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We need more diversity in history and archaeology. This is why ...

Hello to you 👋🏻

Last week, I shared the story of an Anglo-Saxon cunning woman and some pics of her amazing grave goodies. After reading about her, I wanted to go deeper into this subject, and the first thing that sprang to mind was: what about different groups of women? Were they cunning women? What were they getting up to in the so-called Dark Ages?

And you know that exciting feeling when you start something completely new? ALL. THAT. POTENTIAL. You don’t know where you’ll end up, and I love that.

So, let’s get going. And in doing that, I’m going to start by acknowledging that you’re a well-rounded, sensible kind of human. You throw your head back and laugh at the inaccurate idea that Britain has only ever been full of white Europeans. LOL.

It doesn’t take too long to find a couple of graves from the 10th century that have been excavated by archaeologists. One of the reports is from a village called North Elmham in Norfolk. According to the report, one grave contains the skeleton of a Black woman who was between 35 and 45 at the time of her death. Another is from the River Colne in Fairford where the body of a younger Black woman was recovered. She was believed to be around 18 years old when she died, sometime between the years 896 and 1025.

And that’s fantastic, isn’t it? We’ve got clear evidence of ordinary Black women in Anglo-Saxon communities. As you already know, there is a scarcity of sources for women across all historical periods, especially for Black women, so putting some textual flesh on the bones (pun definitely intended) opens up a fresh set of challenges.

In the middle of all of this, I stop reading for a second because something is niggling at me. Something feels off, so I re-read a few times. What I’m seeing over and over is the same idea: that of “analysis of the skulls.”

And then an inner monologue happens …

My brain: “Sorry, can you read that bit again?”

Me: Sure. It’s saying something about skull analysis. They both are, in fact.

My brain: “Sorry to be a pain, but can you check it again? Because it’s feeling like this article is saying that “Africans” (who are now apparently one homogeneous mass of people) have different skulls from “Europeans.”

Me: Errr … That’s sort of where this is going, yeah.

My brain: This is looking a lot like scientific racism. Back away.

There’s still a part of me that’s like, “No, Kaye Jones, you’re wrong. These people are experts. It’s obviously YOU who doesn’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not an archaeologist. Get out of this space.”

But …

Then, I read the report of the North Elmham woman that describes her as a “Negress” who has “predominantly Negro genes.”

WHAT?!

Now, let’s be very clear: race is a social construct. It has no biological or genetic basis. That idea (that race is biological and inherited) was used to justify white colonialism and the enslavement of millions of Black people. It was scientific dehumanisation that acted as a security blanket for white people. (Angela Saini’s book, Superior, provides an excellent overview of this topic).

One of the reasons that history (the discipline) has issues with racism is because it is dominated by white people. (Less than 1% of academics in Britain identify as Black). Knowing that, I do a bit of digging (pun intended - sorry not sorry) into archaeology. What does the discipline look like, from a top-down level?

And it’s an interesting one. Like history, it’s dominated by white people. According to a survey from 2020, 97% of archaeologists are white. Then I wondered, how many Black women are working in archaeology? And the interest level steps up a notch …

First of all, I couldn’t find any stats about Black women specifically. There are stats about race and about gender, as separate characteristics, but nothing combined.

And so I thought, well, how long have Black women been active in the field? Maybe I can find the first Black female archaeologist and work from there? I try and find stats that tell me about Black women specifically but I can’t find any. Nor can I (easily) find a record of the first Black female archaeologist in Britain. (Interesting in itself, eh?). A wonderful organisation called Trowelbazers alerted me to Peggy Brunache, a Black archaeologist working in Scotland. I shared a bit about her on LinkedIn earlier this week if you want to learn more.

So, what started as an attempt to learn a bit more about the archaeology of diverse groups of women in Anglo-Saxon England quickly turned into so much more than that. Let me be clear: I’m not here to bash archaeology or to pretend I have some in-depth knowledge of how it’s done. I don’t and I own that. But what I am here to do is advocate for women (past and present) from all backgrounds.

With that in mind, I invite you to actively support Black archaeologists and archaeology. Please connect with them and share their work. Share it with others who might also be interested. If you can, consider making a donation. All the deets are below 👇🏻

Until next time.

Kaye


The Associations:

Society of Black Archaeologists.

European Society of Black and Allied Archaeologists.

Additional Resources:

Where Are The Black Archaeologists?

Should Forensic Anthropologists Try to Identify Race From A Person’s Skull?

Can Skeletons Have A Racial Identity?