Missing prehistoric women? Sex ratio as an indicator for analyzing the population of Iberia from the 8th to the 3rd millennia B.C.

Abstract

In the last few decades, archaeology has undergone a profound transformation. The inclusion of techniques from a wide range of other sciences, as well as the specific contribution of physical anthropology, genetics, and paleodemography using the analyses of human remains, has enabled the reconstruction of some key aspects of past populations such as mobility, diet, physical activities, and health status. In addition, the emergence of gender archaeology has led to a great renewal in how societies in the past are conceptualized and approached. Although the gender approach completely relies on the accuracy of the method used for estimating the sex of individuals, the increasing number of publications on this issue rarely focuses on the criteria on which these results are based. The aim of this paper is, firstly, to present the anthropological data available for the Iberian Mesolithic, the Neolithic, and the Copper Age (8th–3rd millennia B.C.) and the analysis of this from the perspective of the “sex ratio.” This demographical indicator has allowed us to detect a higher proportion of male individuals than female ones in most of the sites analyzed. Secondly, the different causes of this systematic disproportion (cultural, methodological, and biological) are discussed, concluding that the methodological bias in favor of males presented in research over 40 years ago still exists.