Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on women's roles in some parts of the Central Asian region during ancient times from anthropological, archaeological, and historical perspectives.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on women's roles in some parts of the Central Asian region during ancient times from anthropological, archaeological, and historical perspectives. Biased assumptions on gender roles have been prevailing in most of the cultures. Several excavations in Central Asia revealed that all women did not conform to a typical gender role indeed. In this paper, we aim to review the archaeological interpretations of material culture through existing publications and our argument on women's roles in some parts of ancient Central Asia. The discourse on the Issyk Golden Man or Woman, the ancient writings from Herodotus concerning Amazons, and archaeological records of ancient burials of women with weapons and armor in Central Asia highlights an interest in the role of women in physical combat in Central Asia during the 6th Century BC to 6th Century AD. While evidence supports the existence of women warriors in Central Asia's ancient past, contemporary perceptions of these roles' being unusual or surprising should be re-framed. Robb and Harris (2018) argue European Neolithic era gender expression in clothing and social tasks was less differentiated between male and female compared to the later Bronze age gendered communities. Contextualizing gender interpretations considered location and time are crucial. Investigating task differentiation based on gender in ancient Central Asia and employing a feminist archaeological perspective, we argue that women in nomadic Central Asia ancient communities performed many roles, including military and spiritual leadership. Further, we argue that given the contextual gender in location and time, the presence of women in such military and spiritual leadership roles is not surprising or unusual.