What can strontium tell us about the birth of patriarchy?
Today, billions of women live in societies where they are not granted the same rights and opportunities as men. But when did this inequality start? The EU-funded WOMAM project dug into the roots of patriarchy by examining traces of strontium isotopes in ancient bones. The project has now been featured in the new CORDIS series of explanatory videos titled Make the Connection. Strontium is a mineral found in vegetables, meat and water. As people grow, they absorb the strontium signature of their surroundings, allowing archaeologists to trace their birthplace. WOMAM researchers examining Copper Age burial sites in Iberia found that women were twice as likely to be buried away from their home, suggesting the rise of a system to patrilocality, where women are sent to live with their husband’s family. This erodes women’s social support networks, making them more vulnerable. “When residential patterns are male-centred, the status of women tends to be worse than if residential patterns are female-centred,” explains project postdoctoral fellow Marta Cintas-Peña, who worked on the project. The project team is currently approaching the issue of mobility and gender inequality through strontium analyses as well as DNA, peptides, and carbon and nitrogen isotopes. They hope this will expand our view of early social complexity in Iberia during the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE, and the origins of gender inequality that we still struggle to overcome today. ‘Make the connection with EU-science’ is a series of explanatory videos focusing on the scientific content and exploitation aspects of EU research projects.
Keywords
WOMAM, Iberia, gender inequality, women, residential patterns, Bronze Age, mobility, non-state societies