Gender is under focus in prehistoric archaeology, with traditional binary models being questioned and alternatives formulated. Quantification, however, is generally lacking, and alternative models are rarely tested against the archaeological evidence. In this article, we test the binary hypothesis of gender for prehistoric Central Europe based on a selection of seven published burial sites dating from the Early Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age. Results show that the binary model holds for the majority of individuals, but also supports the existence of non-binary variants. We address such variants as ‘minorities’ rather than ‘exceptions’, as only the former can be integrated in interpretive models. However, we also find that quantification is undermined by several sources of error and systematic bias.

性别是史前考古学的焦点，传统的二元模型受到质疑，并制定了替代方案。然而，普遍缺乏量化，并且很少根据考古证据来测试替代模型。在本文中，我们根据从新石器时代早期到青铜时代晚期的七个已发表的墓地的选择，检验了史前中欧的性别二元假设。结果表明，二元模型适用于大多数个体，但也支持非二元变体的存在。我们将此类变体称为“少数”而不是“例外”，因为只有前者可以集成到解释模型中。然而，我们还发现量化受到多种误差源和系统偏差的破坏。