Insterested in learning more about queer archaeology? You have come to the right place! Follow the links below to find resources about queer archaeology.
Queer Archaeology Organizations:
Queer Archaeology Interest Group – Society for American Archaeology
“The Queer Archaeology Interest Group will function as a formal network of SAA members who are interested in a broad range of professional research and scholarly issues concerning sexuality and LGBTQI archaeologists and allies interested in supporting their LGBTQI colleagues.”
NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project – a project of the Partner Program of the Fund for the City of New York
“The first initiative to document historic and cultural sites associated with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in the five boroughs. Sites illustrate the richness of the city’s LGBT history and the community’s influence on America.”
The Association for Queer Anthropology
“The Association for Queer Anthropology (AQA), formerly known as the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists (SOLGA), is a section of the American Anthropological Association and was founded in 1988. AQA serves the interests of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer and allied anthropologists in the American Anthropological Association.”
Beginner’s Guide
If you are just starting your exploration of queer archaeology, we recommend that you start with the following resources. The following are a series of foudnational texts, introductory sources, and miscelleanous other sources appropriate for students and early career researchers.
Queer Theory and Archaeology – Nathan Klembara – MAPA Blog
Dowson, T. A. (2000). Why queer archaeology? An introduction. World Archaeology, 32(2), 161-165.
Cobb, H. (2005). Straight down the line? A queer consideration of hunter-gatherer studies in north-west Europe. World Archaeology, 37(4), 630-636.
Rutecki, Dawn and Chelsea Blackmore. 2016 Towards an Inclusive Queer Archaeology: An Overview and Introduction. The SAA Archaeological Record 16(1):9-11.
Queer Archaeology Bibliography
Looking for more? We have been aiming to create a full bibliography of sources related to queer archaeology. Are we missing something? Send us an email at queerarch.socialmedia@gmail.com or connet with us on Twitter/Facebook and we will add it to the list!
Bibliography adapted from a Queer Archaeology bibliography from Nathan Klembara.
Archaeology of Sexuality
Schmidt, R. A., & Voss, B. L. (2005). Archaeologies of sexuality. Routledge.
Springate, M. E. (2020). Intersectionality, queer archaeology, and sexual effects: Recent advances in the archaeology of sexualities. The Routledge Handbook of Global Historical Archaeology, 95-116.
Voss, B. L. (2000). Feminisms, queer theories, and the archaeological study of past sexualities. World archaeology, 32(2), 180-192.
Voss, B. L. (2007). Sexuality in archaeology. Identity and subsistence: Gender strategies for archaeology, 15, 33.
Voss, B. L. (2008). Domesticating imperialism: sexual politics and the archaeology of empire. American Anthropologist, 110(2), 191-203.
Voss, B. L. (2009). Looking for gender, finding sexuality: a queer politic of archaeology, fifteen years later. In Que (e) rying Archaeology: Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual Chacmool Conference, University of Calgary (pp. 29-39).
Voss, B. L., & Casella, E. C. (2011). Postcolonial and Queer Perspectives on the Archaeology of Sexuality and Empire.
The Queer Critique in Archaeology
In many ways, particularly early in its intellectual development, queer studies in archaeology were a critique of normative archaeological method and theory. Queer archaeology was, and in many ways still is, primarily a critique, what Dowson (2000) called a “standpoint” by which we can understand archaeological method and theory. Queer studies is not inherently a body of knowledge of itself, but a way in which we can improve on other methods and theories. These articles provide the critique against normative practices within archaeology and the academy more broadly.
Aimers, J., & Rutecki, D. M. (2016). Brave New World: interpreting sex, gender, and sexuality in the past. SAA Archaeological Record, 16(1), 12-17.
Alberti, B. (2005). Bodies in prehistory: beyond the sex/gender split. In Global Archaeological Theory (pp. 107-120). Springer, Boston, MA.
Alberti, B. (2012). Queer prehistory: Bodies, performativity, and matter. A companion to gender prehistory, 86-107.
Claassen, C. (2000). Homophobia and women archaeologists. World Archaeology, 32(2), 173-179.
Cobb, H. (2005). Straight down the line? A queer consideration of hunter-gatherer studies in north-west Europe. World Archaeology, 37(4), 630-636.
Cobb, H. (2006). Bodies that matter? Examining prehistory from a queer perspective. In Conference Proceedings-Thinking Genfer-the NEXT Generafion (Vol. 8).
Croucher, K. (2005). Queerying near eastern archaeology. World Archaeology, 37(4), 610-620.
Dowson, T. A. (2000). Why queer archaeology? An introduction. World Archaeology, 32(2), 161-165.
Dowson, T. A. (2000). Homosexuality, queer theory and archaeology. Interpretive archaeology: a reader, 283-89.
Dowson, T. A. (2006). Archaeologists, feminists, and queers: Sexual politics in the construction of the past. InFeminist anthropology: Past, present, and future (pp. 89–102).
Dowson, T. A. (2016). Queer Theory Meets Archaeology: disrupting epistemological privilege and heteronormativity in constructing the past. In The Ashgate research companion to queer theory (pp. 295-312). Routledge.
Geller, P. L. (2005). Skeletal analysis and theoretical complications. World archaeology, 37(4), 597-609.
Geller, P. L. (2009). Bodyscapes, biology, and heteronormativity. American Anthropologist, 111(4), 504-516.
Geller, P. L. (2017). Bioarchaeology of Socio-Sexual Lives. Cham: Springer.
Hollimon, S. E. (2011). Sex and gender in bioarchaeological research: Theory, method, and interpretation. Social bioarchaeology, 147-182.
Marshall, Y. (2000). Reading images stone bc. World Archaeology, 32(2), 222-235.
Moral, E. (2016). Qu (e) erying sex and gender in archaeology: a critique of the “third” and other sexual categories. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 23(3), 788-809.
Rutecki, D. M., & Blackmore, C. (2016). Towards an inclusive queer archaeology. SAA Archaeological Record, 16, 9-39.
She. (2000). Sex and a career. World Archaeology, 32(2), 166-172.
Weismantel, M. J. (2013). Towards a transgender archaeology: a queer rampage through prehistory. In The transgender studies reader 2. Routledge, Taylor Francis Group.
Methods and Practice in Queer Archaeology
Most articles in queer archaeology confront normativity within archaeology from a theoretical or inherently academic sense. These articles are resources upon which we can learn how to do archaeology different – in field schools, during field projects, and in the classroom. These articles often get ignored in queer scholarship, but they important because, as many queer scholars have noted, queer is not a noun, it is a verb. Queer is something we do.
Blackmore, C., Drane, L., Baldwin, R., & Ellis, D. (2016). Queering Fieldwork: Difference and Identity in Archaeological Practice. SAA Archaeological Record, 16(1), 18-23.
Dylla, E., Ketchum, S. A., & McDavid, C. (2016). Listening More and Talking Less: On Being a Good Ally. SAA Archaeological Record, 16(1), 31-36.
Ghisleni, L., Jordan, A. M., & Fioccoprile, E. (2016). Introduction to “binary binds”: deconstructing sex and gender dichotomies in archaeological practice. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 23(3), 765-787.
Rodriguez, E. C. (2015). A Multiplicity of Voices: Towards a Queer Field School Pedagogy. In annual meeting for the Society for Historical Archaeology, Seattle, WA. (Available at https://www.academia.edu/8460131/A_Multiplicity_of_Voices_Towards_a_Queer_Field_School_Pedagogy).
Case Studies
Agarwal, S. C. (2012). The past of sex, gender, and health: Bioarchaeology of the aging skeleton. American Anthropologist, 114(2), 322-335.
Agarwal, S. C., & Wesp, J. K. (Eds.). (2017). Exploring sex and gender in bioarchaeology. University of New Mexico Press.
Alberti, B. (2001). Faience goddesses and ivory bull-leapers: the aesthetics of sexual difference at Late Bronze Age Knossos. World Archaeology, 33(2), 189-205.
Ardren, T. (2020). Gender and sexuality. In The Maya World (pp. 147-163). Routledge.
Blackmore, C. (2011). How to queer the past without sex: queer theory, feminisms and the archaeology of identity. Archaeologies, 7(1), 75-96.
Casella, E. C. (2000). ‘Doing trade’: A sexual economy of nineteenth-century Australian female convict prisons. World Archaeology, 32(2), 209-221.
Cheverko, C. M., Prince-Buitenhuys, J. R., & Hubbe, M. (Eds.). (2020). Theoretical Approaches in Bioarchaeology. Routledge.
Chilton, E. S. (2008). Queer archaeology, mathematical modeling, and the peopling of the Americas.
Dommasnes, L. H. (2020). Gender, feminist, and queer archaeologies: European perspective. Encyclopedia of global archaeology, 4486-4498.
Dowson, T. (2001). Queer theory and feminist theory: towards a sociology of sexual politics in rock art research. In: Theoretical Perspectives in Rock Art Research, edited by Knut Helskog. Instittutet for sammenlignende kulturforskning, Norway.
Dowson, T. (2008). Queering Sex and Gender in Ancient Egypt. In: Sex and Gender in Ancient Egypt, edited by Carolyn Graves Brown, pp. 27-46. Classical Press of Wales.
Ebert, V., Patterson, T. C., & Nelson, S. M. (2006). Gender in South American archaeology.
Eger, A. A. (2007). Age and male sexuality:‘queer space’in the Roman bath-house. Age and Ageing in the Roman Empire. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series, 65, 131-52.
Gowland, R. (2009). The Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains. United Kingdom: Oxbow Books, Limited.
Hill, E. (2015). Sexuality: ancient Andean South America. John Wiley & Sons, Inc..
Hollimon, S. (2009). Examining third and fourth genders in mortuary contexts. Que (e) rying Archaeology, 171-75.
Jácome, C., & Furquim, L. (2019). Gender and Feminism in Brazilian Archaeology. SMITH, Claire. Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Switzerland: Springer Nature, 1-13.
Joyce, R. A. (2000). A Precolumbian gaze: male sexuality among the ancient Maya. Archaeologies of sexuality, 263-86.
Klembara, N. (2021). “But I’m a Paleolithic Archaeologist!”: Queer Theory, Paleolithic Art, and Social Justice. In: Trowels in the Trenches, edited by Christopher Barton, pp. 20-47. University Press of Florida.
Matić, U. (2012). To queer or not to queer? That is the question: sex/gender, prestige and burial no. 10 on the Mokrin necropolis. Dacia NS, 56, 169-185.
Matić, U. (2016). (De) queering Hatshepsut: binary bind in archaeology of Egypt and kingship beyond the corporeal. Journal of archaeological method and theory, 23(3), 810-831.
Price, N., Hedenstierna-Jonson, C., Zachrisson, T., Kjellström, A., Storå, J., Krzewińska, M., … & Götherström, A. (2019). Viking warrior women? Reassessing Birka chamber grave Bj. 581. Antiquity, 93(367), 181-198.
Prine, E. (2000). Searching for third genders: towards a prehistory of domestic space in Middle Missouri villages. Archaeologies of sexuality, 197-219.
Ransley, J. (2005). Boats are for boys: queering maritime archaeology. World Archaeology, 37(4), 621-629.
Reeder, G. (2000). Same-sex desire, conjugal constructs, and the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep. World Archaeology, 32(2), 193-208.
Rixecker, S. S. (2000). Exposing queer biotechnology via queer archaeology: the quest to (re) construct the human body from the inside out. World archaeology, 32(2), 263-274.
Scher, S. (2012). Markers of masculinity: Phallic representation in Moche art. Bulletin de l’Institut français d’études andines, (41 (2)), 169-196.
Schmidt, R. A. (2000). Shamans and northern cosmology: the direct historical approach to Mesolithic sexuality. Archaeologies of sexuality, 220-235.
Schmidt, R. A. (2002). The iceman cometh: queering the archaeological past. Out in theory: the emergence of lesbian and gay anthropology, 155-85.
Schofield, J., & Anderton, M. (2000). The queer archaeology of Green Gate: interpreting contested space at Greenham Common Airbase. World Archaeology, 32(2), 236-251.
Solli, B. (2008). Queering the cosmology of the Vikings: A queer analysis of the cult of Odin and “Holy White Stones”. Journal of Homosexuality, 54(1-2), 192-208.
Springate, M. E. (2017). ‘Archaeology? How does that work?’Incorporating archaeology into the National Park Service LGBTQ heritage initiative as community engagement. Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage, 4(3), 173-185.
Ströbeck, L. (2016). : Gender and Sexuality. In Handbook of postcolonial archaeology (pp. 327-350). Routledge.
Vogel, M. A., & Cutright, R. E. (2013). Gender in South American Prehistory. In A Campion to Gender in Prehistory. Edited by Diane Bolger. (pp. 585-607). John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Zuckerman, M. K., & Crandall, J. (2019). Reconsidering sex and gender in relation to health and disease in bioarchaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 54, 161-171.
Queer Archaeology 