Prehistoric female hunters

[FindTheTruth]

Females were hunters 9000 years ago. I'm not surprised. Men are surprised. Knowing what we know about ourselves, of course women were hunters. www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/11/prehistoric-female-hunter-discovery-upends-gender-role-assumptions/

researchers gathered around the excavated burial of an individual lain to rest in the Andes Mountains of Peru some 9,000 years ago. Along with the bones of what appeared to be a human adult was an impressive—and extensive—kit of stone tools an ancient hunter would need to take down big game, from engaging the hunt to preparing the hide.

The remains found alongside the toolkit were from a biological female.

When archaeologists excavated the burial, they found a colorful array of 24 stone tools. Among them: projectile points for taking down a large mammal; hefty rocks likely for cracking bones or stripping hides; small, rounded stony bits for scraping fat from pelts; tiny flakes with extra sharp edges that could have chopped the meat; and nodules of red ocher that could help preserve the hides. Scattered around the site were fragments of the bones of animals including ancient llama relatives and deer

of the 27 of 429 burials with individuals of known sex who are were buried with hunting tools, 11 are female—including the newly identified remains—while 16 are male

“These patterns are not at all what you would expect in a population if males were [the only] hunters,”

an abundance of females now found to have been buried with tools throughout the Americas

Importantly, the team cannot know the individual’s gender identity, but rather only biological sex (which like gender doesn’t always exist on a binaryy^). In other words, they can’t say whether the individual lived their life 9,000 years ago in a way that would identify them within their society as a woman.

Oh FFS? "Importantly?" When there seems to be zero evidence that these people thought in terms of anything except sex and tasks needing to be done. And zero evidence that these people would have the slightest difficulty identifying who was a woman.

Another great example of how gender ideology neatly dismantles all that feminists have fought for. Never mind that the female human is suited to endurance. If she was hunting she must have been trans.

Well, they didn't go as far as to make that ridiculous claim anyway!

The much more interesting factor here is how assumptions have been made in the past about 'gendered' roles, and that the evolutionary psychology edifice rests on such shaky foundations.

'gender non-conforming' people exist and always have. they existed 9000 years ago. no surprise. we know this. after all what is gender conforming anyway? Men assumed that males were the hunters - wrong!!! science and research blows it out fo the water. queer theory from American colleges is a theory... a religious belief imo.

If you transported a female hunter from 9000 years ago to 2020, what would she make of the madness today?

The much more interesting factor here is how assumptions have been made in the past about 'gendered' roles, and that the evolutionary psychology edifice rests on such shaky foundations.

Yes you're right. I jumped a bit quickly to snark .

. I jumped a bit quickly to snark

I started it.

Always makes me wonder: are the men surprised about this imagining that every female in those times just sat there looking worried if there were no men around to hunt for them? And that daughters and sisters didn't grow up around all this the way the menfolk did and learn the same things?

Bearing in mind gender norms vary enormously and constantly across time, space, place, culture.... in a prehistoric society of Amazons say, where the gender norm culture is that the females do all the hunting, was a female who didn't like hunting and therefore was gender non conforming, a man? Or just a female who didn't like hunting?

Of course they hunted!!!

Sorry men if that destroys your images of women being "kept"

But wtf about the gender identity 🙄

Seriously

I expect they were too busy hunting to have time to naval gaze. When you would go hungry and not be able to feed your young if you didn't get on with finding food, there tends to be little time or inclination to ponder your inner self..

.

This made me so angry when I saw it on Twitter. FFS. This erasure of women has to stop.

Of course they hunted, I imagine male life expectancy wasn't that great so women couldn't have been entirely dependent on men. How would you survive alone as a woman if you couldn't hunt? Just wither away in a cave and die and let your children do the same whilst wailing 'help' a la Penelope Pitstop?

My partner is researching pirates and noti Ed a particular discrepancy between how male pirates are written about by academics vs female pirates. With male pirates their exploits and existence is always just accepted. With female pirates it's always "Reading between the lines" and scrutinising every detail of what was told about them. They were very frustrated by this.

I told them of the female Viking Warrior and her weapon filled tomb; how its the same story. There's all this "Well, just because she was buried with weapons doesn't mean they were hers or that she was a warrior." Yet, if it was a man in the same grave it would just be accepted he was a warrior. Even 1000 years later men are still trying to take her weapons away saying "What are you doing with those? You're a woman."

so true. the pirates research sounds fascinating! I would buy that.

One of my favourite books is the Rejected Princesses series. Badass women throughout history who's stories are left by the way side. I discovered them when reading about Ms. Pavilchenko, the best female sniper and 3rd best overall. I'm a great sniper in video games and I was interested.

Controversially to some is the inclusion of Osch Tisch a Native American two spirit woman who rode into battle. Her name literally means 'Finds them and kills them'. I love her.

I think Boudicca is probably the exception due to the rape aspect? Just a guess.

To a pp who said what if there weren't any men around did they just worry and go hungry. No- they gathered pretty berries which is why females now are predisposed to like the colour pink

Nope, Boudica is in it. They have a Traffic Light warning system for stories with violence and sex in there. One of my favourites is strongwoman Katie Sandwina who'd lift horses over her head and lay on a bed of spikes when she was pregnant. Also knocked her would be husband out cold during a match the first time they met.

The comment about gender identity in the article shows how anti-feminist the gender identity ideology is. It's a little like the transing of the dead where Joan of Arc is now argued to be a trans man.

This follows when gender identity is viewed as innate and foundational, of course, and unrelated to someone's biological sex. Then the society must be organised on the basis of gender identity and those women who violate retrogressive gender norms must be relabeled as not really women to begin with.

I find it fascinating that they fucked up because of their own stereotypes about sex role (gender) and then when they realise still insist via a new mechanism that women who did things outside their own ideas about sex role may somehow still not have been women.

And they can't even see they're doing it!

It seems to be an increasing trend to 'trans' female historical figures. Lets face it the gender norms through most of history have been frustratingly narrow and the assumption that anyone daring to step outside of them are maybe not therefore women at all is a complete erasure of them and their achievements.

Is it so hard to believe that women who wanted to break out of those boundaries were just doing that and that this doesn't make them magically no longer women?

It looks and feels like even when the majority of history has been written by men and the main figures we know about have been male, because they were the ones who had the agency to shape the world around them, that isn't enough. Now women who did break through need to be claimed too. Happening with gay and lesbian figures as well.

Thing is they have zero idea of what sex roles etc were in prehistoric times were.

They are taking current norms and applying them.

For scientists to not even consider that their inbuilt ideas about sex roles might not hold true all that time ago says something really not good about those scientists.

Exactly that. The fact that the article had the following breakdown

of the 27 of 429 burials with individuals of known sex who are were buried with hunting tools, 11 are female—including the newly identified remains—while 16 are male

indicates just how widespread female hunters possibly were in many societies. Without this sort of evidence if we deny that could have been the case we would be working on assumptions that bring in modern prejudice about what an approved role would be or how we would assign roles.

This covers a huge amount of time and varied geographical areas so to make assumption that man=hunter and woman=gatherer must surely take no account of specific circumstance. Society a and society b would be facing different pressures, location of other groups, nature of prey, nature of other available food sources, their own demographics, weather, impact of seasons.....

Always makes me wonder: are the men surprised about this imagining that every female in those times just sat there looking worried if there were no men around to hunt for them?

'The men' are several billion individuals so probably have many different opinions. I'm not at all surprised at the prospect that all able bodied people in hunter gatherer tribes may have hunted. They probably couldn't afford not to as half the hunters would equal half the food.

I wonder if 'the women' would be surprised to find that the men also helped cook and prepare the meals.

The question is why did women stop hunting and leave it to the men in later civilisations?

It's hardly surprising that women had to hunt though really. If they were young and fit, they'd have been out there as soon as they stopped breastfeeding.