examples include the Hijras of India and the Fa'afafine of Polynesia.
The skeleton has been trumpeted in the media as belonging to a "homosexual caveman," but some archaeologists are skeptical. For one thing, the complexity of the third-gender concept makes calling the skeleton "gay" an oversimplification, wrote Kristina Killgrove, an anthropologist in Chapel Hill, N.C., in her blog, Bone Girl.
"If this burial represents a transgendered individual (as well it could), that doesn't necessarily mean the person had a 'different sexual orientation ' and certainly doesn't mean that he would have considered himself (or that his culture would have considered him) 'homosexual,'" Killgrove wrote.
(Transgender is defined as when gender identity doesn't match physical or genetic sex. Third gender is a broader term that covers a wide range of gender identities in a number of cultures, some of whom reject the male-female binary altogether.)
Archaeologist Monty Dobson of Drury University in Missouri agreed.
"The reality of this is going to be far more complicated than, 'This individual was gay,'" Dobson told LiveScience.
Not only is "gay" an oversimplification, "caveman" is flat-out inaccurate, said John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
"Corded-Ware burials are not 'caveman' in age," Hawks told LiveScience. "We're talking about pre-Bronze Age farmers."
Male or female?
Hawks said the third-gender claims are difficult to evaluate without a formal archaeological description.
"I haven't seen any evidence that really convinces me that the skeleton is male," he said. "It could be, but the photo is not convincing on that point, and I have not seen any claim of DNA testing."
It's tough to assign a sex to a skeleton with certainty, Dobson said. Archaeologists and anthropologists usually rely on bone measurements, particularly the size and shape of the pelvis. But these estimates aren't exact, Dobson said.
"There have been cases in the past where a gender was assigned and we have gone back to look and assigned the opposite gender," he said.
After confirming the gender, the second step would be to determine how many examples of gendered Corded Ware burials there are.
"Is this burial unique out of 20 burials or unique out of 20,000 burials?" Killgrove told LiveScience. "That makes a big difference in interpretation."
Both Killgrove and Dobson said that the grave's inhabitant could indeed be a third-gender individual. But there are other possibilities as well, they said. Many cultures buried shamans, or people thought to communicate with the spirit world, in unusual or gender-bending ways, Dobson said. But that burial pattern was related to the shaman's social status, not his or her sexuality.
Even if the skeleton is male, the case for a third gender requires more than a reversal of position and burial goods, Hawk said, pointing to work done by Rosemary Joyce, a University of California, Berkeley, anthropologist who specializes in sex and gender in archaeology. In a blog post about the find, Joyce wrote that third-gender burials should follow their own pattern, not just a reversal of typical male-female patterns.
The find is intriguing, Dobson said, but there are many possible interpretations still on the table.
"This might be much ado about nothing, or it might be something that tells us something very interesting," Dobson said. "There simply isn't enough data right now to make that statement definitively."

It appears a lot of news sources are getting digs in at their rivals for "archaic views of sexuality"... this page is hilarious, look at the range of headlines for this story, fox news is my favourite, they're just so... god I dunno.

EDIT: Forgot to link article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42480811/ns/technology_and_science-science/from/toolbar

Cavehill Red

Oh dear. I misread 5000 year old remains for 50,000 year old initially. So these aren't even the remains of a hunter-gatherer cro-magnon at all, but are in fact those of a modern farmer of the Copper Age.

So what we actually have here are bones of indeterminate gender (probably but not conclusively male) buried in a traditionally female positioning, without grave goods.

This is so far away from 'gay caveman' that if they suggested it was evidence that Elvis Presley had founded Troy, it would be as plausible.

Pretty much every fact asserted initially was either wild unsupported fantasy or else utterly inaccurate reporting. Not gay, not trans, not a cave dweller, possibly not even a man.

wonderfulname

Pretty much, I love the media! Makes you wonder about the more factual seeming articles though... oh well.

Cavehill Red

wonderfulname wrote: »

Pretty much, I love the media! Makes you wonder about the more factual seeming articles though... oh well.

In fairness to the media, they didn't just invent this off their heads. They all quote some lunatic archeologist from the dig who claims her evidence adds up to gay caveman.

Whoever her boss is should be preparing a P45 as we speak.

Aard

I thought it'd be something like two males found buried in a suggestive position, but no. Nothing even close. This is ridiculous, how is it even news.

wonderfulname

Cavehill Red wrote: »

In fairness to the media, they didn't just invent this off their heads. They all quote some lunatic archeologist from the dig who claims her evidence adds up to gay caveman.

Whoever her boss is should be preparing a P45 as we speak.

She is the boss, "lead archaeologist Kamila Remisova Vesinovaof the Czech Archaeological Society"
It seems her quotes were taken out of context, or that she was prompted to give a simplistic, modern equivalent to third gender or something and messed up, she never claimed caveman either.

Cavehill Red

wonderfulname wrote: »

She is the boss, "lead archaeologist Kamila Remisova Vesinovaof the Czech Archaeological Society"
It seems her quotes were taken out of context, or that she was prompted to give a simplistic, modern equivalent to third gender or something and messed up, she never claimed caveman either.

Can you link to her actual quotes if the reported ones aren't accurate? I'd like to see what she did say.

Cavehill Red

I've been looking for days, and all the reports I've seen use the same quotes.
I can't read Czech, so I can't review what might have been said in that language. But it doesn't appear that this idiot archeologist was misquoted at all.
The caveman nonsense was the media's own, but the gay nonsense is all hers.

wonderfulname

Sorry, Internet's being a pain, the video attached to this article is the best I can get, the Czech websites referenced elsewhere don't seem to cover the story at all! Odd that...

jill_valentine

Aard wrote: »

I thought it'd be something like two males found buried in a suggestive position, but no.

Caught by a lava flow at an inopportune moment, like?

Cavehill Red

wonderfulname wrote: »

Sorry, Internet's being a pain, the video attached to this article is the best I can get, the Czech websites referenced elsewhere don't seem to cover the story at all! Odd that...

Probably because she's utterly spoofing. In the TV clip, she refers to the burial as a potential 'third gender' on 'ethnological grounds' which she doesn't specify.
In the accompanying text, this quote is extended to include transsexuals and people of different sexual orientation, ie gay.
She's on a complete flyer with either conclusion, frankly. There were no grave goods. Even if there had been female-specific grave goods with male remains, that still wouldn't be evidence of her conclusions. It could simply indicate that there is another burial style which they've just come across for the first time.
I reckon she's an attention seeker, likely motivated to get coverage to secure additional funding for her work.