How did cave women deal with periods?

[howmanyleftfeet]

How did our ancient ancestor women deal with periods before we wore clothes?

Periods must have been terribly inconvenient then - did they have periods the same as us?

Do the kind of apes we're close relatives of, have periods like us? Do other animals? Do they really just walk around bleeding?

I can't help wondering if maybe they didn't have periods as heavy / as long as ours. Am I right in thinking, sportswomen who are super fit often don't have regular periods? Presumably cave women would have been super fit and on the move a lot. (Or they wouldn't have survived). Did they perhaps menstruate less often?

Could it be that women didn't ovulate / menstruate except in quieter seasons when not on the move?

As others have said, they most likely didn't have periods. They were probably pregnant and breastfeeding throughout their childbearing years.

In the past people did not generally live very long, I would imagine most females would be constantly pregnant, breast feeding or died in childbirth

Periods?

Cavewomen self identify as cavemen once a month!

I wish people wouldn’t say being thin or low weight stops periods. I’ve weighed seven and a half stone most of my adult life and my periods are regular as hell. You have to be seriously underweight to mess with your periods.

It's body fat (or lack of it) that affects this and you have to be seriously lacking in it not to menstruate.

My niece (an elite athlete) didn't begin her periods until she was almost 18 because of very low body fat and suffered low bone density, with foot fractures, as a result. Within months of being put on a special diet - periods. But it took another year to establish high enough bone density for her to resume running on hard surfaces.

It's one of the reasons why deferring menstruation in pubescent girls is not a good idea...

Before we developed modesty (clothes wearing) I’d imagine humans weren’t too bothered by a monthly bleed think of a dog/cat in heat and how they don’t care about dripping blood on the carpet it was/is a sign of fertility and would have encouraged mating. Then we developed modesty and sanitation and used wool and moss during those months!

Would cave women/ people have been continent? I’m just wondering if this was something that evolved with the invention of toileting facilities or whether mankind has always been “toilet trained

I've read some of the writings of early white settlers in Australia, who describe the indigenous people urinating and defecating at random, so I'd guess that being continent was not universal at all, not even in the 18th century.

Tribal women usually use moss or the silky lining from inside leaves/bark.

I've read some of the writings of early white settlers in Australia, who describe the indigenous people urinating and defecating at random, so I'd guess that being continent was not universal at all, not even in the 18th centur

I suspect there may have been a bit of racism at play there. We have pelvic floor and sphincter muscles for a reason.

@bubblegumunicorn during a woman's period is her least fertile time

I reckon evolution gave us monthly periods. Stone Age times, they only had two periods a year, like dogs.

Or they just lay down in a cave until it was over.

Raising a baby at a time of 50% infant mortality was a huge physical undertaking. A mother would carry and nurse a child almost constantly day and night for the first three years, so wouldn't be able to have another baby during that time

I'm not sure where you're getting your information from, Smoggle, but child-rearing methods varied hugely between times and locations, so you can't really make a sweeping statement like that.

WRT breastfeeding time alone, there is recent evidence of great disparities between different prehistoric cultures. Some would nurse until the child is 4 or older, others only 1, others somewhere in between.

Interesting article re gender roles among early peoples here:
[[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-women-equal-scientists]]

and about Neanderthal women and children as hunters:
www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/science/05nean.html

and about women and cave art:
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131008-women-handprints-oldest-neolithic-cave-art/

Free bleed, sea sponge if they were dwelling near the coast, cloth, wool.

The same as a lot of people deal with them now really.

Itwouldtakemuchmorethanthis Tue 23-Apr-19 10:01:46
Does being Hunter/gatherer always equate with being malnourished?
Maybe not always just in terms of food intake, nutrient balance - in a best case scenario. But it does equate with having parasites and being vulnerable to infections (lack of medicine).

www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-paleo-diet-half-baked-how-hunter-gatherer-really-eat/
Illustrates how regional and seasonal differences in diets of hunter gatherer societies in the world today, life expectancy figures, disease/parasites,lowered life expectancy.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-bones-reveal-girl-rsquo-s-tough-life-in-early-americas/
Ancient Bones Reveal Girl’s Tough Life in Early Americas
"Teenage mother who lived 12,000 years ago was malnourished but still roamed widely"

This particular very small, thin girl died between ages 15-17 but had already given birth. Theories about late menarche on this thread may not be accurate at all.

@NunoGoncalves I breastfed until 3, baby wore until then etc and still got pregnant when my child was just 6 months old

Sorry - here is correct link to article about gender roles among very early peoples:

www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-women-equal-scientists

In a book I read called something like ‘The good women of China’, the author, a Chinese woman who did a radio show something like Woman’s Hour had travelled all over the country (before the economy modernised). One tribe she met lived in caves in a desert and the women used a type of dried leaf, something quite tough and spiky like a holly leaf! They wedged them into their vulvas and they soaked up the blood. She was also shocked to notice that many of the women had untreated prolapsed uteruses, they just trailed out and got sort of leathery ( they went to the toilet squatting on the ground and the prolapsed organs trailed in the sand). When people get all shocked by our medicalised birthing culture that story is something I think about!

Women self-identify as trans men once a month?!

Haven’t RTFT so someone might have already said this, but they might have held it all in with their pelvic floor muscles then dumped it somewhere every so often. Apparently there’s women today who can do this (I think they’re French).

To those who sound wistful that breastfeeding hasn’t stopped their periods, which came back at around 5 months after birth - people forget that only EXCLUSIVE breastfeeding stops you ovulating. The moment you start weaning your child - usually around 5-6 months - your body gets ready for the next one, even if you still part breastfeed.

Many unplanned children have been conceived by surprised breastfeeding mums!

So ‘exclusive’ is the key idea here. No more than 6 months’ breastfeeding protection max - such a pity!

re the native Australians often descriptions are fairly cultural in their descriptions. I'm sorry to say though that I've seen blokes in France weeing en plein air. We are told that chamber pots were emptied into the streets in times gone by, in some slums abroad they use plastic bags and I've seen a video recently of a beach in India which is used for pooing, and in full sight of others. If someone does not have even a composting toilet you've got to go somewhere. There are the communal loos we read about in ancient Rome and I was surprised to read that in Pompeii toilets were in the kitchen, also used for other waste. Even in England in the last century sometimes you had to go where you could. An elderly relative remembered a street hawker who stood over a drain in the road all day and just weed where she was, no knickers and a long skirt of course

My gran had five babies in five consecutive years. I’m guessing she didn’t have a period at all between July 1905 and about October 1910. A fertile cave woman would probably been the same for her entire life.

So many questions. How did they know how to have sex ? When did they realise it caused pregnancy ?

@Lalliella I doubt it

Now I am not writing this to be disgusting but is it possible that blood was eaten in a similar to afterbirth - Placentophagy.