Pages: 91-102 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.55086/sp26391102

Reconstructing social roles in ancient societies from archaeological evidence remains a major challenge for archaeologists. This study aims to reconstruct several roles performed by women among the Early Nomads in the Southern Urals from the late 7th to the 3rd centuries BC, based on burial evidence. The analysis draws on a representative database of 230 anthropologically identified female burials from 36 burial grounds in the Southern Urals. The evidence makes it possible to identify several social roles, including ritual specialists (“priestesses,” fortune tellers, and healers), women skilled in the use of weapons (“amazons”), household managers or wives (concubines), tattoo specialists or artists, artisans (“jewelers”), and, probably, seamstress, spinners, and knitters. As in modern society, women in antiquity could combine several social roles. Archaeological evidence makes it possible to reconstruct gender and status roles, whereas demographic roles can be addressed only partly through DNA analysis.

Keywords: Early Iron Age, Southern Urals, nomads, female burials, social roles

Information about author:

Natalia Berseneva (Chelyabinsk, Russian Federation). Doctor of Historical Sciences. Institute of History and Archeology, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Sofia Kovalevskaya St., 16, Yekaterinburg, 620990, Russian Federation; South Ural State University, Scientific-educational Center of Eurasian Investigations. Lenin Ave., 76, Chelyabinsk, 454080, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID: 0000-0003-2554-6205