Archaeologists used to identify skeletons buried with weapons as male, but modern DNA testing now allows determination of sex and age with a high degree of accuracy. Scientific analysis reveals that at least a quarter of the female burials in Scythia are classified as warriors. This means that skeletons that were assumed to be male before sexing methods became standard should be reassessed. No archaeological evidence points to societies of women only. Instead, the findings confirm the ancient Greek accounts that described Amazons as living in tribes consisting of males, females, and children; some small bands of women warriors killed in battle were buried together by their people. In the words of Eileen Murphy, the archaeologist who examined remains from Tuva, the “existence of female warriors in the steppes during the
Iron Age is heavily supported by evidence from the archaeological record.” “These women were, according to all indications, the true Amazons of the classical written tradition,” concludes archaeologist V I. Guliaev. “These women were warriors,” agrees Davis-Kimball, but “they were not necessarily fighting battles all the time like Genghis Khan.”34
Children started their training at an early age; as among steppe nomads today, toddlers would have ridden horses with their parents and been able to ride alone by age five. Youths of the tribe were capable of defending themselves, herds, property, and territory. The ratio of female to male graves with weaponry suggests that the most proficient and courageous young women could choose to remain hunters and warriors when they were adults. Guliaev and Elena Fialko reason that certain “social and age groups of Scythian women and girls” took on military obligations, serving as light-armed mounted skirmishers who could ride out to war whenever needed alongside the men or could repel attackers when men were away. This parallels the statements of Herodotus and Hippocrates, that it was customary for young women to prove themselves in battle, and that older women fought by choice or whenever necessary.35
The details of the condition of the women’s skeletons and their grave goods, meticulously recorded by modern archaeologists, throw open an extraordinary window into how warlike women of the culturally related tribes of Eurasia lived, died, and were laid to rest by their kin and companions. Skeletons and grave goods can reveal an amazing amount of information about the life and death of a person, even someone who lived and died thousands of years ago. But bare bones cannot provide the answer to one of the most burning questions about Amazons’ bodies. One breast or two.?
World History
