Museum

Motherhood and Feminism are not Dirty Words: Reimagining Archaeological Practice

Posted on by childhoodbioarchaeology

For International Women’s Day, I wanted to reflect on some of my old and new writings on the intersection of motherhood and archaeology.

Gendered and intersectional inequities shape access, safety, and participation within field‑based research in archaeology and biological anthropology. Compounding these issues, mothers* routinely confront discrimination and structural barriers associated with pregnancy, breastfeeding, childcare, and norms embedded in fieldwork culture. I have written on some of these issues here on challenges of research and fieldwork with children, attending conferences, and sexism in academic archaeology.

Systemic barriers place disproportionate pressure on mothers compared with fathers, contributing to reduced working hours and widening gender pay gaps (Kleven et al. 2018). The “leaky pipeline” in STEM—arguably a burst main—is strongly linked to caregiving responsibilities; evidence suggests more male STEM leaders have children compared with female leaders (McCabe et al. 2024). Although biological anthropology (including bioarchaeology) is numerically dominated by women, inequities persist in leadership, conference participation, and grant funding (Casad et al., 2022; Turner et al. 2018). Fieldwork remains a particularly acute site of inequality, with persistent reports of discrimination, harassment, and complex logistics for pregnancy, breastfeeding, and childcare (Camp, 2019; Hodgkins & Thompson 2022).

Archaeology’s professional identity is closely tied to fieldwork. Extended time away from home, the physical demands of excavation, and colonial “frontier” narratives have long shaped a disciplinary culture associated with masculine ideals (Tomášková 2007; Moser 2007). In 2013, the Society for American Archaeology established a Task Force on Gender Disparities in Archaeological Grant Submissions; the 2017 report found that nearly all women cited conflicts between fieldwork and parenting that negatively affected their grant submissions (Goldstein et al. 2018). While geography has more thoroughly addressed parenthood and fieldwork (Hope et al. 2019; Jenkins 2020; Price & Hall 2024), archaeology is only recently building momentum through personal accounts, op‑eds, and blog posts (e.g., Halcrow 2017; Hodgkins & Palmer; Norton 2025; Hoag & Von Jena 2025). This expanding body of narrative scholarship coincides with a stagnation in formal gender‑equity research in archaeology (Tomášková 2007; Fladd et al. 2026; Moen 2017; Wylie 2007). 

Centring Mothers in Feminism

O’Reilly (2021) argues that despite the diversification of feminist theory—such as queer feminism, third‑wave feminism, womanism, ecofeminism—academic feminism has not sufficiently centred the specific needs of mothers. This omission has contributed to the conflation of mothering and motherhood; to misreadings that equate matricentric feminism with gender essentialism or maternalism; and to the rise of postmaternal thinking and “radical forgetting,” whereby earlier maternal‑oriented activism is dismissed in favour of a degendered feminism (hooks 1984; Stephens 2016; O’Reilly 2021). Based on decades of research and conversations with mothers,  O’Reilly (2021) contends that mothering is central to many women’s identities and must be integrated into gendered models of society.

Accordingly, matricentric feminism “puts motherhood at its centre,” treating mothers, mothering, and motherhood as topics deserving sustained inquiry and as a basis for research and activism that contest oppressive institutions and envision empowering maternal identities and practices (O’Reilly 2021).

I have started to use personal narrative as disciplinary critique within a matricentric feminist lens. Caring responsibilities generate distinct vulnerabilities but also unique insights and forms of relational engagement in the field. Here are some reflections and recommendations to reconfigure archaeological practice so that it meaningfully includes and empowers mothers and in particular single parents:

Over 20 years, I have encountered the good, the bad, and the ugly. I have faced blatant discrimination—including being removed from a field project due to pregnancy—and I have missed opportunities because of assumptions about motherhood. Yet I have also experienced meaningful support and inclusion. The following reflections synthesise lessons learned: 

  • Find a mentor who is inclusive, supportive, and able to communicate openly about your needs. 
  • Motherhood can enrich scholarship. Parenting has deepened my perspectives on embodiment, ethics, and the social worlds of my research. 
  • Children expand field relations. My children often helped build rapport with communities, facilitating trust and dialogue. 
  • Collaborate with other parents. See Lozano & Sánchez (2023) for an example of practical strategies for conducting fieldwork as scientist mothers. 
  • Advocate for equity in fieldwork opportunities within institutions and professional bodies. 
  • Share your story when possible; narrative accounts help normalise motherhood in the field and push disciplinary boundaries. 
  • Expand the evidence base. More systematic qualitative and quantitative studies are needed to understand and address inequities. 

The COVID period, combined with reflections on well‑being and caregiving—including supporting an adult child with disabilities—prompted me to pivot toward collections‑based research, working with human remains already within my department. This shift has produced new grants and collaborations. This trajectory aligns with my ethical commitments and reframes success around work that makes a difference—challenging assumptions about what counts as “fieldwork” and broadening bioarchaeology’s remit to include historically contextualised human remains in collections. 

From Personal Narrative to Change: What Societies and Institutions Can Do

Archaeology presents distinctive barriers for parents, and in particular, single parents, because career progression is closely tied to excavation seasons, mobility, and extended time away from home. Academic societies are uniquely positioned to lead practical and cultural change. The following actions outline feasible reforms: 

1) Reform field school and excavation expectations
  • Accredit alternative training pathways (lab, museum, digital archaeology, community archaeology).
  • Recognise local/short‑duration excavations as equivalent experience.
  • Encourage hybrid models (e.g., remote recording). 
2) Fund childcare and caregiver travel for field seasons
  • Introduce seasonal childcare bursaries, not just conference childcare.
  • Create grants for caregiver travel and family‑suitable accommodation. Even small funds can make participation viable, especially where field pay is low or unpaid. 
3) Publish family-inclusive excavation guidelines
  • Standards for family‑safe accommodation, sanitation, and security.
  • Predictable scheduling where possible.
  • Risk assessments that include dependents.
  • Guidance for breastfeeding, pumping, and infant care in field settings. Comparable inclusion toolkits exist in other field sciences; archaeology needs discipline‑wide standards. 
4) Build mentorship networks for archaeologist parents
  • Cross‑career mentorship programmes.
  • Panels with excavation directors who are caregivers.
  • Practical guides (e.g., “How I ran a dig with kids”). 
5) Support local and community archaeology pathways
  • Fund micro‑grants for local projects and distributed collaborations that reduce mobility burdens.
6) Advocate for systemic funding changes
  • Lobby for dependent‑care costs to be eligible grant expenses.
  • Parental‑leave extensions aligned with excavation seasons.
  • Paid field school placements to reduce inequity. 

*Following O’Reilly (2021), the term ‘mothers” refers here to those who are doing the mothering and ‘motherwork’, as defined by Sara Ruddick (1989) as maternal practice, and can be undertaken by people other than biological mothers.

Two children standing next to a large megalith in a grassy area with trees and mountains in the background.

Visit to the Plain of Jars, Laos PDR.

A woman in a black shirt organizes items in green storage bins while a young girl in a pink shirt sits in one of the bins, watching intently.

Packing human burials away with some ‘help’

Uncovering childhood in museums

Posted on by childhoodbioarchaeology

Personal Reflections By Amanda Hoogestraat, Twitter @AmehAnthro

On my recent tour of museums in the UK, I saw small reminders of children in the exhibits featuring past societies. Children were obviously a part of every community, but are underrepresented in museum collections. There is a museum devoted to childhood in both London and Edinburgh, but perhaps other museums should consider adding more children’s items to their collections for a more balanced representation of life in the communities it displays.

For many of the museums that had childhood material culture, shoes or cradles were the only items on view.

Four out of the 55 museums that I visited had children’s skeletal remains on display; usually infants and mostly with an adult skeletons nearby. Rarely did I see older children.

However, it was the toys that interested me the most; to see how the cherished play items were very similar to those of today.

I also observed how visiting children interacted with the exhibits, especially at museums not designed specifically for them. Some of these museums had created play areas pertaining to a display nearby.

Surprisingly, the British Motor Museum was a place that had children’s programs and school tours.

I think everyone enjoys seeing items from a childhood different from our own lives or from our own childhoods. It reminds us that across time and location, children were an integral part of the society.

Egyptian ‘hawk’ mummy is a human foetus with a fatal birth defect

Posted on by childhoodbioarchaeology

Recently researchers have made an unexpected discovery of a mummified foetus while CT scanning a 2300-year-old mummy known as Ta-Kush currently held at the Maidstone Museum in Kent. This coffin was labelled, “A mummified hawk with linen and cartonnage, Ptolemaic period (323 BC – 30 BC).”

Micro-CT scan shows the mummified stillborn human baby. Image: Maidstone Museum UK/Nikon Metrology UK

The high resolution CT scan results have recently been presented at the Extraordinary World Congress on Mummy Studies in the Canary Islands last month. The authors argue that the foetus was about 23-28 weeks gestation and had anencephaly as shown by underdeveloped skull bones.

To me, this begs the question as to whether the several other Egyptian ‘hawk’ mummies curated around the world are actually tiny babies. Further investigation of this baby and others will shed light on the social responses of grief and loss of those born too young to survive.

Watch here on YouTube Mummy ‘bird’ mystery

The coffin. Image: Western University

 

 

 

 

 

‘Freaks’ as museum exhibits: the case of the Boy of Bengal

Posted on by childhoodbioarchaeology

Throughout history we have been obsessed with the ‘other’, the ‘weird’ and the wonderful. This is epitomised in the history of ‘freak shows’, which date back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in the 16th century. From this time people with unusual physical characteristics often became objects of public curiosity and were shown throughout Europe and beyond. Some of the people shown had growth syndromes (e.g. dwarfism and gigantism), growth defects (e.g. ectrodactyly, or ‘split hand‘ / ‘cleft hand‘ and microcephaly), albinism, and the very rare syndrome of hypertrichosis, sometimes called “werewolf syndrome”, which results in excessive hair on the face and body.

One ‘object of curiosity’ is the “Boy of Bengal” whose heads remain on display at the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of London. He was born in rural Bengal in the late 18th century. His parents exhibited him publically around India, and in private gatherings. Unfortunately the boy died at the age of four from a cobra bite.

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twin

During the 18th and 19th centuries there was an increase in medical interest in these conditions, which resulted in these people being studied, and sometimes displayed in medical forums. These people often continued to be objectified after their death through the preservation of their bodies, or parts of their bodies, in museums and clinical settings.

The boy’s grave was robbed and body dissected by as salt agent from the East India Company, and his skull was given to the the British surgeon Everard Home who had expressed interest in his condition.

This condition is now known as Craniopagus parasiticus, which is a form of parasitic twins. Parasitic twins form when a fertilised egg does not split properly, and one embryo maintains dominant development at the expense of its twin. This process is the same as the development of conjoined twins but there is an underdevelopment of one of the twins.

It could be argued that today there is still a type of grotesque fascination of ‘oddities’, evidenced with the interest that people have with these types of historic museum items such as the Boy of Bengal. We also see a continuation of the intense interest in people with unusual physical conditions today, prime examples include conjoined twins making world news and being the subjects in reality TV shows.