Gender Transformations in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies

In which chronological, spatial, and social contexts is gender a relevant social category that is noticeable in the archaeological material? How can transformations in social gender relations and identity be recognized archaeologically? Is the identity of prehistoric people defined by gender? If so, what is the accompanying cultural context? What about gender equality among the scientists working in archaeology? In what degree are research teams, as well as their scientific approaches, biased today? These and other burning questions are intensively discussed in this volume, which comprises 25 contributions presented at the international workshop 'Gender Transformations in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies', organised by the Collaborative Research Centre 1266 of Kiel University funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The workshop offered a platform to discuss a broad range of approaches on the inter-dependencies between gender relations and socio-environmental transformation processes. Beyond a focus on the archaeology of women, gender archaeology offers a variety of possibilities to reconstruct the contribution of social groups differentiated e.g. by age, gender, and activities related to cultural transformation, based on the archaeological material. Thus, this volume includes papers dealing with different socio-economic units, from south-western Europe to Central Asia, between 15,000 and 1 BCE, paying particular attention to the scale of social reach. Since gender archaeology, and in particular feminist archaeology, also addresses the issue of scientific objectivity or bias, parts of this volume are dedicated to equal opportunity matters in archaeological academia across the globe. This is realised by bringing together feminist and female experiences from a range of countries, each with its own specific individual, cultural, and social perspectives and traditions. The papers are organised along three central topics: 'Gendering fieldwork', 'Tracing gender transformations', and 'Gendering and shaping the environment'. By gendering the archaeological discussion on transformation processes, the contributions aim to more firmly embed gender-sensitive research in the archaeological agenda, not just in Europe, but world-wide.

Dr Julia Katharina Koch is a member of CRC 1266 'Scales of Transformation' at Kiel University. Before that she worked as a freelance archaeologist; as editor of the journal Germania at the Romano-Germanic Commission, Frankfurt, Germany; and as project investigator on the project 'Life Course Reconstruction of Mobile Individuals in Sedentary Societies', at Leipzig University (funded 2004-2011 by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research).

In 2000/01 she was the recipient of a travel grant from the German Archaeological Institute that enabled her to visit countries around the Mediterranean. She has studied at Mainz University, Germany, and Kiel University. Her PhD dissertation (1999) was on the wagon and horse harness from the Late Hallstatt princely grave of Hochdorf. Her research focus is on mobility, cultural transfer, and gender relations in Bronze and Iron Age Central Europe.

She is a co-founder and member of the German society FemArc e.V. and of the European Association of Archaeologists community 'Archaeology of Gender in Europe', and she is co-publisher of the monograph series 'Frauen - Forschung - Archäologie' (Women - Research - Archaeology). From 2005 to 2009, she was chair of the working group 'Iron Age' of the German societies for antiquarian studies (Verbände für Altertumsforschung).

Key publications
Julia K. Koch and Eva-Maria Mertens (eds.). 2002. Eine Dame zwischen 500 Herren: Johanna Mestorf - Werk und Wirkung. Eine internationale Tagung der CAU Kiel 1999. Frauen - Forschung - Archäologie 4. Münster: Waxmann.

Julia K. Koch. 2006. Hochdorf VI: der Wagen und das Pferdegeschirr aus dem späthallstattzeitlichen Fürstengrab von Eberdingen-Hochdorf (Lkr. Ludwigsburg). Forschungen und Berichte zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte in Baden-Württemberg 89. Stuttgart: Theiss.

Anton Kern, Julia K. Koch et al. (eds.). 2012. Technologieentwicklung und transfer in der Eisenzeit Europas. Bericht der AG Eisenzeit, Hallstatt 2009. Beiträge zur Ur und Frühgeschichte Mitteleuropas 65. Langenweißbach: Beier&Beran.

Julia K. Koch and Katharina Kupke. 2012. Life course-reconstruction of mobile individuals in an Early Bronze Age society in Central Europe: concept of the project and first results to the cemetery of Singen (Germany), in: Joachim Burger et al. (eds.), Population dynamics in pre- and early history: new approaches by using stable isotopes and genetics. Proceedings of a conference in Berlin, March 24-26, 2010. TOPOI. Berlin Studies of the Ancient World 5. Berlin: De Gruyter, 225-241.

Julia K. Koch. 2014. Von Geburt an Frau? Mädchen und junge Frauen in der Nordalpinen Frühbronzezeit, in: Anna Kieburg and Susanne Moraw (eds.), Mädchen in der Antike. Bericht der Tagung des FemArc e.V. und des Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Berlin 2010. Frauen - Forschung -Archäologie 11. Münster: Waxmann, 41-60.

Julia K. Koch. 2014. Neolithische Kollektivgräber von Großeibstadt, Kr. Rhön-Grabfeld, in: Maria Wunderlich, Julia K. Koch and Paula Dieck (eds.), Denhoog - Großeibstadt - Rastorf: Studien zu neolithischen Gräbern und Häusern. Frühe Monumentalität und soziale Differenzierung 5. Bonn: Habelt, 159-252.

Julia K. Koch and Roman Scholz. 2015. Das Große Bürgle von March-Buchheim im Breisgau: Großgrabhügel nördlich der Alpen und eine Kommunikationsroute durch den Schwarzwald, in: Jutta Leskovar and Raimund Karl (eds.), Linzer Eisenzeitgespräche 2014. Linz: Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum, 67-79.

Julia K. Koch. 2017. Weibliche Biographien und statistische Gruppen: das Leben und Sterben der hallstattzeitlichen Frauen vom Magdalenenbergle, in: Katja Winiger, K. and Christin Keller (eds.), Frauen an die Macht? Neue interdisziplinäre Ansätze der Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung für die Eisenzeit Mitteleuropas. Universitätsforschungen für prähistorische Archäologie 299. Bonn: Habelt, 93-106.

Julia K. Koch. 2017. Between the Black Forest and the Mediterranean Sea: individual mobility in the Early Iron Age, in: Silviane Scharl and Birgit Gehlen (eds.), Mobility in prehistoric sedentary societies. Kölner Studien zur Prähistorischen Archäologie 8. Rahden: Leidorf, 215-228.

Wiebke Kirleis is professor of environmental archaeology/archaeobotany at Kiel University, Germany. She is deputy director of the Collaborative Research Centre 'Scales of Transformation: Human-Environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies' (CRC 1266, financed by the German Research Foundation/DFG) and a member of the Cluster of Excellence 'Roots' at Kiel University. As an archaeobotanist, she is interested in all kinds of plant-related human activities, be they subsistence strategies or food processing, with their socio-cultural implications, as well as the reconstruction of human-environment interactions in the past. Geographically, her research areas span from northern Europe all way to Indonesia.