Normally being called a caveman implies being too masculine, but archaeologists in the Czech Republic have revealed that they also had a feminine side, literally.
The team unearthed a 5,000-year-old man buried on his left side, a practice typically reserved for women. “We believe this is one of the earliest cases of what could be described as a transvestite or third-gender grave in the Czech Republic,” said archaeologist Katerina Semradova. She also notes the presence of domestic jugs and lack of tools and weapons as further evidence the man’s lifestyle.
Rosemary Joyce, a professor in the social science department with the University of California, Berkeley, strongly disagrees. “This is sexual stereotyping of the worst kind,” she wrote on her blog.
Professor Joyce questions whether the so-called “gay caveman” was even a man, let alone lived in a cave. She explains that determining sex by the pelvis is dubious at best because robust women and intersexed individuals can diverge from the expectations for female skeletons. As for the use of the non-technical term “caveman” she argues that “the normal broader usage implies Palaeolithic [Stone Age], not Chalcolithic [Copper Age], cultures.”
