Sexual Division of Labor in Jomon Society: Insights from Sex Differences in Skeletal Morphology

SHIRAKAMI Asuka*, ONIKI Sora, and KAIFU Yousuke

Amid a growing trend of questioning the status and roles of women in contemporary society, archaeological reports suggesting that women in prehistoric times engaged in activities beyond modern gender stereotypes have attracted increasing attention. In this context, further investigations across a wider range of periods and regions are essential to understand the actual gender roles in prehistoric societies. However, previous studies on sex differences in the Jomon period —hunter-gatherers who inhabited the Japanese archipelago from the terminal Pleistocene to the mid-Holocene—have primarily focused on sex identification, while relatively few have examined gender roles within Jomon society. Therefore, I explore the actual situation of the sexual division of labour among the Jomon people by comparing the degree of sexual dimorphism in skeletal morphology. The materials are the limb bones from the early to late Jomon period across the Japanese archipelago, spanning approximately 8,000 years, as well as those of modern Japanese skeletal remains. For these materials, measurements such as the thickness, length, circumference, width, and head size of long bones are taken to examine to what extent sexual differences observed in Jomon skeletal remains compare to those of modern Japanese people, and what the range of variation in sexual differences was across different periods and regions during the Jomon period. Through this, I consider gender roles of each Jomon group.