Archaeologies of Sexuality

by

Pamela Geller

• LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0298

Introduction

Tracking back to the eighteenth century, antiquarians cultivated an interest in the materiality of sexuality, though one that bordered on fetishization, a focus on objects, images, and spaces presumed erotic or pornographic in function. Finds at Pompeii and Herculaneum (Italy)—mosaics, frescoes, vases, sculptures, bronze artifacts—hinted at culturally distinctive takes on pleasure, procreation, power, and same-sex and inter-species relations. But, come the nineteenth century, religious moralizing deemed such material culture decadent, repugnant, and shocking. Pots from Peru (Chimu, Moche, and Recuay cultures) with sexually explicit depictions garnered similar reactions. “Erotica” were then relegated to secret cabinets or rooms with restricted access. The silences generated around sexuality meant that a universalizing heteronormativity—one that reduced it to compulsory reproduction and penetrative heterosex—implicitly informed archaeologists’ reconstructions of past cultures for much of the twentieth century. To counter this deterministic, dichotomous, and ultimately fallacious framing of sexuality, thoughtful statements from archaeologists who drew on and adapted feminist theorizing occurred at the turning of the twenty-first century. These conversations have since benefitted from engagement with queer theory and an attention to intersectionality. In their discussions, archaeologists of sexuality now emphasize that the concept is related to but not interchangeable with sex and gender. (See the separate Oxford Bibliographies article Gender and Archaeology.) The consolidation of an archaeological interest in sexuality also attended to its historicity. A taxonomic distinction between homo- and heterosexuality consolidated in the late nineteenth century. Medico-scientific fields, as writers like Michel Foucault, Jonathan Katz, and David Halperin have explained, stigmatized the former and naturalized the latter in the service of universal and hoary Truths about family and labor, anatomical difference, and psychological constitution. This point about recent invention should not be lost on archaeologists who study the more distant past; that is, there is a history to our understanding of human nature. Instead, and with attention to culture-historical context, archaeologies of sexuality demonstrate that anatomy and acts do not necessarily determine sexual identities, though patterned behaviors can solidify into them with time. Reproductive concerns have long garnered investigation, but archaeologies of sexuality now also consider desire and celibacy, as well as labor and commerce. Sexual violence in past cultures and contemporary archaeological practice are also areas of interest. Ultimately, the archaeological study of sexuality makes for a more holistic and contextualized understanding of past cultures while offering valuable lessons about the different ways to be human.

General Overviews

Since the end of the twentieth century, archaeologies of sexuality have proliferated. One early book-length overview, Taylor 1996, tracks human sexuality over the course of four million years, from our hominin ancestors to the present day. Archaeological case studies in Joyce 2008 challenge contemporary commonsensical thinking about sex, gender, and sexuality. Some landmark edited collections examine sexuality as it pertains to reconstructions of the past and the current practice of archaeology. Schmidt and Voss 2000 presents diverse cultural and historical case studies about sex and sexuality. A special issue of World Archaeology, Dowson 2000, demonstrates the promise and applicability of queer theorizing to archaeology. Proceedings from the 2004 Chacmool conference “Que(e)rying Archaeology,” Terendy, et al. 2009, commented on the shortcomings of prior studies about gender but stressed the potential of queer perspectives. Geller 2017 brings bioarchaeology into conversation with feminist and queer theorizing about sex, gender, and sexuality. Review essays include the syntheses Voss 2006, Voss 2008, and Springate 2020. See also Queer Archaeology, a website containing annotated resources.

• Dowson, Thomas, ed. 2000. Special issue: Queer archaeologies. World Archaeology 32.2.

  An early and influential collection of essays in which contributors reflect on the doing of queer archaeology: its production of knowledge about the past, longstanding (hetero)normative practices, and practitioners’ experience of intolerance (e.g., homophobia).

• Geller, Pamela L. 2017. The bioarchaeology of socio-sexual lives: Queering common sense about sex, gender, and sexuality. New York: Springer.

  DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-40995-5

  This book examines commonsensical ideas about sex, gender, and sexuality as addressed in scholarly studies and popular presentations of historic and ancient bodies. To this end, Geller brings feminist and queer theorizing into conversation with bioarchaeology.

• Joyce, Rosemary A. 2008. Ancient bodies, ancient lives: Sex, gender, and archaeology. New York: Thames & Hudson.

  Accessible book that examines presentist, heteronormative assumptions about sex, gender, and sexuality. Joyce synthesizes her own work on pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, as well as uses a critical feminist perspective to revisit and reinterpret other scholars’ archaeological case studies.

• Queer Archaeology.

  This website is devoted to queer archaeology and has content related to the archaeology of sexuality. Its webpages include information about organizations and bibliographic resources, as well as links to podcasts.

• Schmidt, Robert A., and Barbara L. Voss, eds. 2000. Archaeologies of sexuality. New York: Routledge.

  A landmark edited volume comprised of culturally and historically varied case studies, which draw inferences about human sexuality from contextualized, archaeological data. Contributors offer a long-term view of sexuality, as well as cultural-historical specifics that demonstrate different ways to be human.

• Springate, Megan E. 2020. Intersectionality, queer archaeology, and sexual effects: Recent advances in the archaeology of sexualities. In The Routledge handbook of global historical archaeology. Edited by Charles E. Orser Jr., Andrés Zarankin, Pedro Funari, Susan Lawrence, and James Symonds, 95–116. New York: Routledge.

  This review brings readers up to speed on more recent writings concerned with archaeology and sexuality. Major developments include deeper engagement with queer theories and politics, intersectionality, and sexual effects. Historical archaeology is the focus.

• Taylor, Timothy. 1996. The prehistory of sex: Four million years of human sexual culture. London: Fourth Estate.

  Written for a non-academic audience, this book is a broad survey of human sexuality. It is both ambitious in its breadth and controversial in its content. Rather than presume biological imperative, Taylor links sexuality to pleasure, pain, predilection, prejudice, and politics.

• Terendy, Susan, Natasha Lyons, and Michelle Janse-Smekal, eds. 2009. Que(e)rying archaeology: Proceedings of the thirty-seventh annual Chacmool Conference, University of Calgary, 11–14 November, 2004. Calgary, AB: Archaeological Association, Univ. of Calgary Press.

  Conference proceedings for the 2004 Chacmool Conference, which commemorated the fifteenth anniversary of the Chacmool Conference “Archaeology of Gender.” The former received unprecedented interest, as evidenced by a record number of papers and attendance. The proceedings addressed archaeologies of sexuality, alternative genders, and childhood, among other concerns.

• Voss, Barbara L. 2006. Sexuality in archaeology. In Handbook of gender in archaeology. Edited by Sarah M. Nelson, 365–400. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.

  An early synthesis of archaeologists’ research on sexuality that focuses on the ideas informing its study (sexology, performance theory), topical concerns (fertility management, prostitution, heteronormative challenges, spatialization, representations), and case studies from the pre-Columbian Maya and ancient Egypt.

• Voss, Barbara L. 2008. Sexuality studies in archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology 37.1: 317–336.

  DOI: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.37.081407.085238

  A review of archaeological research of sexuality from the nineteenth century to the early aughts. Its bibliography is a good source for readings about reproduction management, representations of sexuality, sexual identities, prostitution, the sexual politics of institutions, and queer archaeologies.