Trauma and past lives

The bioarchaeological evidence for lethal and intentional violence in prehistoric European societies challenges public ideas and historical museum displays that these were peaceful and egalitarian communities. For the most part, the evidence continues to be interpreted within a western, binary-sex, and modern presentism perspective, with violence being perpetrated by adult men, and occurring in response to competition for resources—i.e., “Man the Hunter.” As prehistory is part of the educational curriculum across Europe, these misleading narratives have become embedded in the public's mind and are often utilized by those with a nationalist or alt-right social agenda.

Our chapter provides an overview of these ideas, and to challenge them, draws on recent genomic and bioarchaeological evidence for lineages and family structures, synthesizing audience evaluation of museum content, and exploring the ways in which Black feminist archaeology and decolonial feminist perspectives can be used to decenter whiteness and western notions of gender and age, in order to better understand the violence in these communities.