assigned to a skeleton of unknown sex, it is a cultural act” (Claassen 1992, 4), pointing out the more prominent cultural biases in the field of archaeology. These philosophies make Western biological anthropological methods of determining sex of fossils, not appropriate for cross-cultural studies given that not the same physical characteristics are used by all cultures to determine an individual’s sex. This approach of sexual fluidity, meaning that sex is not a cross-cultural concept and it is mostly culturally assigned, has been undermined by the wide application of DNA analysis to skeletal remains in Western archaeology. The conclusions drawn from such studies performed by Western archaeologists, will be biased by their cultural influences and concepts of sex, biology and DNA. Hoping that analysis of both the material culture and ethnographic studies of the ancient society will provide a clearer picture of the role gender plays/played in that society, archaeologists are using more diverse types of data and incorporating other aspects of the collected data that they did not include before. Gender studies have often analyzed both males and females (Gilchrist 1991, Leick 2003), however, recent fieldwork has challenged the notion of this particular male-female dichotomy by expanding the categories to include a third or fourth gender in some non-Western societies that are explored (Herdt 1994, Hollimon 1997). Another way in which the fieldwork has challenged the usual study of gender archaeology is by analyzing more material culture like objects, activities and spatial arrangements in the landscape (Nelson 1997). See also Sarah Milledge Nelson Queer archeology Roberta Gilchrist References Footnotes Bibliography Claassen, C. 1992. Questioning Gender: An Introduction. In Claassen, C. (ed.) Exploring Gender Through Archaeology. Selected Papers from the 1991 Boone Conference. Madison: Prehistory Press, 1-32. Morris, R. 1995. All Made Up: Performance Theory and the New Anthropology of Sex and Gender. Annual Review of Anthropology 24, 567-592. Middleton, Angela. "Silent Voices, Hidden Lives: Archaeology, Class and Gender in the CMS Missions, Bay of Islands, New Zealand, 1814—1845." International Journal of Historical Archaeology 11.1 (2007): 1-31. Web. Geller, Pamela L. "Identity and Difference: Complicating Gender in Archaeology." Annual Review of Anthropology 38.1 (2009): 65-81. Web. Sørensen, Marie Louise. "The ‘romanization’ of Gender Archaeology." Archaeological Dialogues 13.1 (2006): 27-31. Web. Further reading Gero, J., Conkey, W.(Eds). 1991. Engendering Archaeology. Oxford: Blackwell. Joyce, R.A. 2008. Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives: Sex, Gender, and Archaeology. London: Thames & Hudson. Wright, R.P., 1996. Gender and