The way in which we see graves has changed and evolved in a much more thoughtful way.
By Dr. Andy Reymann
Professor of Archaeology
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Introduction
Gender research in archaeology involves analysing aspects of the social identity of a deceased person, normally seen as criteria1 that have marked a person throughout their entire life. Change of social identity can appear as long process. Ritual moments, such as ‘rites de passage’, can transform a person much more quickly from one category to another. The person and its social identity are always seen as something whole, as an all-embracing stereotype. In this paper, the temporality of identity aspects is demonstrated by looking at the ritual behaviour of religious specialists, primarily those who are labelled shamans.
Archaeology, Gender, and Identity
In recent years, archaeological observations of topics related to gender and identity have definitely increased in number and widened their once narrow scope.2 The topic is, as Nils Müller-Scheeßel and Stefan Burmeister wrote in 2006, ‘eines der zentralen Themen’,3 one of the central topics, in social and cultural science of the past 10 to 20 years.
Especially the way in which we see graves has changed and evolved in a much more thoughtful way; we now see them as representations of a constructed past, and not of a reconstructed past, as was the case prior to the New Archaeology. This can be seen, for example, in the attempts at reconstructing ‘regional modes of outfits’ of archaeological cultures, which often were seen as ethnical groups.4 Although the voices advocating that we should consider graves as being the result of processes of social construction are getting louder, the presentation of burials as snapshots of prehistoric life rather than an intentional construction of past identity is nevertheless a commonly performed habitus among archaeologists.
Of course, the identity of a person is visible, especially in public space, where one’s own identity is getting in touch with those of one’s fellow human beings. Therefore, when Ulrike Rambuschek wrote in a recent publication that the ‘social identity results from the identification of a person with their social collective as family, kinship, tribe, status or nation,’5 the intertwining of identity is seen as only working if someone is there to remark upon it. It is a philosophical thought that alludes to the dramatic play Huis Clos, published in 1944 by the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre.6 In this piece, in which a man and two women are imprisoned in a small room after their death, the protagonists find out that hell is not being in a special place being tortured, but that hell is losing the possibility to define one’s own identity. All that is left is to see yourself through the eyes of another person, the only reflective object in the entire place.
Like in this semantic picture, the investigation of prehistoric burial has been an attempt to catch a reflected picture, a snapshot of past society, in the hope that the material culture of ancient burials, as a medium of the symbolic connections of past social communities, could be decoded and read, like the letters on a mourning band at the flower decoration of a modern German burial. Archaeologists gathered information with an intent to see it as a result of a performative act – but an act that caught all aspects of the entire ‘social persona’.7 In Lewis Binford’s usage of the word, all symbolic materialisations could therefore be directly interpreted as an intentional sign of social connections, making the grave itself a book of past community bonds.
Of course, prehistoric material culture carries aspects of identity, and, as we all know, that identity is expressed by clothes, symbolic objects, and other elements of appearance. A fine example of this is a recent investigation by Christine VanPool, Todd VanPool, and Lauren Downs on gender attributes in past Casa Grandes culture iconography:
‘Cross-cultural analysis indicates that dress is socially meaningful in that it “calls out to others with the ‘same’ identifications of the wearer” (Stone 1981, 193). As such, it is fundamental to both creating and reflecting on an individual’s identity.’8
Dress and other changes in appearance are seen here as a way of manipulating one’s identity – but also, of course, as a way of communicating. ‘Individuals use dress to send visual clues about their identities and to make suppositions about other people’s identities’.9 Although we have to be careful with the observation of symbolic meaning in people’s appearance – because every human behaviour is communication if more than one person attends to it, following Paul Watzlawik’s theory of communication10 – the study on Casa Grandes identities shows an impressive number of interesting findings. In the article, small figurines of explicit male and female persons, and their decorations as representation of clothes and other body supplements, are analysed. It turns out that a connection of specific motifs to gender and also to religious activities can be observed, marked by male smoking effigies and body ornaments that can be connected to religious clothes reported from ethnographic studies. From the observation of these iconographic differences, the authors conclude that ‘there was a distinction in masculine and feminine cosmological and religious associations’.11
Of course, this observation is not new. We know it from the classic discussion about the bipolar, gender-differentiated burial rite of the central European Chalcolithic Bell Beaker and the Corded Ware cultures, which was established in the works of Alexander Häusler.12 There, it seems that a gender-specific afterworld could have existed – or at least, given that the genders were lying in different positions but shared the same orientation of their visual field, that they had different ways of getting there.
Also, from different time periods, we have clear evidence that clothes can symbolise aspects of gender, that clothes are one of the core ways of identifying gender differentiation of burials before the invention of modern anthropological sexing.
However, the connection between clothes and a religious aspect of gender can be problematic. While it may be an easier and clearer connection in the wider field of religious connotation, explicit connections can be a pitfall, because in those cases, different conceptualisations of gender can appear – as we will see in the case of the phenomenon of shamanism.
Shamanism: A Short Introduction to a Problematic Topic
Shamanism as a distinct form of religious specialism has been the focus of many different scientific approaches, which even led to the establishment of the term shamanologist for those scientists focusing on the topic.13 Shamanism has been an interest for different researchers for a long time: Mentioned for the first time in the lectures of the Russian orthodox priest Avvakuum14 and pictured for the first time in central European literature in Nicolaes Witsen’s travel accounts,15 the usage of the more stereotypical word shaman in the early ethnographic literature of romanticism or the enlightenment16 increased until finally, around 1900, the word became an international standard term for a specific subject because of its usage in the publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, led by Franz Boas.17 Archaeological investigations of shamanism mainly focussed on early rock art and special forms of material culture, as the expectation of early researchers was always to find the grave of a shaman by identifying its ritual paraphernalia – an approach that reminds us of the Schliemann era, when it was postulated that the grave of a king should contain his crown.
When I use the term shaman in this article, I try to evade the discussion of how to define it,18 the question of where ‘real’ shamans could be found, and all the questions that modern forms of neo-Shamanism bring in, pointing, instead, at other recent studies that have been done within this field.19 I use the definition of Ernst Stiglmayer (albeit with a nod to Michel Perrin’s differentiation of a wide and a narrow term20), namely, a special sort of religious specialist, observed in Siberia, who used intentionally induced trances or at least altered states of consciousness, in which the shaman was able to communicate with the ghosts of humans and animals, and with nature:
‘In addition to the fundamental characteristic, the technique of an ecstatic connection with spirits, the following points belong in the description of shamanism: the special qualifications of those who enter a state of ecstasy, their effect being primarily directed at the good of the community, and the justification of their power and ability by a particular Seelenideologie.’21
Translated by A.R.
This interaction, which is normally not combined with prayers – or at least not dominated by them – is seen as direct. Shamans even use physical contact and therefore are open to all forms of human social communication. They work by protecting their society and serving the greater good of their fellow community members.
Although these types of definitions have been taken into account in several investigations of prehistoric shamanism, the known and famous shamanistic burials from all over the world, including those from Ust’Udinsk (now Ulan-Ude, Burjatia),22 Bats’ub (Belize),23 Hilazon Tachtit (Israel),24 Bad Dürrenberg (Saalekr., Germany),25 or Siberia,26 are always interpreted in a manner of picturing shamans using the wide terminus,27 introduced by Mircea Eliade. His approach doesn’t differentiate between the very diverse forms of shamans, and even includes representatives who would normally be called ‘priest’.28 The authors of those accounts expect that shamans always occupied high social, political, and economic positions in their community and were buried with the full scale of material representations of their highly respected position. But that’s not true – at least not if you look at ethnographic examples of shamans and ignore the romantic, modern notions that followed the boost of New Age movements during the 1950s to 1970s.
One of the best cinematic studies of shamanism, which nevertheless accurately described the results of a long-lasting ethnographic field study, was executed by Michael Oppitz in the 1970s and published in 1981.29 In his research, he accompanied the Magar shaman Bal Bahadur for several years and tried to figure out the social mechanisms by which a shaman is embedded in this Asiatic society in Nepal. Although this case is not strictly a Siberian form of shamanism in the sense mentioned before, the social concept of shamanism here resembles that of other societies farther north on the Asian continent. Bal Bahadur, being well known among his community and having acquired more than a regional reputation for being a qualified healer, was nevertheless not portrayed as a full-time specialist. In fact, shamanism in wide parts of Siberia can be seen as a social institution that is really necessary for the survival of the community, but it is seldom a future people seek for themselves.
‘In tribal societies, people designated to join shamanic vocation usually undergo painful physical and spiritual experiences, which became known as the “shamanic illness”’30
The painful initiation process often was accompanied by a constant feeling of danger, as the office of the shaman was accompanied by the usual and constant contact with evil, illness-causing, revengeful spirits, which threatened not only the shaman’s personal safety, but also the security of the shaman’s family.31 No wonder that shamans were half respected, half feared, and that people normally felt safer if shamans were not around. Lawrence Krader, for example, quoted tales about Buryat shamans, which were seen as the worst kind of human beings:
‘The Burjats think that the shamans among them are the worst kind of human beings. Their reputation is abnormal, their gift is terrible, the effect of shamans on others is sinister; the shamans are representatives of the unfit side of human life. They seem to be unnatural.’32
Translated by A.R.
In addition, the job of a shaman was only on rare occasions and in unusual cultural contexts well paid. As the duty of protecting the community was most often a thing that could not be rejected, a successful shaman received gifts but had to carry out shamanistic rituals side by side with daily life.33 Bal Bahadur and his relative Beth Bahadur, for example, were normally farmers and hunters, and only on special occasions did they act as shamans, and then tried to do so while minimising the effort and the danger as much as possible:
‘If not fed in the houses of his nightly sessions, Bal Bahadur cooks the daily meal for his mother-in-law, his wife, and his daughters at his own fire. The usual meal is composed of maize porridge, meat broth, and chili, which is crumbled into the mush. The shamans of the northern Magar by no means restrict their activity to their calling as healer and seer. Some of them are excellent hunters, many others go fishing or gather honey, and all of them till their fields themselves. The mundane activities are important for their subsistence, because the job of shaman alone does not bring in enough. This contradicts the common opinion that the shamans would rip off the unaware populace with their quackery. In fact, the shaman’s lot is much harder than that of others: doing the work of ordinary people by day and, in addition, performing the work of the chosen many a night.’34
Translated by A.R.
Another problem for archaeological science, which is illustrated by the case of Bal Bahadur, is the fact that in many parts of Siberia and Asia shamans never received their ritual paraphernalia as grave goods. As the shaman’s costume, meaning dress, shoes, belt, headdress, and the shaman’s special objects, meaning drum, drum stick, portable shaman’s tree, and other situational or cultural divisive things, were often materialisations of the shaman’s power, those objects were seen as ensouling themselves.35 This means that the process of production brought the things to life and therefore became the resting place of supernatural beings. Additionally, they were dangerous tools if the dominating shaman died without a person to take care of those things.36 But giving supernatural objects to someone who has already mastered the ability of traversing the border between life and death during life would have been a dangerous deed – so dangerous that most often shamanistic paraphernalia received special treatment and never went directly into the grave context.37
For this, the identification of shamans – or ‘shamanism’ – by means of the interpretation of grave goods seems to be a problematic. Therefore, I preferred to label unusual burials of persons who were perhaps connected to a cultic, religious, ritual, or magical sphere ‘religious specialists’.
But even though shamanism is problematic to identify archaeologically, investigation of shamanism in the past still offers an interesting observation for the field of the material manifestation of ritual or religious gender roles on a temporary scale.
Gender in Shamanism – A Matter of Time?
The observation of gender differences and gender as a topic already appeared as theme of interest in the early literature on shamanism. For example, Sergej Shirokogoroff, a member of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897-1902), wrote the following about shamanism:
‘In all Tungus languages this term refers to persons of both sexes who have mastered spirits, who at their will can introduce these spirits themselves and use their power over the spirits in their own interest, particularly helping other people, who suffer from spirits […].’38
The mention of both sexes in relation to practicing shamans is nothing unusual and has been described in many instances throughout Siberia.39 Actually, the only excavated burial of a probable Siberian shaman in Yakutia in the modern era contained the remains of the 18- to 23-year-old Kyss,40 a female. She died from tuberculosis and was buried following the typical burial custom that was reserved for Yakutian shamans during the 18th century.41
A phenomenon even more interesting than this may be the often-cited mechanism of gender transformation, which occurs in Siberian shamanism but also in several similar religious or cultic systems from all over the world.42
Of course, the change of specific gender roles, which is always connected to socially default, gender-restricted activities, can appear in a lot of circumstances, not only in religious ones, and is often hard to trace.43 However, in the sociological literature, gender transformation processes are differentiated – and, especially in Western science, dichotomously differentiated – into ‘cultic sacral’ and ‘profane-social’.44 The sociologist Wolfgang Lipp subdivides the first category into a ‘passage type’ and a ‘shamanistic type’.45 The former contains all appearances of gender on a more permanent scale, such as, for example, rites of initiation, but also temporary fertility cults, when gender changes occurs as a short-lived, more or less a serious part of cultic gender mimicry.46 The shamanistic type, on the other hand, although it can also be either permanent or temporary, follows a wider usage of the term and focuses on the permanent changes that take place in the phenomenon of the North American two-spirits (so called berdache) – a dangerous word-usage, as two-spirits don’t need to be spiritual or religious specialists. Moreover, Lipp connects his understanding of shamanism to a very functionalist methodology, in which the change of gender appears only to become attractive for supernatural beings of both sexes:
‘They fit their gender to theirs [meaning females], they transform into a female in their mind, mediator with the demons – which they understand to be male – essentially they become this by having “intercourse”, sexual intercourse.’47
Translation by A.R.
So, he assumes that the only purpose of changing gender in shamanism would be to attract the male spirits by sexual acts, thereby overtaking their supernatural power and making it usable for the community.
Both types can, as Lipp formulates it, appear in a temporary or permanent way. If temporary, then gender changes are applied only during a single ritual and only for this ritual, and the acting person is seen as someone of the opposite gender. As a result of a permanent transformation, this process can, of course, include the possible appearance of several in-between stages. Although Lipp’s model, following a fine differentiation, is based on a vaguer usage of North American empirical data, the change of gender roles in Siberian shamanism also follows both layers of temporality. It can appear in a temporary way or occur as a permanent, institutionalised aspect of the religious system of a community.
Marjorie Mandelstam-Balzer states that many shaman costumes in museum collections in Russia and outside have a basic cutaway that resembles the cutaway of Tungusk or Evenkian female dress.48 She traces this custom back to the border-crossing ability of shamans, which is manifested in their ability not only to traverse between the realism of humans and the spirits during shamanistic rituals, but also to switch between the sexes in almost the same manner. In addition, the ability to use bodily functions that are said to be typical for the opposite sex, such as the ability to give birth, to spirits, is repeatedly mentioned in accounts of initiation ceremonies for Siberian male shamans, when they give birth to their own guiding spirits, as is the nearly universal topic of dying and being reborn during the initiation.49
The postulated imbalance of power between the sexes, and because of this the need to take over the abilities of the opposite sex, seems to be a specific source for shamans with higher powers. These differences sometimes manifest themselves in the specific attributes of shamans, male as well as female:
‘Differences between female and male shamanic activity also appeared in the ritual practice and the nature of their attributes. In the cosmology of the Altaians and the Tuvins, a female shaman, being an “impure” being, could only conduct a kamlanie for the spirits of the earth and the mountains (Er-Su) and for Erlik-Chan, the ruler of the underworld.’50
Translation by A.R.
In her account on the Siberian shamanistic ceremony, called kamlanie,51 Karina Solo’Eva remarks in the quote above that male and female shamans did, indeed, differentiate themselves in practice, abilities, and ritual paraphernalia. For example, Altaian female shamans were specialists who performed rituals connected to Erlik, the emperor of the underworld. This is especially interesting because shamans connected to heavenly realms normally more closely resemble ‘priestly’ types of shamans, acting with prayers, sacrifices, and healing-spells. Shamans connected to the underworld and to gods or spirits, as Erlik in the Altaian case – for example, the so-called ‘black shamans’ of Mongolia and Buryatia52 – were more specialised to guide the death into the afterworld, to bring back lost souls from there, and to send curses and diseases upon enemy tribes and opposing shamans.53
The connection of a shaman to the realms of the supernatural world regarding ghosts and to specific concepts of gender makes shamanism an appropriate topic for further investigation – but also a problem for archaeology. Solo’Eva describes certain customs among the Evenki, in this case especially the Manegrin people, where the dress of a shaman was draped with iron pendants. These pendants, supplemented by small iron bells and mirrors, symbolised the three worlds of the Evenkian cosmos, with the mirrors functioning as signs for the souls of the different members of the community, men, women, and children. The female shamans of this community had small bags with grain attached to their dresses, while male shamans wore a symbol for the main guiding spirit, the thunder-ghost, on their back, together with very big mirrors.54 A lot of other tribal and also gender-specific modifications could appear on the shaman’s dress of other Siberian tribes, so that gender, but also an explicitly demonstrated and performed transformation of gender, were crucial elements in the concept of shamanistic power, all represented by the ritual paraphernalia.55
The crucial point is that those descriptions of shamanistic paraphernalia mostly point to shamans in action – shamans during their ritual – and shamans still alive.
As mentioned in a critical PhD thesis on the concept of ‘shamanism’ and its operational application for the interpretation of deviant burials of the third to second millennia BCE in archaeology,56 shamans in Siberian cultures of the past were not buried in the way reserved for the rest of the society. Instead, these specialists received burial rites in an old-fashioned way. For example, the burial was performed on high platforms. These wooden platforms, often termed arangas in the Yakut context,57 were also used by several other tribes as part of a once widespread tradition in Siberia. The rite was passed down through time, but its use was restricted to shamans and retained as a tradition even while the rest of the community had adopted Christian, orthodox, or Muslim burial rites. Moreover, the burial rite did not end with the deposition of the dead on this platform. Hans Findeisen describes that very often especially shamans had to be ‘uplifted’, meaning that when the wooden parts of the platform had rotted away and the dead had fallen to the ground, the burial was repeated, with the rest of the shaman’s remains being placed onto a new platform. This was repeated a specific number of times, whereby the number of repetitions was connected to a belief in specific cosmological concepts:
‘A famous shaman is not buried in the ground, but he is laid in the open on a framework called an arangas. Once the arangas has decayed and tumbled down, the bones of the shaman, over time, are “uplifted” three times by three, six, or nine shamans.’58
Translation by A.R.
Following a similar concept, shamans were often not buried in communal burial grounds. They received burials outside, in the steppe,59 in specialised shaman groves, as in the case of Buryatian cremation rites,60 or in specialist graveyards, as in the case of the Nepalese shamans of the Magar.61
But beside from those deviant burial rites, which are often described for shamans,62 the most important thing was that shamans never received their ritual paraphernalia after their death. Because the shaman’s ability to traverse the border between life and death didn’t end with the shaman’s own physical death, a shaman remained a potential threat to all members of the community – especially to those who had, intentionally or unintentionally, shamed or angered the dead during life. To deal with this threat, burials of shamans were conducted as complex rites, showing a high amount of respect and reverence for the deceased, but at the same time precise safety precautions were taken.
The Yakut burial of Kyss, mentioned above, is a fine example: Here, the young woman, interpreted as a Yakut female shaman, was buried in a fine dress, with two wooden vessels filled with a milky liquid, and an uprooted birch tree – a mighty sign of power in jakutian shamanism – had been planted on her coffin, within the burial pit but under the surface. In contrast to this sign of respect, the body of the deceased was bound with two leather ropes, and the arms of her jacket were sewn together above her fingers.63 As Eric Crubézy and Andrej Alexéev state, this was a typical custom for people who had died by suicide and for shamans – in the case of Kyss, due to an anthropologically attested tuberculosis, it was concluded that she fell in the latter category.
The ritual paraphernalia of a Siberian shaman were seldom placed in the burial pit or in the proximity of the deceased. Drums were either destroyed immediately after death or passed to the next shaman in line so that they remained in the possession of the clan.64 If the object(s) of the deceased were buried in the ground or were deposited near the corpse, then a safe distance between shaman and object(s) was maintained. All efforts were made to prevent the still mighty shaman from taking revenge on anything or anyone the shaman might have wronged during life and therefore protect the surviving members of the community. These efforts were un-dertaken whether the deceased was male or female.
According to the ethnographic sources, the world of shamanistic societies seems to be full of evil and revengeful spirits, full of a constant threat by the supernatural powers surrounding human beings. The possibility that spirits could steal a soul was always present – a danger for normal people, but also for the shaman. Spirits and ghosts were embedded in a lot of objects, especially the ensouled shamanistic paraphernalia, and they also roamed the surrounding landscape, protected crossroads, fords, and passages. The supernatural world was always near. Of course, a cosmological model that was based on a constant danger saw the shaman as an object for all supernatural assaults. The ghosts, which the shaman had enslaved or against whom the shaman had started campaigns in the otherworld, were mighty enemies, able to strike back if the concentration of the shaman slipped for only one moment. After a successful return from an altered state of consciousness, the spirits still roamed the land, and they were always eager to take revenge. Therefore, shamans normally did not wear or use their objects unless absolutely necessarily. Rituals were kept to a minimum, and if not needed, the deep state of trance and the highly exhaustive use of the full dress was avoided. In the case of Magar shamanism, Oppitz describes the healing ceremony of Kathka, a colleague of Bal Bahadur, for a small child.65 In this ceremony, the shaman used only a small metal plate and not his full ritual ornamentation, consisting of a feather crown, a dress that weighed more than 10 kg, and his special drum. Drumming on this plate, the shaman said that, for a small soul, a small effort is enough: ‘Because of the insignificance of this occasion, Kathka accompanies his song with a rhythmically beaten plate of brass’.66 (Translated by A.R.). The dangers of a deep trance and of the confrontation with the dangers of the otherworld are best avoided – if possible.
Among the finest examples of the fear of ghosts are, of course, the objects of the shamans themselves. The drums, being designed to look like a shield, were used as weapons of protection and of attack, and the drum stick was sometimes supplemented by real weapons, such as a sword.67 The antler headdress was used as an attack weapon in the fight against the imaginary but not unreal spirit enemies, and the coat was not only his armour, but also a way to hide himself.68 For example, Soyot shamans wore a fringed veil, so that the face of the wearer was not visible. Of course, the people of their community knew the identity of the shaman. But this symbolic disguise opened the possibility for the shaman to hide from the evil spirits during the ritual. By this, he could evade the attacks and the prosecution of revenge-ful spirits.
The dangers of the shamanistic ritual, the usage of temporal ways of disguising themselves, and the great efforts that were connected to shamanising lead us to another aspect, which is normally not considered in scientific approaches to shamanism: the aspect of temporality. Although shamans are of course supernatural persons and therefore treated in a special way by their community and by other people, some aspects, especially the materialised components, only appear during the shamanistic ritual and are therefore only a temporary aspect of their social role. Since the ritual paraphernalia never reach the burial ground and therefore would stay outside of the archaeological record, and since the shaman would normally be buried as a usual member of society, only perhaps marked in a deviant way, shamans themselves remain invisible in the archaeological record.
Gender, Time, and Snapshot Archaeology
Even aside from the often-mentioned phenomenon of complete and chronological-ly permanent gender change, as described, for example, by Lipp and others in the context of the North American two-spirits,69 the ritual performance of a shaman seems problematic in many ways.
First, the act of ‘shamanising’ – which means putting on the dress, preparing the place where the ritual will take place; conducting the performance; and, afterwards, when the patient or the customers of the shaman have left, cleaning up all material results of the kamlanie.70 Shamanising is a non-standard situation, which takes place in a non-normal context.71 And although a priest also relies on heavily standardised immolations, as Christina VanPool states, an important difference between shamans and priests is that the shaman is supernatural.72 While priests are mediators between an ever present supernatural force and daily life, and their mission is to establish a connection to a deity, shamans connect themselves to the supernatural because the establishment of a presence of supernatural forces has already taken place. It is their mission to cancel this connection and to resolve the problems that resulted from it. They are supernatural, indeed, but they have to – and want to – return to the normal world after their job is done. This means that shamanising is actually a true ‘rite de passage’ in the sense of Arnold Van Gennep.73
Second, this temporary entering into a non-standard status, which fits with the nomenclature of the trance as an ‘altered state of consciousness’,74 can include aspects of gender as well, although they would never reappear outside this type of situation. Some material components can symbolically represent the ability to switch between these situations, but they would not necessarily be represented in a specific archaeological context.
If we turn back to the burial of Kyss, her altered state of consciousness is manifested in the belt that she wore as part of her dress. Crubézy and Alexéev mention that this belt was called the ‘belt of engagement’, based on a comparison with contemporary pictures from Yakutia.75 This belt originally had five mixed-material pendants, which were attached to the belt and hung down from it – but one was missing in the grave. However, already during the first part of the excavation, another pendant had been found in the layers above, still inside the burial pit.76 It could be reattached to the belt; the part could be refitted to a loose end with clear signs of cutmarks, demonstrating that it had been intentionally cut off and then had been deposited inside the pit. The excavators thus identified an old burial custom of the Yakuts, which is nowadays only known through oral history. The specific number of something was correlated to different realms: even numbers of items were for the dead, odd numbers for the living.77 By adjusting the number of pendants, so it was told in yakut oral history, the burial community prepared the deceased for entering the afterlife.
Returning to the topic of temporality, we are facing a big problem. If the afterlife – reflected by the material components of a burial – is separated from normal, everyday reality and is marked by a different material culture, can we ever catch a glimpse of ancient reality and of ancient identity?
In the case of the burial of Kyss, we have a pretty good chance to catch at least a good glimpse, because the permafrost helps us to ignore wide parts of the natural transformation processes, which, under other circumstances, would have changed the burial into a normal one. Nevertheless, the intentional preparation of the deceased and her transformation into a dead person – materialised by a change in her outfit and the correction of the number of pendants – resulted in a burial identity that was different than her living identity, and that survives archaeological-ly outside of permafrost settings as well. In cases where the natural transformations are not as well suited to preservation, more problems could arise.
For example, in his publication about the Corded Ware culture in Bohemia,78, Roland Wiermann analysed some necropolises to draw conclusions about the typical bipolar gender-differentiated burial custom of that time. He found several exceptions, especially seven cases in which biological males had been buried following the burial rite usually restricted to females.79 Wiermann interpreted those deviant burials by referring to the phenomenon of permanent ritual gender change, seeing the individuals therefore as gender-transformed shamans. He stated that the ritual context of the Corded Ware culture was comparable to Siberian shamanism.
Although no material components of shamans’ dress nor any paraphernalia were mentioned by Wiermann – which would normally form the basis for a verification of this assumption – the idea of transgender shamans in the third millennium BCE was picked up by several other authors. For the necropolis of Bergrheinfeld (Lkr. Schweinfurt) in Bavaria, a Corded Ware culture burial ground with 31 individuals in 29 graves, the excavator, Kerstin Nausch, proposed the existence of Neolithic shamans.80 Inside grave 13, three individuals had been deposited: an early adult male person, oriented south-west-west to northeast-east, lying on the right side and looking north. Beside him was an early adult female person, oriented east to west in a crouched position, lying on the left side and looking south. Her arms were bent and held an infant 0-6 months of age. The male had a smoothed stone axe, a silex knife, a bone bodkin, and the fragment of a boar’s tusk as grave goods beside him; the female had a beaker with a flint arrowhead inside it and a shell, perhaps the rest of her necklace.81
Referring to the work of Günter Behm-Blancke on shamans in the Corded Ware culture,82 an important source of inspiration for Wiermann too, Nausch postulated that the individual who was looking in a different direction than usual and had a boar’s tusk as a headdress could have been a shaman – not a gender-transferred person, but a shaman – whose family had perhaps followed him into the afterlife.83 Here, a potential temporality was ignored, as was the entire context of the burial: burials with multiple individuals are not unusual in Corded Ware culture. Nausch, referring to the possible killing of a widow, similar to the Indian Sati practice, also saw the multiple burial as the possible result of simultaneous death through accident or illness. But for her, the burial is a reflection of a real past social situation, not the mirroring of a potential social construction of a specific connection by the burial community. This is even more of a problem because her assumptions are based on an incorrect interpretation of the ethnographic record, at least as it relates to cultures from Siberia: there, shamans were normally not buried together with their relatives, nor with any other person.84
The hope of catching a snapshot of the past is realized, instead, when we look at burial 8 from the same burial ground. Here, again, two people were buried together, a man in the usual orientation and position of males of the Corded Ware culture and a female, oriented east-west and lying in the typical crouched position, but on the right side and therefore looking north. While in the case of burial 13 shamanism was posited as a possible explanation, this interpretation was not considered for the woman in burial 8:
‘But the female burial from grave 8, which lacks any sign of grave goods, has no signs for such a positioning. Another explanation for this “deviant burial” from grave 8 is that she could have been an outcast, for example, an adulteress. There are many possibilities for interpreting this burial that does not conform to the rules (shamanism, homosexuality, social ostracism, deviant burial of old people), but in the end, all of this remains hypothetical, as none of the options can be proven – although I think that ostracism is the most probable option.’85
Translated by A.R.
Because there had not been any grave goods, Nausch prefers an interpretation of the dead as a socially sanctioned person, being excluded from society and the usual afterlife, perhaps because of adultery. Here, the burial itself becomes a reflection of the thoughts of the community: No matter how or why both persons died at the same time, they were buried together. While the man was placed in the usual orientation for his gender, the female was not. Could it be that she was placed in the orientation of an honoured shaman?
Summary and Discussion
The last two examples, from Bergrheinfeld, were meant to show a problematic intermixture of the social connotations that archaeologists hope to see in prehistoric burials. Although older models have been criticised several times, we still hope to find the ancient ‘social persona’. Material objects are often forced into stereotypical interpretation categories, just to make sense of the findings. That some of the ancient social roles and identities can never be reconstructed, because they were not meant to be portrayed at the burial site, is often of no interest. Because social, ethnological, religious, and other theories are often transferred into archaeology without checking them for their ‘operational’ potential – meaning that they can be defined and used outside of the technical terminology of a specific science – concepts in pre-history tend to become decontextualised and therefore change their inner meaning or take on unintentional connotations.
The ethnological concept of shamanism is an exceptional example of this, especially because the concept of temporality is often ignored in its application. However, many archaeological interpretations are based on an axiom: that the archaeological find, assuming it is in a closed context, could be quite well understood, if only all natural filters could be identified and their influence explained.
In the case of the two potential shamans of Bergrheinfeld, one male, one female, this doesn’t work very well. If the male in grave 13 was a male shaman, we would expect to see gender differentiation. But while the normal orientation of west to east had changed slightly, to southwest-west to northeast-east, he was still lying on the right side. The only reason for making a shaman out of this individual is the direction of view, which was north, rather than the normal south, and the fact that the deceased had received a boar tusk. Nausch, in this case, ignores that many examples exist that correlate a separate afterlife for high-status individuals with a separate cardinal direction of view, and she ignores that boar tusks are not rare in Corded Ware culture male burials.
On the other hand, the person in grave 8 was oriented in the manner of females, but on the right side and looking north, as was the person in grave 13. In this case, we could ask whether a change of gender took place, so that the female was appointed to the ‘male’ side. One could also ask: Was she denied the normal afterlife, but was allowed to reach the same afterlife as the male from grave 13?
Of course, these speculations don’t help us to draw any firmer conclusions – but this was not the aim of this paper. Rather, its aim was to point out the problematic visibility of specific roles that can change in special situations for a shorter or longer period of time. Meaning that gender in those cases was of enormous importance – and in other cases it was not. This can be seen from the shamans in Siberia, mentioned earlier, who, unlike the two-spirits, did not change their gender, did not try to act in the specific social role of individuals of the opposite gender. Shamans in Siberia tried to adopt specific attributes of the opposite sex – such as the ability of birthing, in order to be able to give birth to ghost children. Which means that those shamans were viewed as sex-transformed persons rather than gender-transformed persons. Gender in the sense that we understand it today was of no matter, nor was the existence of a ‘third gender’ even in question.
The aim of this paper was to point at specific categories of burial interpretation and social organisations that are normal for us today, to examine the difference between what we think of as important, what may have been considered important as part of ancient burial customs. However, the question remains: Were such categories as gender, job, age, and status really that important? Or were kinship, religion, and place of birth of more interest – specially when the dead faced their ancestors?
Appendix
Endnotes
- Social identity can be seen as a catalogue of different elements, which can be visible or invisible archaeologically, for example, sex: male/female; membership of an association: yes/no; age: old/young; economic status: poor/rich. All aspects together form a specific individual, but even if only some aspects are there, the individual can still be considered part of a specific community.
- See, for example, Burmeister and Müller-Scheeßel 2006; Fries et al. 2017; Pohl and Mehofer 2010.
- Müller-Scheeßel and Burmeister 2006, 10.
- As a fine example of the new modes, compare, for example, Brather and Wotzka 2006.
- Rambuschek 2018, 151.
- Sartre 1988.
- ‘It is argued that the locus of mortuary rituals and the degree that the actual performance of the ritual will interfere with the normal activities of the community should vary directly with the number of duty status relationships obtaining between the deceased and other members of the community (scale of identity)’ (Binford 1971, 21).
- VanPool et al. 2017, 263.
- VanPool et al. 2017, 263.
- The first of Watzlawicks five axioms is: ‘You cannot not communicate’ (Watzlawick et al. 1967).
- VanPool et al. 2017, 284.
- See, among others, Häusler 1966.
- Ohlmarks 1939, XV.
- Price 2001, 3.
- Witsen 1692.
- See, among others, Flaherty 1992; Kasten 2009; Znamenski 2007; 2009.
- Znamenski 2009, 179-180.
- How problematic this can be having been shown earlier; see Motzki 1997; Reymann 2015.
- See, among others, Kasten 2009; Reymann 2015; Tromnau and Löffler 1991; Van Alphen 1997; Vitebsky 2001.
- He summarises that there exist three kinds of ‘shamanisms’: ‘Selon les uns, le chamanisme serait une notion sans pertinence, une fausse catégorie que l’on devrait éliminer du vocabulaire de l’ethnologie. […] La deuxième position consiste à se méfier de toute définition inutilement contraigante. […] En revanche, les tenants de la troisième position – qui est celle de l’auteur de ces lignes – jugent indispensabile de s’entendre, provisoirement au moins, sur une définition’ (Perrin 1997, 89-90). ‘According to some, shamanism is an irrelevant notion, a false category that should be removed from the vocabulary of ethnology. […] The second position is to be wary of any unnecessarily constraining definition. […] On the other hand, the proponents of the third position – which is that of the author of these sentences – consider it essential to agree, provisionally at least, on a single definition.’ (Translated by A.R.).
- ‘Neben dem grundlegenden Wesensmerkmal, der Technik einer ekstatischen Verbindungssetzung mit Geistern, gehören zur Umschreibung des Schamanentums noch folgende Bestimmungspunkte: die besondere Qualifikation der in Ekstase tretenden Personen, deren grundsätzlich auf das Wohl der Gemeinschaft gerichtete Wirksamkeit und das Begründetsein derselben auf einer bestimmten Seelenideologie’ (Stiglmayr 1962, 40).
- Okladnikov 1951.
- Prufer and Dunham 2009.
- Grosman et al. 2008.
- See Reymann 2013.
- See Devlet 2001.
- Perrin 1997.
- Eliade 1951.
- Oppitz 1981.30 Znamenski 2004, XIX.
- ‘The acquisition of such protecting spirits is usually not a result of the shaman of his own free will. The gift of shamanism is not acquired through the force of one’s own desire; quite the contrary, it comes against one’s desire, and the high gift is accepted as a heavy burden, which man takes up as the inevitable, submitting to it with a weary hearth as of one doomed’ (Sternberg 2004, 125-126).
- ‘Die Burjaten sind der Auffassung, daß die Schamanen unter ihnen die schlimmste Art der Menschen seien. Der Ruf ist anormal, die Gabe schrecklich, die Wirkung der Schamanen auf die anderen unheilvoll; dieSchamanen vertreten also die untaugliche Seite des Menschenlebens. Sie scheinen unnatürlich zu sein’ (Krader 1991, 51).
- Kortt 1991, 28.
- ‘Wenn er nicht in den Häusern seiner nächtlichen Sitzungen verköstigt wird, kocht Beth Bahadur am eigenen Feuer das tägliche Mahl für Schwiegermutter, Frau und Töchter. Die übliche Mahlzeit setzt sich aus Maisbrei, Fleischbrühe und Chili zusammen, den man in die Pampe bröselt. Die Schamanen der nördlichen Magar beschränken sich keineswegs nur auf die Tätigkeiten ihrer Berufung als Heiler und Seher. Einige von ihnen sind ausgezeichnete Jäger, viele gehen fischen und Honig sammeln und sie alle bestellen ihre Felder selbst. Die profanen Tätigkeiten sind wichtig für ihren Lebensunterhalt, denn der Schamanenberuf bringt selbst nicht genug ein. Dies widerspricht einer verbreiteten Ansicht, die Schamanen beuteten mit Quacksalbereien nur die unwissende Bevölkerung aus. In der Tat ist ihr Los schwerer als das der Anderen: tags die Arbeit des Laien und in vielen Nächten zusätzlich die des Erwählten’ (Oppitz 1981, 174).
- Compare Reymann 2015.
- ‘The dress represents the mysteries and powers which the shaman learned during his first experiences and initiations. In many cases it is the dwelling place of spirits and therefore for his supernatural power. Thus, the dress itself is thought to possess supernormal power. In the areas of clan shamanism, the dress could not be sold outside the clan, because the shaman’s spirits belonging to the clan were attached to it. A worn-out shaman’s dress might be hung on a tree in the forest, so that the spirits could leave it gradually and enter a new dress’ (Siikala and Hoppál 1992, 10). Compare, in addition, other examples for the handling of shamanistic paraphernalia of a shaman after his death in Reymann 2015.
- To give here examples and more detailed explanations would go much too far. Because of this, we are just pointing at the publication dealing with this topic; therefore, see Reymann 2015.
- Shirokogoroff 2004, 63.
- Compare, for example, Solov’Eva 2009.
- Crubézy and Alexéev 2007.
- Compare Crubézy and Alexéev 2007, 36-44.
- See DuBois 2009, 77-81.
- Lipp 1986, 530.
- Lipp 1986, 534.
- Lipp 1986, 534.
- Lipp 1986, 534.
- ‘Sie wandeln sich an sie an, sie werden zum Weibe im Glauben, Mittler zu den Dämonen – die sie als männlich begreifen – erst wesentlich dadurch zu werden, daß sie mit ihnen “verkehren”, geschlechtlich verkehren […]’ (Lipp 1986, 537).
- Mandelstam-Balzer and Ivanov-Unarova 2009, 63.
- Compare, for example, Mandelstam-Balzer and Ivanov-Unarova 2009, 64.
- ‘Unterschiede zwischen weiblicher und männlicher schamanischer Ausübung zeigten sich auch in der rituellen Praxis und an der Art der Attribute. In der Vorstellung der Altaier und Tuviner konnte eine Schamanin als “unreins” Wesen eine kamlanie nur für die Geister der Erde und der Berge (Er-Su) und Erlik-Chan, dem Herrscher der Unterwelt abhalten’ (Solov’Eva 2009, 82-83).
- For a more precise translation and description, compare the article by Nataliia Myhkailova in this book.
- For the distinction, see, among others, Hesse 1986.
- It has been mentioned several times that the ability to send death to others was very important in Siberia and that in older times this topic was more often requested by the members of communities as their universal healing ability. However, as the black shamans and their skills were severely attacked by the missionary works of several religions of Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam, the oral sources on this phenomenon are meagre and hard to retrace. Nevertheless, the compulsion of this could be interesting not only for the history of ethnology and the science of religion, but also for a widening of social concepts and its application in archaeological investigations.
- Solo’Eva 2009, 83.
- Here I add that, of course, all these observations always go together with the critical reflection of the spirit of a time. For example, Basilow (1995, 61 f.) mentions that the disappearance of male shamans in some regions, as among the Turkmenian tribes of Siberia, was influenced by the spread of Islam during the 18th century in these regions – the male shamans converted to a more Islamic-inspired worldview, while the position of shaman, still valuable and necessary for the society, was overtaken more and more by female healers and actors. In a similar way, other approaches to the phenomenon always have to be analysed critically – but that, of course, is a normal way to look at any source of historic or even prehistoric time periods.
- Reymann 2015.
- See Findeisen 1957, 98-102; see also Nachtigall 1953.
- ‘Einen berühmten Schamanen bestattet man nicht in der Erde, sondern legt ihn unter freiem Himmel auf ein besonderes Gerüst namens Arangas. Wenn dann der Arangas verfault und umgestürzt ist, werden die Knochen des Schamanen im Laufe der Zeit drei Mal durch drei, sechs oder neun Schamanen “erhoben”’ (Findeisen 1957, 98).
- Findeisen 1957, 98.
- Findeisen 1957, 100.
- Oppitz 1981, 112-115.
- Just compare the description for the Magar: ‘This difference can be seen in the burial custom: the normal Magar lies straight in his grave, oriented in east-west direction – belowground; the shaman, in contrast, is sitting upright, aboveground, under a burial mound, the face directed to the north, the home of the first shamans.’ (Translated by A.R.). In the original German: ‘Dieser Unterschied zeigt sich auch in der Bestattung: der einfache Magar liegt flach in seinem Grab, in ost-westlicher Richtung, – unter der Erde; Der Schamane dagegen sitzt aufrecht, über der Erde, unter einem Grabhügel, mit dem Gesicht nach Norden gewandt, der Heimat der Ersten Schamanen’ (Oppitz 1981, 112).
- See Crubézy and Alexéev 2007, 30.
- See further Reymann 2015, 229-237.
- See Oppitz 1981, 134.
- ‘Wegen der Geringfügigkeit des Anlasses begleitet Kathka sein Lied auf einem rhythmisch angeschlagenen Messingteller’ (Oppitz 1981, 134).
- For the different aspects of the shaman’s paraphernalia and their possible symbolic and functional usages, compare Reymann 2015, 150-237.
- Reymann 2015, 141.
- See, for example, Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg 1984; Lipp 1986, 534; Margreth 1993, 141.
- Here I use again the term that derived from the Turkic languages, for in the past it was very often used to summarise all ritual aspects of Siberian shamanism. It is nevertheless to be remarked that there are several other terms for this ritual process.
- Here it should be added that most ritual performances of shamans follow specific rules, but they are nevertheless in most cases unique and creative acts. No kamlanie is like another. Only the frames of acting are the same.
- For the problematic differentiation of priests and shamans, see VanPool 2009; furthermore, see Grim 1983, 185-191.
- Van Gennep 2004.
- For the discussion of ecstatic and altered states in shamanism and the conceptualization of shamanism, see Reymann 2015, 47-89.
- Crubézy and Alexéev 2007, 31.
- Crubézy and Alexéev 2007, 20.
- See Crubézy and Alexéev 2007, 31 and also 33-36.
- Wiermann 1997; 2001.
- Wiermann 1997, 523 f.
- Nausch 1996.
- Reymann 2015, 337.
- Behm-Blancke 1989.
- Nausch 1996, 36.
- Reymann 2015, 328-340. It has to be added here that, of course, the burial customs could have changed over the several thousand years between prehistoric times and the ethnographically recorded shamans. But this is true for all aspects of their ritual behaviour – so if we use the term shaman in its definition as is done today, we have to use all aspects.
- ‘Doch die weibliche Bestattung aus Grab 8, der jegliche Beigaben fehlen, hat keinerlei Hinweise auf eine solche Stellung. Eine andere Erklärungsmöglichkeit für diese “Sonderbestattung” aus Grab 8 ist, daß es sich um eine aus der Gesellschaft ausgestoßene Person handelt, etwa um eine Ehebrecherin. Es bieten sich viele Möglichkeiten an, diese entgegen der allgemeinen Regeln niedergelegte Bestattung zu deuten (Schamanismus, Homosexualität, soziale Ächtung, Sonderbestattung von Alten), aber letztendlich bleibt doch alles Hypothese, da man keine der Möglichkeiten beweisen kann – wenn mir auch soziale Ächtung am wahrscheinlichsten erscheint’ (Nausch 1996, 35).
Bibliography
- Basilow, Wladimir N. 1995. Das Schamanentum bei den Völkern Mittelasiens und Kasachstans. Mittelasiatische Studien 1. Berlin: Schletzer.
- Behm-Blancke, Günter 1989. Zum Weltbild und zur Gesellschaftsstruktur der Schnurkeramiker. Alt-Thüringen, 24, 117-150.
- Binford, Lewis 1971. Mortuary: Their Study and Their Potential. Memoirs if the Society for American Archaeology, 25, 6-29.
- Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, Gisela 1984. Der Weibmann. Kultischer Geschlechtswechsel im Schamanismus. Eine Studie der Transvestition und Transsexualität bei Naturvölkern. Frankfurt a. M: Fischer.
- Brather, Sebastian, and Wotzka, Hans-Peter 2006. Alemannen und Franken? Bestat-tungsmodi, ethnische Identitäten und wirtschaftliche Verhältnisse zur Merowingerzeit. In: Burmeister, Stefan, and Müller-Scheeßel, Nils (eds). Soziale Gruppen – kulturelle Grenzen: Die Interpretation sozialer Identitäten in der prähistorischen Archäologie. Tübinger archäologische Taschenbücher 5. Münster, New York: Waxmann, 139-224.
- Burmeister, Stefan, and Müller-Scheeßel, Nils 2006 (eds). Soziale Gruppen – kulturelle Grenzen: Die Interpretation sozialer Identitäten in der prähistorischen Archäologie. Tübinger archäologische Taschenbücher 5. Münster, New York: Waxmann.
- Crubézy, Eric, and Alexéev, Andrej 2007 (eds). Chamane. Kyss, jeune fille des glaces. Paris: Editions Errance.
- Devlet, Ekaterina 2001. Rock art and the material culture of Siberian and Central Asian shamanism. In: Price, Neil S. (ed.). The Archaeology of Shamanism. New York: Routledge, 43-55.
- DuBois, Thomas A. 2009. An Introduction to shamanism. Cambridge: University Press.
- Eliade, Mircea 1951. Le Chamanisme et les techniques archaiques de l’extase. Chamanisme et psychopathologie. Paris: Payot.
- Findeisen, Hans 1957. ‘Schamanentum’ dargestellt am Beispiel der Besessenheitspriester nordeurasiatischer Völker. Stuttgart: Urban.
- Flaherty, Gloria 1992. Shamanism and the eighteenth century. Princeton/Oxford: University Press.
- Fries, Jana Ester, Gutsmiedl-Schümann, Doris, Matias, Jo Zalea, and Rambuschek, Ulrike 2017 (eds). Images of the Past. Gender and its Representations. EAA annual meeting Istanbul 2014. Frauen – Forschung – Archäologie 12. Münster, New York: Waxmann.
- Grim, John A. 1983. The Shaman. Patterns of Siberian and Ojibway Healing. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
- Grosman, Leore, Munro, Natalie D., and Belfer-Cohen, Anna 2008. A 12,000-year-old Shaman burial from the southern Levant (Israel). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105, 17665-17669.
- Häusler, Alexander 1966. Zum Verhältnis von Männern, Frauen und Kindern in den Gräbern der Steinzeit. Arbeits-und Forschungsberichte der Sächsischen Boden-denkmalpflege, 14/15, 25-72.
- Hesse, Klaus 1986. Zur Transformation des weißen, schwarzen und gelben Schamanismus in der Geschichte der Mongolei. In: Zinser, Hartmut (ed.). Der Untergang von Religionen. Berlin: Reimer, 171-182.
- Kasten, Erich 2009. Schamanen: Sibirische Weltbilder – Westliche Gegenwelten. In: Kasten, Erich 2009 (ed.). Schamanen Sibiriens. Magier, Mittler, Heiler. Stuttgart: Reimer, 24-31.
- Kortt, Ivan 1991. Die soziale Bindung des sibirischen Schamanen. In: Kuper, Michael (ed.). Hungrige Geister und rastlose Seelen. Texte zur Schamanismusforschung. Berlin: Reimer, 27-44.
- Krader, Lawrence 1991. Ostsibirischer Schamanismus. In: Kuper, Michael (ed.). Hungrige Geister und rastlose Seelen. Texte zur Schamanismusforschung. Berlin: Reimer, 45-55.
- Lipp, Wolfgang 1986. Geschlechtsrollenwechsel. Formen und Funktionen am Beispiel ethnographischer Materialien. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozial psychologie, 38, 529-559.
- Mandelstam-Balzer, Marjorie, and Ivanov-Unarova, Zinaida 2009. Schamanen attribute, Gender und sich wandelnde Definitionen des Heiligen. In: Kasten, Erich 2009 (ed.). Schamanen Sibiriens. Magier, Mittler, Heiler. Stuttgart: Reimer, 62-69.
- Margreth, Donat 1993. Skythische Schamanen? Die Nachrichten über Enaress-Anarieeis bei Herodot und Hippokrates. Schaffhausen: Universitäts dissertationen.
- Motzki, Harald 1977. Schamanismus als Problem religions-wissenschaftlicher Terminologie. Arbeitsmaterialien zur Religionsgeschichte 2. Bonn: Universitätsverlag.
- Müller-Scheeßel, Nils, and Burmeister, Stefan 2006. Einleitung: Die Identifizierung sozialer Gruppen. Die Erkenntnismöglichkeiten der Prähistorischen Archäologie auf dem Prüfstand. In: Burmeister, Stefan, and Müller-Scheeßel, Nils (eds). Soziale Gruppen – kulturelle Grenzen: Die Interpretation sozialer Identitäten in der prähistorischen Archäologie. Tübinger archäologische Taschenbücher 5. Münster, New York: Waxmann, 9-38.
- Nachtigall, Hans 1953. Die erhöhte Bestattung in Nord- und Hochasien. Anthropos, 48, 44-70.
- Nausch, Kerstin 1996. Bergrheinfeld und Wolkshausen, zwei endneolithische Gräberfelder aus Unterfranken. Bayerische Vorgeschichtsblätter, 61, 23-94.
- Ohlmarks, Ake 1939. Studien zum Problem des Schamanismus. Lund: Gleerup.
- Okladnikov, Alexei Pawlowitsch 1951. Zum Studium der Anfangsetappen der Völker-bildung in Sibirien. Sowjetwissenschaft, 442-461.
- Oppitz, Michael 1981. Schamanen im Blinden Land. Ein Bilderbuch aus dem Himalaya.
- Perrin, Michel 1997. Chamanes, chamanisme et chamanologues. L’Homme, 37, 142, 89-92.
- Pohl, Walter, and Mehofer, Mathias 2010 (eds). Archaeology of Identity – Archäologie der Identitäten. Denkschriften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse 17. Wien: Verlag Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
- Price, Neil S. 2001. An Archaeology of altered states: Shamanism and material culture studies. In: Price, Neil S. (ed.). The Archaeology of Shamanism. New York: Routledge, 3-16.
- Prufer, Keith M., and Dunham, Peter S. 2009. A shaman’s burial from Early Classic cave in the Maya Mountains of Belize, Central America. World Archaeology, 41, 295-320.
- Rambuschek, Ulrike 2018. Die Vielfalt der Geschlechter: komplexe Identitäten statt binäre Konzepte. Einleitung ins Thema. Archäologische Informationen, 41, 151-154.
- Reymann, Andy 2013. ‘Schamane’ oder nicht ‘Schamane’? Zur Problematik der Nutzung eines ethnologischen Terminus bei der Analyse vorgeschichtlicher Bestattungen. In: Müller-Scheeßel, Nils (ed.). ‘Irreguläre’ Bestattungen in der Urgeschichte: Norm, Ritual, Strafe…? Akten der Internationalen Tagung in Frankfurt a.M., 3.-5. Februar 2012. Kolloquien zur Vorund Frühgeschichte 19. Bonn: Habelt, 65-74.
- Reymann, Andy 2015. Das religions-archäologische Konzept des Schamanen in der prähistorischen Archäologie. Frankfurter Archäologische Schriften 28. Bonn: Habelt.
- Sartre, Jean-Paul 1988. Geschlossene Gesellschaft. München: RoRoRo.
- Shirokogoroff, Sergej Michailowitsch 2004. Shamanism in General. In: Znamenski, Andrei A. (ed.). Shamanism. Critical Concepts in Sociology 1. London: Routledge, 61-82. [First published as: Shirokogoroff, Sergej Michailowitsch 1935. Psychomental Complex of the Tungus. London: Kegan/Trench/Trubner and Co, 268-276.285-287].
- Siikala, Anna-Leena, and Hoppál, Michael 1992. Studies on Shamanism. Ethnologica uralica 2. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado.
- Solov’eva, Karina J. 2009. Die Schamanenwerdung. In: Kasten, Erich (ed.). Schamanen Sibiriens. Magier, Mittler, Heiler. Stuttgart: Reimer, 42-49.
- Sternberg, Leo 2004. Extracts from ‘Divine Election in Primitive Religion’. In: Znamenski, Andrei A., Shamanism. Critical Concepts in Sociology 1. London: Routledge, 124-148. [First published: Sternberg, Leo 1925. Divine Election in primitive Religion. In: Proceedings of the Twenty-First International Congress of Americanists II (Göteborg 1924), 472-489.505-512].
- Stiglmayr, Ernst 1962. Schamanismus, eine spiritistische Religion? Ethnos, 27, 40-48.
- Tromnau, Gernot and Löffler, Ruth 1991 (eds). Schamanen – Mittler zwischen Menschen und Geistern. Begleitband zur Ausstellung im Kultur- und Stadthistorischen Museum Duisburg, 14. April bis 30. Juni 1991. Duisburg: Kultur-und Stadt-historisches Museum.
- Van Alphen, Jan 1997 (ed.). Spellbound by the shaman. Shamanism in Tuva. Antwerp: Ethnographic Museum.
- Van Gennep, Arnold 2004. The Rites of Passage. London: Routledge.
- VanPool, Christine S. 2009. The signs of the sacred: Identifying shamans using archaeological evidence. Journal of Anthrophological Archaeology, 28, 177-190.
- VanPool, Christine S., VanPool, Todd, and Downs, Lauren W. 2017. Dressing the person: Clothing and identity in the Casa Grandes World. American Antiquity, 82, 2, 262-287.
- Vitebsky, Piers 2001. Schamanismus. Reisen der Seele, magische Kräfte, Ekstase und Heilung. Köln: Taschen.
- Watzlawick, Paul, Beavin, Janet B., and Jackson, Don D. 1967. Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes. New York: Ww Norton & Co.
- Wiermann, Roland R. 1997. Keine Regel ohne Ausnahme: die geschlechtsspezifische Bestattungssitte der Kultur mit Schnurkeramik. Ethnographisch-Archäologische Zeitschrift, 38, 521-529.
- Wiermann, Roland R. 2001. Untersuchungen zur geschlechts-und altersspezifischen Bestattungssitte der Kultur mit Schnurkeramik in Böhmen. Archäologie Digital 1. Freiburg: Archäomedia.
- Witsen, Nicolaas 1692. Noord en Oost Tartarye, Ofte Bondig Ontwerp Van eenig dier Landen en Volken Welke voormaels bekent zijn geweest. Beneffens verscheide tot noch toe onbekende, en meest nooit voorheen beschreve Tartersche en Nabuurige Gewesten, Landstreeken, Steden, Rivieren, en Plaetzen, in de Noorder en Oosterlyk-ste Gedeelten Van Asia En Europa Verdeelt in twee Stukken, Met der zelviger Landkaerten: mitsgaders, onderscheide Afbeeldingen van Steden, Drachten, enz. Zedert naeuwkeurig onderzoek van veele Jaren, door eigen ondervondinge ontworpen, beschreven, geteekent, en in ‘t licht gegeven. Amsterdam: Halma.
- Znamenski, Andrei A. 2004. Shamanism. Critical Concepts in Sociology 1-3. London: Routledge.
- Znamenski, Andrei A. 2007. The Beauty of the Primitive. Shamanism and Western Imagination. Oxford: University Press.
- Znamenski, Andrei A. 2009. Jenseits von Sibirien: Schamanismus in der Wissen-schaft und in zeitgenössischen Bewegungen des Westens. In: Kasten, Erich 2009 (ed.). Schamanen Sibiriens. Magier, Mittler, Heiler. Stuttgart: Reimer, 172-187.
Chapter 2.4 (363-380) from Gender Transformations in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies, edited by Julia Katharina Koch and Wiebke Kirleis (Sidestone Press, 01.07.2020), published by OAPEN under the terms of an Open Access license.