Victorian excavators sometimes treated armour and weapons as proof that a burial was male. Skeletal evidence, especially the pelvis, could contradict that assumption. Rather than accept a woman as the armed individual, some interpretations recast the remains as a young male. Cultural expectations could therefore override physical evidence and distort the historical record. The passage warns against confusing what an artefact suggests with what an excavator expects it to mean.
Notable Point · 1:54:21-1:55:24
How Victorian assumptions misread armed women
Some Victorian archaeologists treated armour and weapons as proof of a male burial even when skeletal evidence pointed to a woman.