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TLDR: They were all sent away to other communities to marry. Sons stayed in the community, but daughters once they reached adulthood left the community for othe
by RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
TLDR: They were all sent away to other communities to marry. Sons stayed in the community, but daughters once they reached adulthood left the community for other communities.
- schappim 7y agoBut why were they not found in the cemeteries of other communities?
- Swizec 7y agoThey weren’t daughters there. They were mothers.
- garmaine 7y agoThey were, next to their husbands and with eulogies written by their children.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mumblemumble 7y agoThey were. The article isn't saying that there aren't any adult women being found in cemeteries. It's saying that none of the adult women being found in the cemeteries seem to be the daughter of anyone else in the community.
- raldi 7y agoYou're doing god's work
- usrusr 7y agoSent away sounds quite harsh. Ran off with that dashing young noble who was passing through would be just as fine as an explanation. "Strontium levels from three men, in contrast, showed that although they had left the valley as teens, they returned as adults."
- duxup 7y agoConsidering the social patterns I'm not sure it is very likely that a significant number "ran off" as part of their culture.
- usrusr 7y agoWe know absolutely nothing about their social patterns outside of burial habits and bone structure, and now genetic relatedness. “Ran off“ is a bit of an exaggeration of course, because it implies resistance, but "sent away" is just as much a conclusion too far. Perhaps they were all taken by force by roaming young men, perhaps they were rejecting an entire parade of princely bachelors before eventually accepting "the one", perhaps they were expelled into the woods, we just don't know. What the evidence does tell us is that land was inherited along the male line and that women did not marry down to the local lower class (necessitating a move when the upper class consists entirely of your close male relatives and their wives).
- duxup 7y agoI got the impression that the study ranged quite a large amount of time, it seems unlikely events such as "taken by roaming young men" would be as constant as the article implies their findings are. Rather a social construct would seem more likely to be consistent.
- usrusr 7y agoThe most plausible scenario (and the one that is consistent with later highly stratified societies) is that they just could not marry locally due to status differential to all local males outside of the family. That's all the social construct you need to match the observation. But the article paints that as an act of sending away, when a more passive approach is not only just as plausible, if not more, but also supported by the observation of males that did a significant amount of traveling before settling down back home.
- mirimir 7y agoNot all. The poor stayed behind as servants or slaves.
- watwut 7y agoWhich would be majority of population.