As a gay man, I am, of course, overjoyed as my first impulse to see “evidence” that we weren’t always persecuted for who we are.

Your arguments have validity. I don’t know that this person was cis- or transgender or intersexed. I don’t know whether this person was gay or straight. I don’t know whether they considered themselves to have been male or female both or neither.

It will be interesting to learn more.

I don’t usually waste one nanosecond on political correctness. The goal is not to lesson unfairness but to attack using a weapon which is acceptable. In this case, however, I see your point. I wouldn’t have called everything stated misogyny. The assumption that being called a woman has been an insult forever in our species is, however, deeply misogynist.

Now however i think the misogyny is profound in the comments. Really a INSULT to be a Woman ? Seriously ? Ojeeze boys enough of the penis worship..

This Society View of this person who’s gender is assumed to be male , no chromosomal testing has been done to show it was a man. Many women and inter sexed individuals have narrow hips its only a general observation that narrow hips = males its not absolute..

But this society who had strict burial guidelines they adhered to ..

‘VIEWED THIS PERSON AS FEMALE BY HONORING THEM AS THEY WERE OR PRESENTED TO THE SOCIETY AS FEMALE.’ And to claim this person as gay as evidence of gay being since time began when it is obvious they were T at the very least if not a natal born female with narrow pelvis bones..

If you wont give the person the credit you should atleast see what the society imparted with the burial .. and to conjecture that it was a punish to be buried a woman is well BS

The idea that this burial marks an “insult” is also an outlier. From what we know of the berdache of North America and similar institutions in other cultures, the possibilities range from matter-of-fact acceptance to a special and respected role for the gender-ambivalent in the community. I think calling this an insult reveals more about our own attitudes than anything prevalent in the culture this man came from.

Thanks for the correction about “caveman”.

But… I suspect there was organized religion of some sort; that does appear to be a constant across culture and time. And cultures with rigid burial customs tend to have some beliefs about afterlife.

Hyhybt makes a good point that this could have been insult instead of acceptance. However, were that so, it would be more likely that the ‘mockery’ aspect of the burial would not have included the respectful placing of pots or they would have been misshaped or broken. Of course we are both speculating.

Just a thought – I suspect the pre-those Christians who hate us world tended to judge a person’s value on other criteria than their gender or sexuality.