Original Post (~400 words) Discuss the specific challenges of using burials to determine both sex and gender, based on bioarchaeology and burial treatment. Limit your discussion to the case studies of 1) the "Birka Female Viking Warrior" and 2) the seeming absence of gender-specific markings of burials in the European Neolithic compared to the succeeding Bronze Age, according to the questions or topics below. When Birka grave #Bj581 was first described in 1879, it was a sensation and has remained very famous in Viking studies. The burial had all the hallmarks of a high-status Viking warrior and thus was assumed to be a sexed male. Only very recently has DNA evidence revealed the individual was female, as osteological evidence had earlier shown but was ignored because the bones had been decontextualized from the burial. The 2017 DNA evidence was another sensation and was reported by many major scientific publications, such as National Geographic. 1 Assess why the first identification of sex was made and not questioned for over 100 years. 2 Then discuss why the DNA evidence is now so sensational. What difference does it make to archaeology, and to Viking archaeology more specifically, that the individual was sexed female? 3 Finally, reflect on whether the gender of the person buried in grave #Bj581 may have been the same as the individual's sex, and — if so or if not — what the implications would have been for that person's life. For this last discussion point, review Robb and Harris's conclusion that in Neolithic Europe, and likely for many other peoples of the past, a materially marked gender identity, as one-half of a gendered duality, was not a primary component of an individual's social identity. Thus "gender" could have been expressed differently in various contexts. Although the Viking era is much later in time, the Birka warrior may be one very recognizable instance of "gender" being expressed in ways that do not match biological sex. Must all Viking warriors have been gendered male, no matter their sex? Do you think archaeologists should be alerted to discover more such possible "exceptions" to a "rule"?