Here's the situation...

Ok so imagine I were to die an untimely death tomorrow night in my apartment. I"m just hanging out, munching on some wine gums and watching a new episode of Archer when BAM! I've spilt water all over my laptop which is plugged into the wall. In my rushed and sloppy attempt to save my computer I end up electrocuting myself. My last breath is exhaled as the thought "Ah shit, this is how its gonna be" crosses my mind.

I'm dead.

Ok so far so good. Now I'm trying to play with the idea of what my parents would choose in terms of material items to represent my short life in grave goods.

I'm betting my mother will choose my most prized possession (a feminist power pin that was given to me as a baby by one my mother's hard core second wave feminist friends) as an ode to my feminist ambitions and politics.

 

(This is what it looks like but on a pin.)

She will probably choose this in a grief stricken attempt to not only please my feisty spirit but to also cherish our feminist bond. After all, it was my mother who first helped guide me along my political awakening rooted in feminism. 

My father, on the other hand, will most likely choose a basketball. Yes, a rubber ball perfectly signifies my relationship with my father. It was basketball that helped bond and strengthen my relationship with my father. It was an activity that we spent hours doing. An activity that was just ours. And it was through basketball that my father taught me how to accept criticism and failure. This is how I imagine he will want to represent our relationship and my spirit. 

Now imagine... it's thousands of years later. Future archaeologists are digging up my grave (because despite my last post, if I die before I get a chance to make my will then my parents have full reign over my funeral and burial). Based on these two grave goods, chosen by my parents, I'm a 100% positive that their archaeological interpretation will not capture the complexity behind these material remains. The history of my relationships with both of my parents and the history of my own life are far too intangible to be illustrated in the archaeological record. Especially as they relate to human choices involving such an emotional experience as death. 

As much as archaeological theory keeps evolving and creating a more nuanced discussion of mortuary practices, I don't think we will ever know for sure. And maybe this is exactly the fun of archaeology. The endless possibilites and the endless chances to be the one who got it right. 

Science, I pray to thee.

Over the past few weeks I've come to realize the role that science plays within my worldview. In the absence of my belief in a god, my membership in a religious institution, and my belief of the afterlife I turn towards science to answer all of my existential questions. In fact, science is my spirituality.

I'm defining spirituality very loosely here. I believe that we all have our own definitions of what it means for us to be spiritual and that we may not agree with another's belief system. Even so, I believe that one of the central tenants of spirituality is the ability for everyone to find their own path. Whether or not your spiritual journey is affiliated with a religious institution is up to you but I do not equate spirituality with religion.

I came to this realization while contemplating how I would like my body to be treated once I have died. The depth of possibilities surrounding mortuary practices and their corresponding belief systems illustrated by cultures around the world and through time left me thinking about this question.

In the end, I've decided to choose science. I don't want a funeral. I don't want to be embalmed or cremated. I don't want to go 'back into the ground' since I didn't come from a sealed box buried in the ground. And I especially don't want anything to memorialize my life outside of the personal memories that will continue to thrive within the people who loved me until they too die.

I choose science. Cut me up. Give away my viable organs to others who may need them. Keep the damaged ones for show and tell. Or turn my whole blood vessel system into one of those human 'statues' displayed in Body Worlds. Heck, you can even use my lifeless body as an educational tool for all of those aspiring doctors to practice surgery on.

In the end, it really doesn't matter to me. As long as any part of my body is scientifically useful for someone then may I RIP.

Don't Assume My Gender, Please.

This is what I imagine human skeletal remains silently curse under their breath as archaeologists debate over the potential gendered performance of a skull.

I do understand the anthropological interest in finding out the various ways gender is enacted and experienced by cultures of the distant past. All the ways gender as a social category organized the life of an individual. The different performative roles a person occupied during their daily interactions with others. The social rules guiding a person to correctly perceive another's visible gendered cues. "Hi, this is what I am _______".

But what if gender wasn't always an important social category? What if gender simply just didn't exist within a past culture?

This is possible once you accept that sex and gender are both socially constructed identity categories (at least in my opinion) that come in a plethora of options. Now despite the current structure of Canadian society, sex and gender are not the same thing and by no means do sex and gender exist only within a binary of male/man vs. female/woman.

Modernist identity politics aside, gender has always seemed to me like it should have no place within archaeological interpretations of cultures that have no written record or living descendants. Even after all of the gendered evidence is presented with the correct archaeological theories in place to back it up, we will still never know for sure if we are right! And as much as we try to be mindful of our current cultural worldview and the ways in which our different social locations impact and shift the lens through which we interpret the archaeological data, we still won't know diddily squat about a extinct culture's gender roles. Or if a culture even had gender roles. Or roles based on sex (outside of reproduction). It's all socially constructed!

So why even try to make out gender performance in the archaeological record?

We just can't be sure. And who really cares anyway?