Moving to Stay in (a Woman’s) Place

This paper questions whether forms of female mobility and their relation to kinship were uniform throughout later European prehistory. Patrilocality has become the primary way in which sex-based differences in isotope and ancient DNA (aDNA) data are interpreted for this period, but often without discussing or differentiating this concept further. Using a meta-analysis of existing studies from the Neolithic to the Early Iron Age, we argue that scholars have collapsed kinship and residence, patrilocality and patrilineality. This has implications for how these societies are characterized, with implicit assumptions of patriarchy now underpinning many models of movement across prehistory. We argue that, while powerful, methods such as isotope and aDNA analysis provide only a partial window on what are complex patterns of social behavior. They can achieve their full potential only when contextualized within further proxies. A critical overview of the intersection of gendered mobility and kinship is used to outline alternative avenues for exploration. We present selected archaeological case studies (Neolithic Greece, the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik, Copper Age Iberia, and Early Iron Age southern Germany) to argue for the central importance of historical dynamics in understanding the diversity of practices that are currently hidden behind the label of patrilocality.