DNA is not the only thing we inherit from our ancestors. Cultural roots and social norms are also passed down from generation to generation. Some are positive. Others, such as gender or ethnic bias, totally despicable. And the most surprising thing is that these prejudices are engraved on our teeth.
Researchers at Washington University in Saint Louis have discovered that the persistence of behaviors against women that still exist today in Europe have deep historical origins in the Middle Ages and even beyond, they explain in an article published in Proceedings magazine. of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
According to archaeologists, the most exclusive gender norms have remained stubbornly persistent in many parts of the world despite the significant advances made by the international women’s rights movement in the last 100-150 years.
Using the dental records of more than 10,000 people found at 139 archaeological sites across Europe, the experts found that people living in areas that historically favored men now display more prejudice against women than those living in places where gender relations were more egalitarian centuries ago.
These biases, they add, survived monumental socioeconomic and political changes, such as industrialization or the world wars. However, the researchers found an exception to the rule: In regions that experienced large-scale, abrupt population replacement, due to a pandemic (bubonic plague) or natural disaster, the transmission of these values ??was interrupted.
“The skeletons analyzed date back to 1,000 years ago, in medieval times. Therefore, it is remarkable that the patterns of gender bias that existed during those times, and even before, are still reproduced in contemporary attitudes,” said Professor Margit Tavits in a statement. “Given the enormous social, economic, and political changes that have taken place in Europe during this time, our findings speak to the power of the cultural transmission of gender norms,” ??she adds.
The incredible stability of these norms over hundreds, if not thousands, of years also explains why it has been so difficult in some regions to move towards equality. “There has been a widespread belief that gender rules are a byproduct of structural and institutional factors such as religion or agricultural practices. Our findings indicate that ideas passed from one generation to the next can persist even if institutions or structures encourage inequality, and vice versa,” says Tavits.
Previous research has already used linear enamel hypoplasias (permanent damage to teeth caused by trauma, malnutrition or disease) to analyze prehistoric gender equality. Because these marks are formed exclusively in cases of sustained bodily stress, their presence offers many details about the health and living conditions of each person studied.
Additionally, differences between male and female teeth are an indication of which sex received preferential treatment in terms of medical care and dietary resources at the time. Thus, the archaeologists found that people living in a historically egalitarian area of ??Europe were 20% more likely to have pro-feminine attitudes than people living in historically more pro-masculine areas.
When they looked at the United States, where the arrival of European settlers in the 16th century led to large-scale displacement of Native Americans, the University of Washington specialists found no association between historical and current gender norms.
“Together, these findings provide further support for the idea that historical biases persist because they are passed from one generation to the next and occur only when transmission between generations is uninterrupted. We were surprised that such a clear relationship emerged,” says Tavits.
The researchers highlight two places to illustrate the contrast in the relationship of women to men. At the first site in Istria, a small Greek settlement on the Black Sea in the modern Dobruja region of Romania, experts found evidence of a pro-male bias in dental records dating to around 550 AD. of Christ.
Of the 49 skeletons from which dental and sex information could be extracted, 58% of women show signs of malnutrition and trauma, compared to only 25% of men in a similar situation. By modern indicators, the status of men and women remains relatively unequal in southeastern Romania today. Only 52.5% of women participate in the labor market compared to 78% of men, and only 18% of the representatives in the modern municipal council are women.
Plinkaigalis is the other side of the coin. This rural community in present-day western Lithuania made up of a population of Balts favored women’s health. Of the 157 skeletons analysed, which also date to 550 AD, 56% of the men show dental signs of trauma and malnutrition, while only 46% of the women do.
In the modern era, this place, now called Ke ?dainiai, remains relatively gender equal. Employment levels do not vary much: 76% men versus 72.7 percent women. Furthermore, women are almost proportionally represented in local politics (48%).
“The parallels between historical and modern gender norms in both places are stark and in line with our argument for persistence,” the study authors write. “Masculine preference in Istria, dating back to at least the early medieval era, is still reflected in unequal gender relations today. The area around the pre-medieval Plinkaigalis, on the other hand, continues to treat men and women relatively equally as it did some 1,500 years ago.”
