Is Androcentric Archaeology Really About Men?

Abstract

The article starts with a discussion of the relation between feminist archaeology and gender archaeology followed by a short account of how androcentrism may influence on archaeological research. By exploring two representative examples I will argue that androcentric archaeology mainly reproduces stereotype images of men and do not provide much new or real knowledge about prehistoric men or understandings of masculinity. Consequently, there is a need to study prehistoric men as gendered and I will argue that to include studies in men and masculinity into a gender archaeology based on feminist theory might challenge androcentric archaeological studies just as much as to study women in prehistory.

Full text

Is Androcentric Archaeology Really About
Men?
Lisbeth Skogstrand, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo,
St.Olavs Plass, P.B. 6762, 0130, Oslo, Norway
E-mail: lisbeth.skogstrand@khm.uio.no
ABSTRACT
________________________________________________________________
The article starts with a discussion of the relation between feminist
archaeology and gender archaeology followed by a short account of how
androcentrism may influence on archaeological research. By exploring two
representative examples I will argue that androcentric archaeology mainly
reproduces stereotype images of men and do not provide much new or
real knowledge about prehistoric men or understandings of masculinity.
Consequently, there is a need to study prehistoric men as gendered and I
will argue that to include studies in men and masculinity into a gender
archaeology based on feminist theory might challenge androcentric
archaeological studies just as much as to study women in prehistory.
________________________________________________________________
Re
´sume
´:Cet article de
´bute par une analyse de la relation entre l’arche
´ologie
fe
´ministe et l’arche
´ologie de genre, suivie d’un court expose
´portant sur la
manie
`re dont l’androcentrisme peut influencer la recherche arche
´ologique.
Par l’exploration de deux exemples repre
´sentatifs, je de
´montrerai que
l’arche
´ologie androcentrique reproduit principalement les images
ste
´re
´otype
´es des hommes et n’apportent que peu de connaissances
nouvelles ou re
´elles concernant les hommes pre
´historiques ou la
compre
´hension de la masculinite
´. Par conse
´quent, il est ne
´cessaire d’e
´tudier
les hommes pre
´historiques en tant qu’e
ˆtres sexue
´s, et je de
´montrerai
qu’inclure les e
´tudes portant sur les hommes et la masculinite
´dans une
arche
´ologie de genre base
´e sur la the
´orie fe
´ministe est tout autant
susceptible de remettre en question les e
´tudes arche
´ologiques
androcentriques qu’e
´tudier les femmes dans la pre
´histoire.
________________________________________________________________
Resumen: Este artı
´culo comienza con un debate sobre la relacio
´n entre la
arqueologı
´a feminista y la arqueologı
´adege
´nero, seguido de una breve
RESEARCH
This article is based on parts of a PhD-thesis in progress with the working title
‘‘Warriors and other Men. Notions of Masculinity from the Bronze Age to the Iron
Age expressed through burials, 1100 BC–400 AD’’ (Skogstrand in prep.).
ARCHAEOLOGIES Volume 7 Number 1 April 2011
56 2010 The Author(s). This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress (2010)
DOI 10.1007/s11759-010-9149-1

narracio
´ndeco
´mo el androcentrismo puede influir en las investigaciones
arqueolo
´gicas. Analizando dos ejemplos representativos, arguyo que la
arqueologı
´a androce
´ntrica reproduce ba
´sicamente estereotipos sobre los
hombres y no ofrece mucho conocimiento nuevo o real sobre los hombres
prehisto
´ricos ni sobre la comprensio
´n de la masculinidad. Por tanto, es
necesario estudiar a los hombres prehisto
´ricos desde la base del ge
´nero, y
postulo que la inclusio
´n de los estudios sobre los hombres y la
masculinidad en una arqueologı
´adege
´nero basada en la teorı
´a feminista
podrı
´a hacer peligrar los estudios arqueolo
´gicos androce
´ntricos, de la
misma forma que lo harı
´a el estudiar a las mujeres en la prehistoria.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
KEY WORDS
Androcentrism,Feminist theory,Masculinity,Prehistory
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Feminist critique has pointed to and criticized androcentrism within
archaeology for more than 30 years. It has called attention to the assump-
tion that men occupied all active positions in social and ritual life as well
as in the development of society. Women have for the most part been
invisible in the interpretations and presentations of prehistory, and when
present it is usually as stereotype images according to 19th century ideals
(e.g. Bertelsen et al. 1987; Conkey and Gero 1991; Conkey and Spector
1984; Engelstad 2001:345; Hjørungdal 1991,1994). Figure 1beautifully
illustrates the traditional androcentric view of a Southern Scandinavian
Bronze Age society. The men are present everywhere while the women are
safely placed indoors; even in the darkness, taking care of children.
In this article I will start by giving a short account for how androcent-
rism may influence archaeology. By using two examples which I find repre-
sentative for their time and tradition I will discuss whether androcentric
archaeological research really informs us about men and what kind of
knowledge it provides about prehistoric men and masculinity. I will argue
that there is a need to explicitly study men and masculinities within
archaeology and that it should be done within the already established femi-
nist inspired gender archaeology.
First, however, I will shortly consider the relation between feminist
archaeology and gender archaeology. Feminism as a political movement
was crucial in the initial phase of gender studies in archaeology, as well as
in science in general. While some today define their research as feminist
archaeology (e.g. Conkey 2003; Engelstad 2004,2007; Spector 1993; Voss
2000; Wylie 2007), most use the more neutral term gender archaeology.
Many even avoid using the term ‘‘feminist’’ and several have explicitly
Is Androcentric Archaeology Really About Men? 57

argued that gender archaeology should be separated from feminism (e.g.
Gilchrist 1999; Moore 1997; Sørensen 2000). Ericka Engelstad (2007:226)
suggests that the motivation is a desire for being ‘‘mainstream’’ and a fear
of being controversial and political, and thus marginalized. She notes, how-
ever, that what is rejected seems to be a conception of feminism associated
with 2nd wave feminism that existed in the 60s and 70s (see also Moi
2006). The major problem, however, is that many seem to confuse political
feminism with feminist theory and consequently avoid employing feminist
theory in archaeological gender studies.
I will not consider whether we ought to call it feminist or gender
archaeology, but to concern with gender in archaeology without feminist
theory, epistemology and critique of science is simply a process of add gen-
der and stir, resulting in under-theorised studies which neither challenge
the understanding of prehistory nor archaeological research practice
(Engelstad 2004,2007; Wylie 2007). It is beyond the scope of this paper to
go into this any further, but I will return to the issue at the end of the
paper and consider the relation between archaeological studies in masculin-
ity and a gender archaeology based on feminist theory. In the following
analyses and discussions the term feminist is used to describe works
which are based on critical feminist theory and epistemology, while gender
archaeology includes all archaeological studies focusing on gender,
Figure 1.A Southern Scandinavian Bronze Age Society? (http://www-lu.hive.no/
plansjer/)
58 LISBETH SKOGSTRAND

independent of theoretical framework or epistemology. Consequently, femi-
nist archaeology is usually gender archaeology (though feminist theory may
be applied to most problems), but gender archaeology is not necessarily
feminist.
Feminist Critic of Androcentrism
From it’s early beginning feminist critiques have discussed how androcen-
tricm influences science in different ways (e.g. Gross 1977; Harding 1986;
Slocum 1975). Also in archaeology several have discussed the impact of
androcentrism on the study of prehistory (e.g. Conkey 1998[1984]:14–23;
Engelstad 1991:510–512; Nelson 1997; Spencer-Wood 2006:61–65). For the
purpose of this paper I will differentiate between the following three levels
or types of androcentrism in archaeology, though they intermingle and
might be said to cause each other. First, there is the overall focus on pre-
sumed male roles, like the (male) hunter, the (male) warrior, the (male)
chief or the (male) farmer. Second, there is the major interest in processes
or activities presumed to mainly concern men or where men are supposed
to be the key actors; such as war, trade, sailing or religious rituals. The
main criticism from feminist archaeologists towards these approaches in
archaeology has not been the focus on men in itself, but the lack of atten-
tion to women, female roles, tasks and objects, and the underlying notion
that everything in society always centres on men. In addition the critiques
have revealed that when women are brought into the picture, female roles
and tasks are often uncritically and stereotypically transferred from our
modern society to the prehistoric community and considered lower in
importance as well as status to those of men (see e.g. Bertelsen et al. 1987;
Conkey 1998[1984]; Gilchrist 1999:17–22; Nelson and Rosen-Ayalon
2002:4; Wylie 1991, see also Spencer-Wood this issue).
The third level of androcentrism is more a matter of epistemology and
concerns interpretations from a male standpoint. Feminist science critique
has shown how social sciences, and as such archaeology, traditionally have
understood society through the eyes of middle-age, middle-class, western
white men (Haraway 1991; Harding 1986; Wylie 1991). This affects which
questions they find interesting to investigate, as well as which explanations
they find most plausible. The interpretations of different objects, buildings
or structures often seem to start with the underlying question: How would
a man use this? What makes this approach problematic is not primarily
that archaeologists traditionally have been men or have seen the prehistory
through their own eyes in itself. Rather it is the implicit assumption of
objectivity and consequently the lack of critical reflection on which factors
may influence their research and how. As men traditionally have not
Is Androcentric Archaeology Really About Men? 59

recognised themselves as gendered, gender is not seen as relevant for the
studies and interpretations of prehistory as long as it is not explicitly con-
cerning women (Kimmel 2000:6; Wylie 1991). A consequence is that (pre-
sumed) male activities and processes are recognized as representing society
as a whole (Conkey 1998[1984]; Haraway 1991; Wylie 1991).
Androcentric Archaeology
Gender archaeology has so far mainly explored and discussed women in
prehistory. This one-sided focus is justified by the more or less explicitly
pronounced premise that while androcentric archaeology ignores women it
deals with and informs us broadly about men. Still, beyond the questions
of invisible women and the men representing them, this is rarely examined
or discussed any further. A few have remarked that also male stereotypes
may be transmitted to the past and thus shape the understanding of pre-
historic men just as much as of women. However, this is not explored
either or even considered as a problem (e.g. Conkey and Spector 1984;
Gilchrist 1999). But can we expect that androcentric archaeology, which is
not aware of the importance of gender in the first place, really provide
knowledge about men and masculinity in prehistory? Stig Welinder
(1997:63) even asks whether we, in spite of 200 years of androcentric
archaeology, may now have more knowledge of prehistoric women than of
prehistoric men as individual human beings.
To answer this we have to read androcentric archaeological literature
with an explicit attention to how men and masculinities are presented
(Caesar 1999b; Alberti 2006; Caesar 1999a; Welinder 1997). I have chosen
two examples which I find representative for their present time and tradi-
tion, Brøndsted (1960)
1
Danmarks Oldtid, Jernalderen (Prehistory of Den-
mark, Iron Age) and Anthony Harding’s (2007)Warriors and Weapons in
Bronze Age Europe. These works have been chosen because they are thor-
ough material studies which also consider social aspects of society, but they
represent completely different traditions of archaeology. They are also
picked because I beforehand expected them to be androcentric. In the fol-
lowing I will explore and discuss how these works actually present men
and masculinities and what kind of knowledge they provide about prehis-
toric men.
Example 1: The Iron Age man
The extensive traditional cultural historical study Danmarks Oldtid
(Brøndsted 1960) is a respected and much cited work where the purpose is
60 LISBETH SKOGSTRAND

to describe the whens and wheres of Danish prehistory, from the Meso-
lithic until the end of the Viking age. Brøndsted presents immense
amounts of excavated sites and illustrated objects and the overall focus is
to identify culture-groups, their contacts and development. As such it is a
typical example and representative of a large body of culture historical
archaeological research (Trigger 1989).
When reading the part on the Early Iron Age, the most striking aspect of
Brøndsteds (1960) interpretations of sites, objects, monuments, and rituals,
is the absence of gender, men as well as women. He discusses the function
and developments of objects, regional differences, religious beliefs, and social
organisation but he never questions whether different artefacts, symbols or
tasks were male or female. But by the use of male or female nouns (in
Danish nouns might be gendered) together with pronouns like ‘‘he/she’’,
‘‘him/her’’ and ‘‘his/hers’’ when writing about different activities, he gives
the impression that farming, fishing, making of pottery, metal-work, horse
riding, house-building, road-construction, ditch-digging, or in the end,
nearly all kinds of tasks were performed by men, with the exclusive excep-
tions of spinning, weaving and the wearing of jewellery. In addition words
like ‘‘human’’, ‘‘people’’ or ‘‘Romans’’ are sometimes obviously used as syn-
onymous with men. He also uses a lot more ink to account for objects like
weapons, boats or even male clothing than to describe female clothing, jew-
ellery, or tools for textile-working or food preparing. He even repeatedly
comments upon the lack of specific types of weapons in different contexts
and areas (e.g. 35, 147, 152, 160, 190, 222). Such patterns may of course be
interesting and relevant but no other group of artefacts is considered to such
an extent when they are not even present. This way Brøndsted clearly com-
mits androcentrism at the previously mentioned first and second level.
One might say that if Brøndsted is right about textile-work being female,
and that farming, pottery production or the building of boats were performed
only by males, then his work contributes more to our knowledge about men
than about women because it discusses these activities at a far greater length
and with more details than explicitly presumed female activities. However, as
he doesn’t question, discuss, or put up a single argument, but simply assumes,
we still don’t know who did what. Brøndsted uncritically transfers modern
gender stereotypes for example with regard to domestic and public spheres as
he seems to take for granted that men were responsible for all outdoor activi-
ties. Another stereotype is the contrast between savage and aggressive men
and peaceful women, for example in his interpretation and discussion of the
Dejbjerg finding (Brøndsted 1960:73, 116).
The warrior is the only male role Brøndsted (1960) explicitly identifies,
and I consider this the closest he gets to Early Iron Age men. Warfare and
weapons were probably essential for the understanding of masculinity at
times, but Brøndsted mainly focuses on the mere presence of weapons; the
Is Androcentric Archaeology Really About Men? 61

objects and their forms, chronology and proveniences. Even though he
notices that contexts, amounts and assortments vary, he never questions
the warrior’s existence or even change of role or status in different periods
or regions. The warrior is just the box into which weapons and related sta-
tus objects are sorted. Thus the warrior becomes more a label or a tag than
a role or a social category, because except for weapons it doesn’t have any
content. He turns out to be an ahistorical silhouette without any contact
with his own community.
Brøndsted does not discuss what function or status a warrior had in
society, whether all or just some men became warriors, what impact war-
fare and the presence of warriors had on society, if other roles were avail-
able to men by choice or birth, or in any other way explore it as a social
phenomenon. He remarks that differences in the burials might reflect
higher or lower status and he refers to different tasks, but then he lumps
together the farmer, warrior and smith in one and the same person with-
out any discussions. He doesn’t distinguish between different groups of
men except along ethnic lines, as he stresses a distinction between Roman,
Celtic and Teutonic men.
Even though Brøndsted is mainly concerned with what he considers to
have been male activities, they are, as feminist critique repeatedly has
pointed out, generally presented as representing society as a whole, and
thus also the third level of androcentrism is present in Brøndsted’s study.
Men are doing a lot of things, but they are usually not explicitly presented
as men but, as already said, as ‘‘humans’’ or ‘‘people’’. However, by gener-
alizing from the manly to the humanly, what is specifically masculine
becomes invisible (Ekenstam 1998:19; Holter and Aarseth 1993:243–44;
Kimmel 2000:5). As men seem to carry out almost everything, it is impos-
sible to see what they were really doing. They are everywhere and as such
not situated or located anywhere (see Haraway 1991).
It may seem out of place to show that Brøndsted doesn’t take into
account social theory that did not exist at the time his study was pub-
lished. My intention is, however, not to criticise this study in particular or
to analyse the androcentrism carried out by cultural historical archaeolo-
gists in general. I will, on the other hand, consider the actual presentation
of men and masculinity in this kind of work and demonstrate that the
assumption of feminist critique, that androcentric research informs us
about men, is incorrect.
Example 2: The Bronze Age Warrior
A more recent example is Anthony Hardings (2007)Warriors and Weapons
in Bronze Age Europe which is representative of a large and lately growing
62 LISBETH SKOGSTRAND

body of archaeological studies in warriors, warfare and violence as social
phenomenons (e.g. Carman and Harding 1999; Molloy 2007; Nørga
˚rd
Jørgensen and Clausen 1997; Osgood 2005; Osgood et al. 2000; Otto et al.
2006). With a long-term and geographically extensive approach Harding
discusses Bronze Age warfare and its warriors from some point of emer-
gence in the late Neolithic and until the beginning of the Early Iron Age.
His purpose is to explore the form warfare took in different periods of
time and what implications it had for the societies who practiced it (Har-
ding 2007:31). The main focus is on the weapons; the swords, the daggers,
the halberds, the axes, the spearheads, and the shields. Harding accounts
for and discusses their extensiveness and development, but also evidence
for their use like traumas on human remains or traces of defensive archi-
tecture.
Based on the discussions of the weapons Harding (2007) considers how
raiding groups or small armies may have been organized according to size
and armament and how societies were structured for the purpose of vio-
lence. He explores the specialization in armed violence and the emergence
of a warrior identity, warrior elites, and the creation of warrior societies.
In this evolutionary perspective the hunter gradually and progressively
develops and is replaced by the warrior. Harding approaches warfare and
warriors as social constructions and underlines that cultural factors that
enable war are necessary in addition to a wish to go to war. In other words
war cannot be understood by functionalistic explanations alone (2007:21).
Unlike Brøndsted (1960) Harding (2007) generally and explicitly talks
about males and females. For example he states that stick-like human
depictions on Iberian stelae and Scandinavian rock art are invariably male
(137, 139) and argues that there are little or no evidence that females
where involved in war bands (160). Accordingly, he consistently refers to
the warrior as ‘‘him’’ with ‘‘his’’ differing weapons. Harding also employs
the concept of gender when discussing burials but confuses it with sex and
defines neither of them (see e.g. 55). Statements like ‘‘…artefacts that
apparently indicate gender are not actually restricted to one gender or the
other.’’ (Harding 2007:141) reveals more on Harding’s prejudice about
gender than about the alleged gender indication. If an artefact is not
restricted to one gender or the other, how can he know it is gender indi-
cating?
Also this study has clear androcentric qualities. As the main issues are
warriors and weapons, not the society in general, it is understandable and
reasonable to a far greater extent than in Brøndsted (1960) that the focus
is mainly on men. Harding can hardly be criticized for androcentrism just
because he has written a book about male warriors. However, even though
he is explicit about the warrior being male, he does not seem to realize that
males usually constitute only half of the population, and consequently that
Is Androcentric Archaeology Really About Men? 63

most women and probably some or even many men were not warriors.
Sometimes it becomes rather obvious that he sees men as representative of
the society as a whole, for example when he asks ‘‘How did the users of
Beaker pottery use their weapons?’’ (Harding 2007:53). As Harding argues
that neither women nor children were actually warriors (2007:59) and
(with an exception at 149) repeatedly asserts that warriors were male, he
apparently has only men in mind when talking about ‘‘the users of Beaker
pottery’’. Unless he thinks that only men were allowed to use pottery in
Beaker cultures he hereby excludes women and children as members of the
Beaker society.
Harding (2007:57) states that people buried with weapons reflect groups
of people that might have taken part in fighting. However, when daggers
are found in burials with females or children he argues that their presence
does not necessarily mean that the deceased were warriors, as the daggers
were probably too small to be effective in hand-to-hand fighting anyway.
In other words, a dagger in a male burial is discussed as a weapon meant
for fighting and war (see e.g. 35, 57, 169), while a dagger in the burial of a
female or a child transforms to a non-efficient knife (Harding 2007:59).
Further, Harding (2007:141) expresses surprise that toilet equipment like
razors and tweezers are commonly found in burials otherwise obviously
male. He even points to toilet equipment as an example of the above men-
tioned gender indicating artefacts that are not restricted to the gender they
should indicate. It may seem like Harding thinks toilet implements inher-
ently signify females. The fact is that in Late Bronze Age razors and twee-
zers are almost exclusively found in male burials and as such they probably
are gender indicating; they indicate male burials (Kristiansen 1998:181;
Skogstrand in prep; Thrane 1984:129). Harding (2007:141) proclaims that
to be a warrior was not just a matter of appearing big and strong, but also
a question of appearing well-tended and suggests that there may have been
an effeminate or homoerotic element in this beautification.
These examples illustrate that Harding (2007) has clear expectations to
the Bronze Age warrior. First of all he takes for granted a constant pres-
ence of the warrior from the moment he replaces the Neolithic hunter.
The existence of the warrior (or hunter) is a premise for the interpretations
of weapons in male burials, not a conclusion of the discussion of artefacts.
Further, the daggers in female and child burials and the razors and twee-
zers in male burials could potentially challenge the stereotype images of
prehistoric women as well as that of strong and unkempt male warriors.
However, when the archaeological record doesn’t meet Harding’s preju-
dices it is explained away so that the expectations may be fulfilled and the
stereotype for the most part sustained. Instead of altering the understand-
ing of what was considered masculine, the beautification is presented as
something feminine or perhaps even homoerotic but this is not elaborated
64 LISBETH SKOGSTRAND

any further in relation to the warrior role. The interpretation of homo-
erotic elements may indeed be right (see e.g. Joyce 2000; Skogstrand 2008;
Yates 1993), but cannot be based solely on evidence that Bronze Age war-
riors cared for their bodily appearance.
What Does Androcentric Archaeology Tell Us About Men?
Both Brøndsted (1960) and Harding (2007) commit androcentrism of all
the previously mentioned kinds. None of these studies inform us much
about prehistoric women, but I will assert that they do not really tell us
much about men either. They are mainly concerned with presumed male
roles and male activities, but while Brøndsted generally presents them as
people and humans, making the explicit manly and masculine disappear
into the shadows, Harding clearly states that the warrior was male and
transfers readymade modern stereotypic ideas on male roles. Since mascu-
linity is not questioned, the image of men in both studies becomes a never
ending reproduction of male archetypes like the warrior, the farmer, the
hunter and the chief or in other words; the breadwinner and the man in
charge fulfilling 19th century masculine ideals of being head of house,
making decisions, being stout and taking risks (Caesar 1999b; Hjørungdal
1994; Welinder 1997). The prehistoric man lives up to mythic ideas of an
original, inborn and natural masculinity, which is rough and fierce and
explicitly put in contrast to the peaceful feminine (Brøndsted 1960:73).
Consequently, the impression of the male becomes one-dimensional and
shallow and he doesn’t change even though the archaeological record and
thus society and cultural norms obviously did.
In studies like Brøndsted’s (1960) men become actions, large scale social
and technological developments, or cultural groups, and as such they seem
unaffected by gender. For example, Brøndsted (1960:154, 157) states that
smith tools are found in male burials, and that iron production and smith
work must have been the most important among the crafts (250). Never-
theless, neither in his thorough discussion of iron production technology
(see 110–113) nor anywhere else is the possible relation between iron tech-
nology and men discussed any further. Thus, how the introduction and
incorporation of iron technology may have influenced gendered structures
remains unknown. Most likely, the introduction of iron production had
consequences for the division of labour or task differentiation (see e.g. Ra
¨f
2006; Spector 1983,1993) as it is a rather time consuming activity. If
groups, possibly consisting mainly of men, went away for weeks to produce
iron, this must have affected the accomplishment and division of other
tasks in the community. Further, iron production requires the knowhow
as well as access to and control over human and raw material resources
Is Androcentric Archaeology Really About Men? 65

(Larsen 2009; Østiga
˚rd 2007). As the economical importance of iron pro-
duction increased rapidly in Southern Scandinavia by the end of the Pre-
Roman Iron Age, tasks related to different stages in the production, in all
probability, created specific gendered contexts of action and consequently
contexts of power (Conkey 1991). In addition, a possible repeated associa-
tion between men and iron production may have created new notions of
masculinity, and metaphors related to iron production might have been
used for expressing, legitimating and explaining masculinity (see Butler
2006[1990]:190–193). In other words, Brøndsted’s study tells a lot about
iron technology, but little of how it may have affected the lives of men.
Harding (2007) gives a nuanced presentation of possible developments
of the hunter/warrior from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, mainly con-
cerning the weaponry and ways of warfare. He stresses that war was perva-
sive in the development of Bronze Age society and lists the increasing need
for craftsmen, traders, travellers and military training of young men as
examples of changes in society (Harding 2007:181). In spite of the fact that
he characterizes warfare as a single-sexed arena Harding never considers
whether the emergence and development of the warrior role may have been
related to changes in gender structures and hereunder notions of masculin-
ity. On the contrary, he struggles hard to unpack what happens as the war-
rior role develops throughout the Bronze Age. He aims to discuss how
warrior identity transformed over time and how it was related to changes
in society but it remains unclear what he means by identity as well as war-
rior ideology and how it influenced other social structures. He stresses bel-
licosity as an important premise for war (2007:24), but seems unaware that
universally and throughout history a variety of cultures and belief systems
have developed concepts of masculinity that motivate and induce men to
fight (Goldstein 2004:264). A large body of literature and research shows
that war systems; the ways that societies organize themselves to participate
in potential or actual wars, and the cultural understanding of masculinity
are closely interrelated (e.g. Braudy 2005; Dudink et al. 2004; Goldstein
2004; Spierenburg 1998). ‘‘Gender roles adapt individuals for war roles,
and war provides the context within which individuals are socialized into
gender roles.’’ (Goldstein 2004:6). Hardings study contains potentially a lot
of information about men and masculinities but the male warrior remains
a category which explains the presence of weapons. In contradiction to
Brøndsted, Harding could indeed be criticised for not taking gender into
account. That is, however, not the point of this discussion.
What is missing from the non-gendered archaeology of men is the idea
of masculinity (Connell 2005[1995]:28). Gendered mechanisms, how gen-
der may structure action, space or development or how masculinity may
differentiate between different groups of men (see e.g. Connell 1995) are
not a part of the understanding of prehistoric men. The fact that men are
66 LISBETH SKOGSTRAND

representing the entire prehistoric society is not simply because women are
ignored; it is mainly because men are not gendered.
To ignore masculinity is to leave the idea of this undifferentiated, uni-
versal ‘‘man’’ in place and neglect his complexity (Caesar 1999b:115). As
androcentric studies apply ‘‘man’’ and ‘‘masculinity’’ as universal norms
they blur the image of prehistoric men and it becomes even more difficult
to explore masculinity. In some respects there is an unfinished task in find-
ing and making prehistoric men visible as a heterogeneous group as well as
individuals. The man as the norm may be challenged by giving attention
to women but the stereotype image of prehistoric men is not altered. To
explore prehistoric men and masculinity might on the other hand confront
androcentric archaeological studies just as much as to study women in pre-
history. By gendering prehistoric men it becomes clear that they can only
stand for themselves, rather than represent the whole of humanity (Alberti
2006:404; see also Knapp 1998c).
Gendering Prehistoric Men
The main reason to study masculinity in archaeology is because it provides
interesting and relevant knowledge about prehistoric societies and how they
may have been structured by gender. While some have argued strongly for
the inclusion of men and masculinity into the archaeology of gender (e.g.
Alberti 2006; Caesar 1999a,b; Knapp 1998a,c; Meskell 1999:61–64) others
have expressed reluctance to study men because they fear it may be a back-
lash to the studies of women and reinstate ‘‘man’’ as the universal histori-
cal subject (see Alberti 2006:403; Knapp 1998b:118; Knapp 1998c:92; White
2000). I will assert that we do not have a gendered archaeology as long as
men are left out as we cannot explore gender systems by focusing on
women alone. On the contrary, ‘‘If we problematize women and leave men
as an untheorized group, the male position is indirectly privileged and gen-
der studies are regarded as the domain of women.’’ (Meskell 1999:84).
Without critical studies in prehistoric men and masculinities, men will
remain an undifferentiated dominant group (Alberti 2006:411). To study
men in archaeology is not just a question of ‘‘adding men and stir’’. To
focus explicitly on men is in itself no guarantee for a gendered study as the
preceding discussion of Harding’s (2007) work illustrates. ‘‘To ‘‘do’’ men is
not to comprehend masculinity […]’’ (Knapp 1998b:117). To avoid andro-
centrism, and to obtain knowledge of the gendered men in prehistory we
need to critically explore how masculinities may have structured society,
affected power and individual actions and identities, and even question the
concept of masculinity itself and challenge any a priori binary understand-
ings of gender (see Alberti 2006).
Is Androcentric Archaeology Really About Men? 67

Modern critical men’s studies are for the most deeply rooted in feminist
theory (Connell 2005[1995]; Ekenstam 2006; Kimmel 2000; Knapp 1998c;
Lorentzen and Mu
¨hleisen 2006; Petersen 2003; Whitehead 2002). There is
thus no contradiction between a gender archaeology based on feminist theory
and studies in prehistoric men and masculinities. Benjamin Alberti
(2006:402–403) argues that there is no need for a separate archaeology of
masculinity, as the necessary theoretical and conceptual frameworks are
already in place within the feminist inspired gender archaeology, something
which is generally supported by the few publications explicitly discussing
men and masculinity in prehistory (see e.g. Alberti 1997,2006; Caesar 1999a;
Foxhall 1998; Joyce 2000,2007; Knapp 1998c; Lislerud 2001; Skogstrand
2006; Voss 2008). In fact, without feminist theory and epistemology and
awareness that masculinity is neither monolithic nor static, but divergent and
multiple configurations of discursive practice (Connell 1995; Connell and
Messerschmidt 2005; Demetriou 2001), a focus on men and masculinity
within archaeology risks ending up in traditional androcentrism.
Acknowledgment
Thanks to Ericka Engelstad for insightful discussions and helpful comments
on previous drafts of this paper.
Open Access
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attri-
bution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, dis-
tribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original
author(s) and source are credited.
Note
1. The first edition was published in 1940, but this study is based on the second
edition.
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