A letter from Elke Bachler responds to a review of Thomas Laqueur's book The Dog's Gaze, questioning the assumption that a child depicted in ancient art was a boy. Bachler argues that archaeology, as a 19th-century science dominated by men, has often interpreted evidence through contemporary gender roles. She points out that much of what we know about early human lives has been challenged in recent decades, and in the Upper Paleolithic, there is no evidence to determine the child's sex. Therefore, the possibility of a girl and dog is just as likely as a boy and dog. The letter highlights the need to avoid projecting modern gender biases onto ancient artifacts.
