Public patriarchy in contemporary Romanian archaeology and the image of women in the Romanian Neolithic and Bronze Age Nona PALINCAŞ* Abstract: By writing this article I intended to initiate in the Romanian archaeology a debate on the issue of the ‘genderless epistemology’ and its consequences for the archaeological research and for the life course of Romanian archaeologists. By way of several examples I showed that irrespective of the quantity (large in the Neolithic, small in the Bronze Age) and variety of the artefacts easy to relate to the feminine gender, Romanian archaeologists see Neolithic and Bronze Age women according to the present patriarchal pattern dominant in the vision of male archaeologists on women in general: women were preoccupied by fertility and children; men, warriors and preoccupied by sexuality, were the real agents in social life. Since, as I tried to demonstrate, much of the archaeological record is evidence to the contrary and that other interpretations are more plausible, why does this traditional patriarchal image of prehistoric women appear in the works of female archaeologists as well? My conclusion: the profoundly patriarchal character of the relationships between men and women in Romanian archaeology are responsible for the fact that, at almost one hundred year after the first women entered this profession, the men still stand for the universal, the androcentric vision of the world is taken to be scientific and the female-archaeologists are not preoccupied with the construction of an identity of their own. Rezumat: Am scris acest articol din dorinţa de a iniţia în arheologia românească o discuţie cu privire la ‘epistemologia fără gen’ şi consecinţele sale asupra cercetării arheologice şi cursului vieţii arheologilor din România. Pe baza mai multor exemple am arătat că indiferent de cantitatea (mare în neolitic, mică în epoca bronzului) şi varietatea artefactelor uşor de pus în legătură cu genul feminin, arheologii români aplică femeilor din neolitic şi epoca bronzului tiparul patriarhal contemporan, dominant în viziunea arheologilor bărbaţi asupra femeilor în general: femeile erau preocupate de fertilitate, fecunditate şi copii; bărbaţii, în schimb, erau războinici şi preocupaţi de sexualitate şi constituiau elementul activ în viaţa socială. Arătând că mare parte din informaţia arheologică este în defavoarea acestor interpretări şi că altele sunt mai plauzibile, mă întreb de ce imaginea patriarhală tradiţională despre femeile din preistorie apare şi în scrierile arheologilor femei din România. Concluzia mea: caracterul profund patriarhal al relaţiilor dintre bărbaţii şi femeile care practică arheologia în România face ca, la aproape un secol de la intrarea primelor femei în arheologia noastră, bărbaţii să stea încă pentru universal, viziunea androcentrică să fie luată drept ştiinţifică, iar femeile-arheologi să nu se gândească la contrucţia unei identităţi proprii. Keywords: genderless epistemology, figurines, Neolithic, Bronze Age, contemporary gender relationships, patriarchy. Cuvinte cheie: epistemologie fără gen, figurine, neolitic, epoca bronzului, relaţii de gen contemporane, patriarhat. This article is a first draft of a study that I intend to write on the issue of genderless epistemology in the Romanian archaeology: why is it that we think that a genderless epistemology is a sine qua non condition of the objectivity of a study, of the scientific character of an investigation? and if we had gendered epistemologies, what would they change in our research of the past and in the lives of present researchers? These questions were already raised by archaeologists in other countries, by feminist archaeologists in the first place, with important consequences for archaeology and archaeologists (e.g. M. Díaz-Andreu, M. L. S. Sørensen [eds] 1998; L. Prados Torreira, C. Ruiz López [eds] 2008), but they are still absent in Romania. I shall start the discussion here, by trying to examine the prevailing image of Neolithic and Bronze Age women in Romanian archaeology. First, on women in the Bronze Age (2600-1200/1000 BC). With small exceptions Romanian archaeologists working on the Bronze Age hardly ever mention women in their interpretation, to the point the reader is left with the image of a social life that went on perfectly without any participation of women. The large amount of weapons is considered to stand proof for the idea that in the Bronze Age war was of primary importance. All warriors were men – that seems to be unquestionable. Power and warfare were inseparable; some weapons are also prestige goods and insignia of power: e.g. the golden sword, golden daggers and silver axes from Perşinari, various richly decorated bronze weapons (I. Nestor 1960, p. 122-124; A. Vulpe 2001, p. 353-361 with illustration). Since changes in material culture are considered to be – in the prevailing, culture-historical research tradition - the result of influence of human groups one upon the other as well as the result of penetration of groups of population into the territory of other groups, it becomes clear that men are * Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology of the Romanian Academy, 11 Henri Coandă Str., Sector 1, Bucureşti–22, RO–010 667, Romania; [email protected] Studii de Preistorie 5, 2008, p. 159-170. Nona PALINCAŞ seen as the great and only agents of social life in the Bronze Age. And since men are conceived as physically strong, all larger tools must have been used by them, i.e. men are the main agents in economic life as well. This is the image delivered among others by the History of the Romanians, a treaty edited under the aegis of the Romanian Academy in 2001; the chapter on social life does not mention women at all (Ibid., p. 353-369). In the archaeology of the Bronze Age women appear usually only when one deals with their skeletons: then the reader is told of the differences in burial rite between men and women (M. Şandor-Chicideanu, I. Chicideanu 1989). In the few cases these difference are accounted for, they are invariably considered to mirror the men-women relationships characteristic for patriarchy (I. Nestor 1960, p. 121; I. Chicideanu 1986, p. 28). Even in cases where women’s graves are clearly richer than those of men the attention is quickly diverted from the possible meanings of this fact to the preoccupation with demonstrating the social superiority of men (L. Bârzu 1989, p. 49-51).1 In fact, in verbal discussions, many argue that women’s role in the Bronze Age social life is absent from the archaeological studies because, unlike men, women didn’t leave any important traces in the archaeological evidence. There are some exceptions however: the numerous female figurines stemming from the Žuto Brdo-Gârla Mare (LBA) cemeteries and settlements (Vl. Dumitrescu 1961, p. 244-279; pl. 152-161; M. Chicideanu-Şandor, I. Chicideanu 1990; Şandor-Chicideanu 2003, p. 101- 112). They were variously interpreted from replacing the mother in the graves of deceased children to a feminine goddess associated with a particular social group (as summarized in M. Şandor-Chicideanu, I. Chicideanu 1990, p. 70-75), but again they didn’t trigger a discussion on female identity and social role in the period, at least not otherwise than in such vague terms as women submitted to men’s authority (I. Chicideanu 1986, p. 28). At the same time, artefacts and aspects of the archaeological remains relevant for women’s life were ignored. E.g. Radu Vulpe noticed in his diary that during the 1954 excavation campaign in the settlement from Popeşti-“Nucet” a clay fragment in the shape of a female breast was found (Diary no. 1/1954, Section Ω, p. 127), but he didn’t publish it (see the sherd in N. Palincaş 2004-2005, fig. 3/1) in the excavation report following the campaign, where he picked out other pieces as relevant for the site (R. Vulpe 1955); Vl. Dumitrescu noticed that many Žuto Brdo- Gârla Mare vessels, especially cups and mugs, were decorated with nipple-like protrusions (1961, p. 147), but the fact has received no further attention ever since. That women are visible in the archaeological record is shown by a study of the Late Bronze Age in the Lower Danube: the integration of the small scale local communities into very large exchange networks favoured the social recognition of the importance of women’s roles in economy and politics; women used the new context to challenge the old power relationships (N. Palincaş 2004- 2005; eadem 2007). In other words: women were capable of understanding and being effective not only in their relationship with children, but also in economy and politics. Although no one brought arguments to the contrary, the articles were received with reluctance.2 Women in the Romanian Neolithic. But if the lack or scarcity of obviously women related objects is the issue, what difference is there when we consider an epoch with thousands of objects representing the female body and only few representing the male body? Such an epoch is the Neolithic, dated in Romania between ca 6600 and 3700 BC (M. Petrescu-Dîmboviţa 2001, p. 121). Archaeological evidence and its interpretation: 1. There are thousands of female figurines known from the Neolithic period in Romania and a very large number anthropomorphic vessels and scenes consisting of women, animals and vegetation depicted on pottery: e.g. in his book from 1997 Monah illustrated at least 1,000 figurines from the Cucuteni-Tripolije area alone (i.e. including the Ukrainian territory), while in 2002 Andreescu mentions having personally examined about 1,200 Gumelniţa figurines and anthropomorphic vessels. Despite the fact that only few are represented in state of pregnancy3 or as breast feeding children, female 1 “En dépit de la position privilégiée des femmes qui transmettent sans doute aussi bien la richesse que le statut social, on peut démontrer que les chefs effectifs de la communauté sont des hommes.” (L.