Thursday 23 February 2012

The First Gay Caveman?

This week's blog prompt is to google the term "Gay Caveman" and discuss our feelings and reactions to it. Before I googled the term, I was really curious as to know what exactly constituted this person as gay, under what definition of homosexuality did they use to determine that these are the remains of a homosexual?

I read three online newspaper articles discussing the gay caveman and the conclusion came from the fact that he was buried with artifacts usually reserved for female burials, jugs and pots instead of hunting equipment and such. All the newspapers pointed out that the society in which these remains were associated with took funerary rites every seriously, further supporting this idea that these remains were different. However, is sexuality really just determined by the material we are associated with?
Other thoughts on this find is that they are the remains of a transsexual. But couldn't this be someone who identifies better with women than with the men in their society. I know many men today that get along better with women than men, but however are heterosexual in orientation.
It would be amazing if there was further evidence to indicate that this is the first homosexual or transsexual, but that's just it, I feel more evidence is required to decipher this. In archaeology, all we have are material remains, but sexuality is something that is far beyond material.

These are the links of the other articles I read for this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8433527/First-homosexual-caveman-found.html
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/04/07/archaeologists-find-worlds-first-gay-caveman-near-prague/

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