Are All Warriors Male?

Gender Roles on the Ancient Eurasian Steppe

Contributions by Natalia Berseneva, Bryan Hanks, Deborah Harding, Karlene Jones-Bley, Sophie Legrand, Katheryn Linduff, Sarah Milledge Nelson, Sandra L. Olsen, Karen Rubinson, Gideon Shelach, Rita Wright Edited by Katheryn M. Linduff, Karen S. Rubinson

Publication date:

13 March 2008

Length of book:

296 pages

Publisher

AltaMira Press

ISBN-13: 9780759110748

Are All Warriors Male? is a lively inquiry into questions of gender on the ancient Eurasian steppes. The book's contributors are archaeologists who work in eastern Europe, Central Asia, and eastern Asia, and this volume is the result of their field research in this vast. As little has been written about the evidence of gender roles in ancient—or modern—pastoralist societies, this book helps to fill an empty niche in our understanding of how sexual roles and identities have shaped and been shaped by such social and cultural circumstances. Are All Warriors Male? is a groundbreaking work that challenges current conceptions about the development of human societies in this great cauldron of humanity.

Chapter 1 Foreword
Chapter 2 Introduction: The Nature of Nomads, Cultural Variation, and Gender Roles Past and Present
Part 3 Part I: The Warrior Culture: Myth and Identity
Chapter 4 1. Reconsidering Warfare, Status, and Gender in the Eurasian Steppe Iron Age
Chapter 5 2. Arma Feminamque Cano: Warrior Women in the Indo-European World
Chapter 6 3. Tillya Tepe: Aspects of Gender and Cultural Identity
Part 7 Part II: Horses and the Gendering of Identity on the Steppe and Beyond
Chapter 8 4. Women's Attire and Possible Sacred Role in 4th Millennium Northern Kazakhstan
Chapter 9 5. He Who Eats the Horse, She Who Rides It? Symbols of Gender Identity on the Eastern Edges of the Eurasian Steppe
Chapter 10 6. Horses and Gender in Korea: The Legacy of the Steppe on the Edge of Asia
Part 11 Part III: Marriage, Families, and Death on the Steppe
Chapter 12 7. Women and Children in the Sargat Culture
Chapter 13 8. Sorting Out Men and Women in the Karasuk Culture
Chapter 14 9. The Gender of Luxury and Power among the Xiongnu in Eastern Eurasia

The 'warrior woman' concept has captured the scholarly and popular imagination at least since Herodotus' excursus on the Amazons. Most treatments of this subject, however, have tended to focus on historically documented contexts. This edited volume of essays by leading scholars presents the archaeological evidence for the prehistoric social configurations of Eurasian steppe peoples. It is a timely and rigorously researched treatment of ancient societies in which the domain of war was not always exclusively male.