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

Agriculture and settlement led to being able to support a larger population, but also required labour and - quite soon - fighting men to defend tracts of land.

One of Jacob Bronowskis "Ascent of Man" (years since I saw it) demonstrated how agriculture drove a split in social evolution with farmers being able to develop technology (you can't really mine and smelt if you are hunter-gathering) which increased yields and access to nutrition. However they were vulnerable to the hunter-gathers who would swoop in and basically nick nearly all their food. They wouldn't nick it all or wipe out the farmers as they had to come back next year.

Have no idea how that may - or may not - have played into womens role in either society. But it must have - even if just as the two societies must have interbred, leading to complex tribal alliances.

It's not obvious if you understand that women have never been treated like they are diverse human beings, etc.
Just because women are/were capable of something doesn't mean that they were allowed to do it.
Fortunately, scientists rely on evidence, not what is "obvious".

You're not a scientist - you're someone with no awareness of the many women who have led, fought and worked alongside men in many different eras and locations throughout history. Whether we were "allowed" to, or not. (Allowed by whom?!) It may well be that women were actually far more equal before tens of thousands of years of patriarchal institutions built up.

Have no idea how that may - or may not - have played into womens role in either society. But it must have - even if just as the two societies must have interbred, leading to complex tribal alliances.

The phrase 'rape and pillage', plus some DNA evidence suggesting lots of people descended from eg the Genghis Kahn family is suggestive of how that worked out.
Women given as brides to cement alliances was another pretty widespread practice in historical times - I don't suppose that's really possible to work out for prehistory , unless there's any traces left in distributions of Y chromosome versus maternal mitochondrial DNA in any populations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DescentfrommGenghisKhan#DNAAevidence

I have seen other takes on the move to agriculture , with suggestions that diet quality declined and also suggestion the the hunters became the ruling class ( as it's rich people today who hunt )

And also we need to be careful when interpreting DNA analysis with making an assumption that all societies behaved the same way with the same sets of rules at all points in time

As competition fo resources increases, there is a tendency for fighting and such, skills which might be less valued where the focus was less competition between groups ?

I think I might have just written...we can never know ...in a rather longwinded way

I have seen other takes on the move to agriculture , with suggestions that diet quality declined and also suggestion the the hunters became the ruling class ( as it's rich people today who hunt )

Yes... agriculture enabled large populations of peasants, and within that there were differences depending on the type of crop and climate. Rice allowed for more peasants per acre than wheat, broadly.

I think I might have just written...we can never know ...in a rather longwinded way

it's fun to speculate (so long as we don't lose sight of the fact that's what we're doing), but it does bug me that there are so many things that are lost in time. So, assumptions get made and perpetuated...

I can imagine an archaeologist a few millennia hence excavating the remains of this fine edifice and its earthworks and declaring it to be of 'ritual significance'

www.globalimpacts.co.uk/images/full/2004MartinMere/MartinMere2.jpg

"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."

This. As far as we know, pre-historic tribes consisted of about 20-50 individuals. All one has to do is imagine running a group of people of that size to realize that everything had to be solved in super practical ways. Whoever was physically able to assist in hunting, hunted. The rest picked berries. Sending weak men to hunt and leaving strong, fit women behind just doesn't make sense. It would be incredibly wasteful.

Although actually thinking about what future archiologists might say also makes me think about what we mean by terms like ritual...the ritual of Glastonbury

Even as far back as Neanderthal excavations, it's clear that some communities took care of those that were not able to add to their nutrition.

@midgebabe

I think it may also depend what is being hunted, as I doubt anyone would say hunting rabbit is dangerous and hugely physical work

That's true, especially if you trap them. And there are other small animals that are similar. Though it's a matter of degree, hunting something like a rabbit with a spear, or bow and arrow, still requires some agility and quickness.

That is the kind of hunting that it would make the most sense to have women do - it would add some flexibility and additional protein that would be very stabilising, especially under adverse circumstances. It would be women far into pregnancy or with small infants who would be most likely to forgo that sort of activity - mind you, that could be a fair number of them.

But it's also the case that male hunters are already going to be out looking for larger game and can hunt small game at the same time. While plant materials are in most cases still very important to the diet, as well as all kinds of other tasks that need to be done.

I just don't quite understand why it would seem strange to see specialisation when men and women in these societies live with such different physical realties.

With regard to population crashes and the need to keep the population stable - historically there is not a lot of reason to think that populations in such societies were able to grow substantially. It's not like people could choose not to reproduce in any numbers as a lifestyle choice, in any case, if they had sex, pregnancy followed and infanticide was about the only reliable way to deal with it.

But we don't see populations growing in significantly unless there is a correspondent technological change. The change to farming, better agricultural techniques created leaps, and so on.

We do see many cases where replacement among hunter gatherers is marginal, even a struggle. Some more than others, but this seems to be the norm. There simply isn't the capacity for much wiggle room, and gains can quickly be wiped out by climate or disease. There is plenty of evidence of groups, indeed entire species of hominids, that didn't make it.

Celibacy isn't unheard of among hunter gatherer societies but it's also not something that's particularly common and tends to be associated with very specific social roles.

@voteforsanity

"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."

This. As far as we know, pre-historic tribes consisted of about 20-50 individuals. All one has to do is imagine running a group of people of that size to realize that everything had to be solved in super practical ways. Whoever was physically able to assist in hunting, hunted. The rest picked berries. Sending weak men to hunt and leaving strong, fit women behind just doesn't make sense. It would be incredibly wasteful.

It's not like picking berries and hunting are the only jobs in a group like that, or that the former is an afterthought.

Vegetable matter can provide more than 50% of calories in some climates. And aside from that, and childcare, other jobs that women have often been involved in a are food preservation, and especially production of clothing that can be hugely time consuming in some regions.

All of these things need to be attended to and done well.

You're not a scientist

Wrong - I said in my first post I studied this at uni.

Whether we were "allowed" to, or not. (Allowed by whom?!)

It's a pretty uncotroversial statement to make on this board, that women have been oppressed and held down for centuries. But now you are saying that's not true?

I'd have thought it's kind of self evident that societal norms strongly shape and also limit the behaviours exhibited in them. That is, both internally by shaping individuals and externally by creating social boundaries and rules.

But in this instance, a major factor is also the biological realities that shape both of those things.

There are probably always outliers but that's not what's being discussed here, is it?

"It's not like picking berries and hunting are the only jobs in a group like that, or that the former is an afterthought.

Vegetable matter can provide more than 50% of calories in some climates. And aside from that, and childcare, other jobs that women have often been involved in a are food preservation, and especially production of clothing that can be hugely time consuming in some regions.

All of these things need to be attended to and done well."

I have never implied in my post that gathering and domestic activities were somehow 'lesser.' Only that it is logical to have every member of your tribe performing the kinds of duties best suited to their abilities.

For example, between my husband and I, I'd be the one out there hunting and he'd be the one watching children since I am physically more fit and he has terrible orientation skills. My grandparents' marriage was very similar to ours. She ran the farm by herself and he contributed to the family by having a desk job. I have never seen my grandfather do physical work of any kind.

Just like with everything else, physical abilities fall onto a spectrum. In a tribe, you'll see young and fit women and old and weak men. You may even see young and weak men and old and tough women. Having a rigid gender boundary would be ridiculous and would ultimately set the tribe back.

I don't attach particular emotions or judgments to either hunting or gathering/domestic work. Both are equally important in my eyes.

@voteforsanity

"It's not like picking berries and hunting are the only jobs in a group like that, or that the former is an afterthought.

Vegetable matter can provide more than 50% of calories in some climates. And aside from that, and childcare, other jobs that women have often been involved in a are food preservation, and especially production of clothing that can be hugely time consuming in some regions.

All of these things need to be attended to and done well."

I have never implied in my post that gathering and domestic activities were somehow 'lesser.' Only that it is logical to have every member of your tribe performing the kinds of duties best suited to their abilities.

For example, between my husband and I, I'd be the one out there hunting and he'd be the one watching children since I am physically more fit and he has terrible orientation skills. My grandparents' marriage was very similar to ours. She ran the farm by herself and he contributed to the family by having a desk job. I have never seen my grandfather do physical work of any kind.

Just like with everything else, physical abilities fall onto a spectrum. In a tribe, you'll see young and fit women and old and weak men. You may even see young and weak men and old and tough women. Having a rigid gender boundary would be ridiculous and would ultimately set the tribe back.

I don't attach particular emotions or judgments to either hunting or gathering/domestic work. Both are equally important in my eyes.

But you seem to be ignoring the salient point which is that most young fit women will be affected by pregnancy, that will limit their mobility and physical freedom. Your husband might be clumsy (he's likely to be fit in any case in that scenario) but he will have a freedom you won't much of the time.

In a society with only abstinence to prevent pregnancy, it's pretty common for women to have babies every second year, or every third year if there are social practices to allow for that gap. In a two year period a healthy fertile woman is likely to be pregnant or recovering from pregnancy for half of that, and nursing an infant for the other half.

Young girls just before puberty are the only women likely to be really free to hunt like men, and they are going to be limited in development of their expertise in those few years. And time hunting is not time spent other skills that they will use more later - there will be an opportunity cost.

It makes more sense in most cases to give the women the tasks that are most easily combined with their reproductive role. Even f they are somewhat porous, you'll likely see expertise and social norms creating a certain amount of specialisation.

There may be things that biology means leads to specialisation being more in one sex than another but I don't see that in turn must lead to strict sex based roles within a society.

Actually in smaller groups you would need sex based roles less, and could be much more open to meritocracy, because you know people and don't need to make snap judgements

Reminds me of the 9000 year old skeleton of a female hunter from Barum, Sweden.
"When excavated in 1939, she was taken for a man at first, because the grave contained hunting weapons. But skeletal analyses by osteologists (bone experts) later disproved this. Modern excavations have revealed that women at that time often went hunting and fishing, as well as gathering."
historiska.se/utstallningar/prehistories/
I don't think male archaeologists are actually surprised, it's not news. I think some simply don't like evidence of women doing "manly" things in the past. Doesn't fit with their ideal worldview.

Some of the issues raised are mentioned in the paper itself - this is in the introduction:

Early subsistence economies that emphasized big game would have encouraged participation from all able individuals. Alloparenting, which appears to have deep evolutionary roots in the human species (14), would have freed women of child care demands, allowing them to hunt. Communal hunting, which also appears to have deep evolutionary roots (15), would have encouraged contributions from females, males, and children whether in driving or dispatching large animals. Moreover, the primary hunting technology of the timethe atlatl or spear throwerwould have encouraged broad participation in big-game hunting. Pooling labor and sharing meat are necessary to mitigate risks associated with the atlatl’s low accuracy and long reloading times (16). Furthermore, peak proficiency in atlatl use can be achieved at a young age, potentially before females reach reproductive age, obviating a sex-biased technological constraint that would later intensify with bow-and-arrow technology (17).

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/45/eabd0310

Didn't domestication of prey animals make them smaller ?

Aurochs were pretty fearsome for vegetarians ...

There are some interesting articles about megafauna if you search around, SerendipityJane.

I'm not saying that it is odd to find women hunting. I am saying it should not be hard to see why there was in some cases significant specialisation by sex.

I think it was a case of needs must. Like when women were drafted in during the war to do jobs that were traditionally done mostly by men.

I presume alloparenting is older people looking after a group of other women's children? In reading this thread I keep thinking of the modern nuclear family norm influencing the arguments that women would be largely involved with childcare, when historically I'm not sure this is the case.

@BewareTheBeardedDragon

I presume alloparenting is older people looking after a group of other women's children? In reading this thread I keep thinking of the modern nuclear family norm influencing the arguments that women would be largely involved with childcare, when historically I'm not sure this is the case.

It's anyone other than the genetic parents, I think. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, friends. Nurseries, childminders, teachers even. 'It takes a village to raise a child...' - or a village substitute?