AD the relatively autonomous categories of male and female equipment

were becoming
intermingled within individual graves. This erosion of gender
representations was also occurring in
the increasingly mixed cemeteries. Around AD 200 there was a major
reordering of funerary
practices, in line with changes in household organization, military
structure and industry. 93
Cemeteries were re-established as gender-segregated spaces and
women's elaborate costumes and
finery marked them apart from male dress styles. Yet by ad 400 the
spatial segregation in
cemeteries was once again breaking down.
Taylor's claim that gender distinctions in clothing became apparent in
Europe only with the
emergence of other forms of status differentiation in the Late Neolithic
and Early Bronze Age cannot
be sustained. 94 The evidence shows that in the Mesolithic period
gender differentiation was
probably greater than the marking of age differences. Mann's
proposition of stable gender relations
is similarly without foundation. The Danish prehistoric sequence
provides us with a remarkable
view of the dynamic and changing relationship between men and
women and the ways that genders
were constructed, dissolved and reformulated over time. These changes
coincided with significant
economic, cultural and political transformations, indicating that the
politics of gender were
inseparable from other social processes and practices.
DRESS, GENDER AND KINSHIP
As discussed in Chapter 4, Sue Shennan's analysis of the Early Bronze
Age cemetery at Branč (c.
2400-1700 BC) concludes with two opposing hypotheses about social
organization. 95 She suggests
that if the high status of certain women was ascribed (inherited), they
were more likely to survive
infancy than boys, raising the possibility that descent may have been
calculated through the female
line and that female children were therefore vital to group continuity.
Given the small size of the
community represented by the cemetery (about forty people at any one
time), men may have been
brought in as marriage partners from outside. Alternatively, she
suggests that a different picture
results from interpreting women's wealth as achieved (essentially as
awarded at marriage). The few
'rich' men, in contrast to the many 'rich' women, are explained as
polygamous husbands and the
women's wealth derives from bridewealth payments or the use of wives
as vehicles for displaying
their husbands' wealth. In this scenario, descent might be patrilineal
and residence uxorilocal.
Shennan was unable to decide between these two possibilities.
Subsequently, Stephen Shennan and John O'Shea have interpreted the
larger quantities of metal
goods in women's graves (as opposed to men's) from Early Bronze Age
cemeteries in the region as
indicative of male wealth and prestige, thereby supporting the second
alternative. 96 Their
virocentric position is attacked by Rega who states, 'While the metal
wealth in female graves may
indeed represent a male contribution, the mortuary data alone do not
allow determination of
"ownership", whether symbolic or actual.'97
Mokrin: status and gender
Studies of gender and kinship are closely tied to studies of status and all
need to be understood
together. O'Shea develops the notion of associative status, in addition
to achieved and ascriptive
status, where an individual holds or obtains a social position by virtue of
a relationship (of kinship,
marriage or adoption) to another individual or group. 98 He gives as an
example the burial of certain
women in head-dresses in the Early Bronze Age cemetery at Mokrin; 99
head ornaments are
regularly found with adult and mature women but are rare among old
women, leading O'Shea to
suggest that the wearing of head-dresses was relinquished in later life.
From this he suggests that
they may have had an associative character and that this might reflect
consanguineal or affinal ties to
the holders of male offices. 100 Thus he perceives that the women
wearing head ornaments owed
that right to their relationships with particular men.
At the same time O'Shea argues that the general poverty of old people's
dress accoutrements and
grave goods is an indicator that this was a society in which status was
accumulated by giving away
wealth and possessions; the lack of such items among the elderly may
have related inversely to their
status. 101 The situation may also have been complicated by the
different responses of mourners to
untimely deaths and to those dying in old age. At the end of a long life,
personal possessions might
be recycled, handed down or disposed of in other ways but, for the life
cut short, the use of these
items other than as grave goods might be deemed inappropriate. In