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archeologist in Prague say they ’ve expose a Stone - Age man buried in a place normally reserved for women — but medium claims of a " gay cave man " may be exaggerated , according to some research worker .
The skeleton , which dates back to about 2,500 to 2,800 B.C. , was notice in the outskirts of Prague . The culture the man belong to ( have it off as the Corded Ware culture for their pottery decorated with the impression of twisted cord ) was very finicky about grave rite , reportedIranian news web Press TV , which chaffer the digging website . According to the Czech news websiteCeskapozice.cz , Corded Ware Male were usually buried on their right side with their heads facing east . This man , however , was buried on his left with his head present west — a traditionally distaff place .
" We launch one very specific grave of a human lying in the position of a woman , without sexuality specific grave goods , neither jewelry or weapons , " lede archaeologist Kamila Remisova Vesinova of the Czech Archaeological Society tell Press TV .
Not festive , not a cave man
Vesinova and her workfellow told reporter that the man may have belonged to a " third gender . " This appellation is for people who may be viewed as neither male person nor female or some combination of both . In some display case , third - gender individuals are think to be able-bodied to change between male and distaff bet on consideration . mod model let in the Hijras of India and the Fa’afafine of Polynesia . [ 5 Myths About Gay People Debunked ]
The skeleton has been trumpeted in the media as belonging to a " homosexual caveman , " but some archaeologists are unbelieving . For one thing , the complexity of the third - gender concept makes phone the skeleton " gay " an oversimplification , Kristina Killgrove , an anthropologist in at the University of North Carolina , wrote in her blog , Bone Girl .
" If this burial represents atransgendered individual(as well it could ) , that does n’t necessarily mean the mortal had a’different sexual orientation ' and certainly does n’t mean that he would have considered himself ( or that his culture would have considered him ) ' homosexual , ' " Killgrove wrote .
( Transgender is defined as when sexuality identity does n’t equal physical or inherited sex . Third gender is a across-the-board term that covers a wide range of sexuality individuality in a number of cultures , some of whom reject the male - female binary program altogether . )
Archaeologist Monty Dobson of Drury University in Missouri correspond .
" The world of this is go bad to be far more complicated than , ' This individual was mirthful , ' " Dobson told LiveScience .
Not only is " gay " an simplism , " cave dweller " is flat - out inaccurate , said John Hawks , a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin , Madison .
" cord - Ware burials are not ' caveman ' in age , " Hawks told LiveScience . " We ’re talking about pre - Bronze geezerhood Fannie Farmer . "
manlike or distaff ?
Hawks said the third - grammatical gender claims are unmanageable to judge without a conventional archeological verbal description .
" I have n’t seen any evidence that really convinces me that the skeleton is manlike , " he said . " It could be , but the photo is not convince on that point , and I have not watch any claim of desoxyribonucleic acid examination . "
It’stough to assign a sex to a skeletonwith certainty , Dobson said . archeologist and anthropologist unremarkably rely on os measurements , peculiarly the sizing and shape of the pelvis . But these estimates are n’t exact , Dobson said .
" There have been slip in the past where a gender was impute and we have gone back to look and assigned the opposite grammatical gender , " he say .
After confirm the gender , the second measure would be to find how many examples of gendered Corded Ware burials there are .
" Is this burial unequalled out of 20 burials or unique out of 20,000 burials ? " Killgrove told LiveScience . " That makes a big difference of opinion in interpretation . "
Both Killgrove and Dobson said that the tomb ’s inhabitant could indeed be a third - gender someone . But there are other possibilities as well , they said . Many culturesburied shaman , or people thought to transmit with the spirit creation , in unusual or gender - flex way , Dobson said . But that burial pattern was related to the shaman ’s societal position , not his or her gender .
Even if the skeletal frame is male person , the case for a third gender involve more than a reversal of posture and burial goods , Hawk said , pointing to work done by Rosemary Joyce , a University of California , Berkeley anthropologist who specializes in sexual practice and gender in archaeology . In ablog postabout the find , Joyce wrote that third - sexuality burials should surveil their own pattern , not just a reversal of typical male - female patterns .
The find is intriguing , Dobson enjoin , but there are many possible interpretations still on the table .
" This might be much ado about nothing , or it might be something that tells us something very interesting , " Dobson enjoin . " There simply is n’t enough information right now to make that assertion definitively . "
you may followLiveSciencesenior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter@sipappas .
