Anglo-Saxon Burials Are Challenging Our Understanding of Gender Identity

A reconstruction of a helmet found in the Sutton Hoo burial.
(British Museum, Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

There are a significant number of Anglo-Saxon burials where the estimated anatomical sex of the skeleton does not align with the gender implied by the items they were buried with.

Some bodies identified as male have been buried with feminine clothing, and some bodies identified as female have been found in the sorts of "warrior graves" typically associated with men.

In the archaeology of early Anglo-Saxon England, weaponry, horse-riding equipment and tools are thought to signal masculinity, while jewelery, sewing equipment and beads signal femininity. And, for the most part, this pattern fits.

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