Women's status in the distant past seems to have also varied by what we would perhaps call technology or economics.
It was the worst in nomadic herder cultures (and still is in the places where those existed and to some extent continue to exist) and much better in more stable agricultural communities where garden-type agriculture was feasible.
Explanations for that are fairly obvious, as in the case where tribes kept moving with the herds it was very difficult for women, especially those who were pregnant or caring for small infants, to contribute to the work of the tribe or to do other work which would contribute to the food or other resources of the tribe. Even things like weaving to produce trade items was harder when the group kept moving.
In the kinds of communities which stayed put and where it was possible for women to cultivate gardens, keep domestic animals, make items for local trade etc. women's status was higher.
This is not about the pre-historic era, but I read in medieval history that it wasn't always the case in all places and eras that women born into higher social classes had more rights as women than poorer women (which does not mean that having greater affluence didn't benefit all in the upper classes when compared to the lower classes).
Girls born into the upper class were pawns in the marriage games of the nobility, were married off at very young ages and so often gave birth to a very large number of children whether they wished large families or not, and therefore faced relatively high rates of maternal mortality.
Some poorer women had more rights to choose their own partner in marriage (because connections and lineages didn't matter), spent time working to earn a dowry before marriage (perhaps money to buy a cow etc.), so married later than the women of the upper classes and had fewer children as a consequence. They were also sometimes able to keep running their own businesses (beer making, for instance) which gave them some economic bargaining power inside the marriage.