Searching for matriarchal societies in prehistory, relying on the findings of burial sites in Southwest Asia

Nazif, Samaneh; Vahdati Nasab, Hamed; Mohammadkhani, Kourosh

Searching for matriarchal societies in prehistory, relying on the findings of burial sites in Southwest Asia

Volume 14, Issue 2
March 2023

Pages 257-284

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

S. Nazif ¹

H. Vahdati nasab ²

K. Mohammadkhani ³

¹ PHD Student, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University

² Professor, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University

³ Assistant Professor, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University

Abstract

Today, some scholars believe in which a matriarchal structure, hereditary succession is traced to a matrilineality line. The residence is matrilocal and all the essentials’ items are in the hands of women. But today we live in societies with the patriarchal and androcentric structure. Some feminist scholars believe that if a matriarchy society existed in prehistory, it may be possible to hope for the end of today's patriarchal structure. Various materials and deposits such as skeletal data and grave goods can be used to search for women, their way of life and their status in the past. With the help of research on women’s burial and how it is done in a burial site and with the help of the findings of the graves; hypotheses can be made as to the existence or absence of a matriarchal structure in that society. In this article, with the help of library research, we give a brief history of the emergence of the hypothesis of matriarchal societies and some of its features. Then, with a descriptive-analytical method and using field research conducted, we express the interpretations obtained from the findings in some burial sites in Southwest Asia. The findings indicate that there should not consider just one form of structure for all prehistoric societies in this region, and on the other hand, with all the research done in this field, there is still no firm and conclusive findings about the existence of matriarchal societies in the prehistoric area of Southwest Asia.

Keywords

Matriarchal Societies

Burial

Prehistory

Southwest Asia

archaeology

20.1001.1.23221941.1401.14.2.9.7

Subjects

History

منابع
Adovasio, J. M., Soffer, O., & Page, J. (2007). The invisible sex: uncovering the true roles of women in prehistory. New York: HarperCollins.
Bachofen, J.J. (1861). Das Mutterrecht: eine Untersuchung über die Gynaikokratie der alten Welt nach ihrer religiösen und rechtlichen Natur Stuttgart: Krais & Hoffmann.
Bahrani, Z. (2001). Women of Babylon: gender and representation in Mesopotamia. Psychology Press.
Bolger, D. (2010). The dynamics of gender in early agricultural societies of the Near East. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 35(2), 503-531.
Bolger, D., & Wright, R. P. (2013). Gender in southwest Asian prehistory. A companion to gender prehistory, 372-94.
Boz, B., & Hager, L. D. (2000). Living above the dead: intramural burial practices at Çatalhöyük. Humans and Landscapes of Çatalhöyük: Reports from the, 2008, 413-440.
Campbell, S. (2008). The dead and the living in Late Neolithic Mesopotamia. The dead and the living in late Neolithic Mesopotamia, 125-140.
Croucher, K. (2008). Ambiguous genders? Alternative interpretations: a discussion of case studies from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and Halaf periods. Gender through Time in the Ancient near East, 21-51.
Ehrenberg, M. (1989). Women in prehistory. Norman.
Eller, C. (2001). The myth of matriarchal prehistory: Why an invented past won't give women a future. Beacon Press.
Engels, F. (1902). The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company Cooperative.
Flannery, K. V. (1999). Chiefdoms in the early Near East: why it’s so hard to identify them. The Iranian world: essays on Iranian art and archaeology presented to Ezat O. Negahban, 44-63.
Frangipane, M. (2007). Different types of egalitarian societies and the development of inequality in early Mesopotamia. World Archaeology, 39(2), 151-176.
Gimbutas, M. (1998). Die Zivilisation der Göttin: die Welt des alten Europa. Zweitausendeins.
Goettner-Abendroth, H. (2012). Matriarchal societies: Studies on indigenous cultures across the globe. Lang.
Göttner-Abendroth, H. (1988). Das Matriarchat/1 Geschichte seiner Erforschung. Kohlhammer.
Hamilton, N. (2005). Social Aspects of Burial. Inhabiting Çatalhöyük: Reports from the 1995–99 Seasons, 301–306.
Hodder, I. (2006). Çatalhöyük, the leopard's tale: revealing the mysteries of Turkey's ancient" town". Thames & Hudson.
Jammo, S., & Tsuneki, A. (2020). The outdoor communal Neolithic cemetery of Tell el-Kerkh, northwest Syria. In Proceedings of the 11th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (Vol. 2, pp. 171-82).
Kandiyoti, D. (1988). Bargaining with patriarchy. Gender & society, 2(3), 274-290.
Kuhlmann, D. (2013). Gender studies in architecture: space, power and difference. Routledge.
Kuijt, I. (2000a). Keeping the Peace. Life in Neolithic Farming Communities, 137-164.
Kuijt, I. (2000b). Near Eastern Neolithic Research. Life in Neolithic Farming Communities, 311-322.
Kuijt, I. (2000c). People and space in early agricultural villages: exploring daily lives, community size, and architecture in the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 19(1), 75-102.
Larsen, C. S. (2002). Bioarchaeology: the lives and lifestyles of past people. Journal of Archaeological Research, 10(2), 119-166.
Lerner, G. (1986). The creation of patriarchy (Vol. 1). Women and History; V. 1.
Lobell, M. (1989). The Buried Treasure: Women's Ancient Architectural Heritage. Architecture: A Place for Woman. Ed. Ellen Perry Berkeley. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 139-57.
Mann, B. A., Hoffman, E. D., & Nelson, M. A. (2000). Iroquoian women: The gantowisas (Vol. 4). Peter Lang.
Mays, S. (2010). The archaeology of human bones. Routledge.
Mellaart, J. (1967). Çatal Hüyük: a neolithic town in Anatolia.
Merlini, A. (2018). Matriarchal societies: their social, political, economic and cultural structure as the only solution in the destructive phase of patriarchy.
Molleson, T. (1989). Seed preparation in the Mesolithic: the osteological evidence. Antiquity, 63(239), 356-362.
Molleson, T. (1994). The eloquent bones of Abu Hureyra. Scientific American, 271(2), 70-75.
Morgan, L. H. (1877). Ancient Society, Chicago: Charles H. Kerr And Company.
Oates, J. (1978). Religion and ritual in sixth‐millennium BC Mesopotamia. World archaeology, 10(2), 117-124.
Peterson, J. (2002). Sexual revolutions: gender and labor at the dawn of agriculture (Vol. 4). Rowman Altamira.
Peterson, J. (2006). Gender and early farming societies. Handbook of Gender in Archaeology, 535–70.
Pollock, S. (1999). Mesopotamia: the Eden that never was. Early Societies.
Sanday, P. R. (2002). Women at the center: Life in a modern matriarchy. Cornell University Press.
Sofaer, J. R. (2013). Bioarchaeological Approaches to the Gendered Body. A Companion to Gender Prehistory, 226-243.
Teppo, S. (2005). Women and their agency in the neo-assyrian empire. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Helsinki.
Vaughan, G. (1997). For-giving: A feminist criticism of exchange (Vol. 53, No. 54, p. 123). Austin, TX: Plain View Press.
منابع اینترنتی
Göttner-Abendroth, H., (2022a). (https://matriarchiv.ch/?page_id=30&lang=en ]Access date: 08.01.2022[)
Göttner-Abendroth, H. (2022b). (https://matriarchiv.ch/?page_id=199&lang=en ]Access date: 08.01.2022[)
https://www.catalhoyuk.com/archive_reports/2005/ar05_25.html

XML

PDF 667.82 K