DECOLONIZING ARCHAEOLOGY: ADDRESSING GENDERCIDE IN CALIFORNIA'S INDIGENOUS HISTORY

The establishment of the Spanish mission system in Alta California disrupted and dismantled long established sociocultural norms in California Indian communities. Some of the people most affected identified as third and fourth genders, more generally identified today as nonbinary genders. Recorded in mission records as joyas, nonbinary people were targeted, assimilated, executed, and erased from the colonized world in what can be considered a gendercide. Utilizing an overarching decolonizing methodology, this thesis finds that at least 30 California Indian communities had linguistic terms for one or more designated nonbinary gender identities prior to colonization. Moreover, nonbinary people in Native California societies often held specialized occupational roles as healers and undertakers. The likelihood of nonbinary people being visible in the archaeological record was considered for these 30 societies by researching traditional mortuary practices, bioarchaeological pathologies, and gendered grave goods, building from previous research by Sandra E. Hollimon. Cremation and the destruction of personal belongings lower the probability of identifying nonbinary people in the archaeological record. These practices were researched to consider where nonbinary gender identities are likely to be visible in the archaeological record of ancestral peoples. Based on differences in the treatment of personal belongings upon death and other funerary practices, this study indicates that the visibility of third and fourth genders in the archaeological past is most likely for the Yuki and Patwin, whereas the Acjachemen, Salinan, and Miwok are among the least likely.