T he question in this paper is not intended to be rhetorical. Recent debates concerning the cultural understanding of biology, as well as ethnographic accounts of genderless people, demand that we take our dilemma seriously. Unlike anthropologists or ethnographers, archaeologists who wish to answer such questions about prehistoric societies need to ground their arguments on the observation of patterns in the archaeological record, and that is precisely the intention of this article. The discussion here examines what asexual figurines represented in the Neolithic period in the Aegean through a comparison with anthropomorphic figurines that are marked according to their male or female anatomical features. The sample used for the analysis comprises a total of 1093 published figurines, of which 809 have been sexed for the purposes of this research. I therefore con- sider my sample fairly representative of the eidoloplastic assemblage of the Neolithic Aegean. As far as their chronological framework is concerned, they date to a period between 7000 and 3200 BC, extending over the whole Neolithic of the continental and insular Aegean. Asexual figurines, which quantitatively constitute the second highest category (after anatomically female figurines), lack any anatomical features that could place them in any of the anatomically marked categories that have become apparent through the analysis of the assemblage. They have largely been ignored in the studies of Neolithic anthropomorphic figurines in terms of their representative and symbolic theme, unlike the more obvious anatomically female figurines which have been central in the mother- goddess polemic debates. Lately, however, asexual figurines have been taken into some account in the discussion of other categories of Neolithic anthropomor- phic figurines in relation to gender construction (see Talalay 2000; Hamilton 263 FIGURINES WITHOUT SEX; PEOPLE WITHOUT GENDER? MARIA MINA 12-Mina 2/5/07 12:52 PM Page 263