women were hunters too

[parietal]

I'd like to tell everyone about a new paper (highlighted in Science) which destroys the myth that men were hunters and women were gatherers, and that this impacted on brains & evolution

a big review of anthropological studies around the world shows that women hunt in nearly 80% of the societies studied

https://www.science.org/content/article/worldwide-survey-kills-myth-man-hunter?utm_medium=ownedSocial&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=NewsfromScience

I think this gives a strong argument against any claims that there are 'lady brains' because the women had to stay at home and gather. And against any claims that modern gender roles have any origins in evolution.

Makes sense, most ancient pantheons of gods and goddesses (Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic, Egyptian, Indian etc) have a female goddess of hunting. As well as other female archetypes. Almost like we contain multitudes or something.

See also the Birka warrior whose body was assumed to be that of a man because only men could be warriors. Until DNA testing showed that actually, a woman could be buried with full warrior honours.

How the female Viking warrior was written out of history | Archaeology | The Guardian

Thanks for posting this, really interesting read.

Reminds me of this article about gender roles in indigenous Amercian societies: https://culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/toward-an-end-to-appropriation-of-indigenous-two-spirit-people-in-trans-politics-the-relationship-between-third-gender-roles-and-patriarchy

The Apache were famed for their skill in battle, which may mean you’ve never heard one of the most fascinating parts about their culture. Because war was a near-constant fact for Apache adults, while adults tended to have sex-segregated roles in society, children were actually given a very non-gendered upbringing. Girls were expected to know how to do “boy” things, and vice versa. Why? Think about the home front during World War II. It’s a good idea if all your people know the basics, just so that when there are war parties gone, or a sex imbalance after raids, you don’t lose all of the missing/dead people’s knowledge and skill base.

I can't see how anyone could think ancient hunter gatherer societies were divided like that because when survival of the tribe is at stake, you make the most of every member of it and their skills. Even if women couldn't help with hunting the big game they could still go after the smaller animals.

Good, perhaps now they'll stop trying to trans the bodies of women found with weapons.

That’s really interesting and makes perfect sense.
I guess it’s when larger groups develop and band together that gendered roles developed.

Ah, but @IcakethereforeIam, they still wouldn't know their pronouns, would they? Best 'they' them to be on the safe side (sarcasm).

The assumption that men were hunters and women gatherers is a really central one, so shaking that a bit is fantastic. So much of the popular 'evolution-caused-these-gender-differences' is based on it.

I have seen it used for explaining why girls supposedly innately prefer pink (ripening fruit for gathering is often pink), why women and men supposedly navigate using different methods (women use fixed landmarks because plants stay stationary when gathering), why men supposedly are better at collusion-building (creating groups for hunting), why men supposedly are better at geometry (estimating distance and force etc. needed for spear throwing) and so on. There are so many of these!

Correction: coalition-building, not collusion-building

I don’t know why anyone would think otherwise (oh yes I do, men stroking their own egos again), there’s no animal on earth when the females can’t feed themselves. I’ll look forward to reading this :)

In chimps, the females have been known to use tools to hunt, I’d imagine we would have been similar, both males and females seeing as really, we’re a pretty weak species compared to other apes.

Didn't Jane Goodall first spot that - chimps using twigs to get at ants in a nest?

I imagine gender roles and identity itself were more fluid. Burial sites show particular animal bones were interred with human bones, and parts of human skeletons were used to make weapons - suggesting the user could merge with the deceased and acquire their skills.

Is it really the case that anthropologists believed that women never hunted and men never gathered? That doesn't really reflect what I've ever seen. But in most cases there seems to have been weight towards one rather than the other, especially during childbearing years.

There were hunter-gatherer societies that were observed as living societies recently enough to be well documented by modern observers, so it's not like we are just talking about the distant past here.

Thanks for posting this. It's confirmation of an argument that's been around for some time - what I've seen argued for prehistoric societies is that given small numbers and the nature of their prey they'd have needed all able-bodied persons out of drive.

It does once more confirm my profound distrust of evolutionary psychology as a pseudoscience. Drawing all those grand conclusions about hard-wired gender roles on the basis of a deeply prejudiced, 19th century Flintstones-type interpretation of historical societies.

I believe that meta-analysis was about current or recent such societies.

And no, anthropologists are unlikely to have stated something like "women never hunted and men never gathered", but the focus on man-the-hunter has been pretty central in arguments presented by evolutionary psychology, at least the older type which is the one that has been brought into popular media.

I think so, but I should have clarified, I meant tools as in spears.

https://royalsociety.org/news/2015/04/female-chimps-use-spears-to-hunt/

Thank-you for this thread! ❤️

Really interesting links on this thread, thank you.

It is really fascinating. As others have noted, it's logical that everyone's skills were needed so a rigid divide of gender roles would have been impractical. It's possible that gender roles and stereotypes emerged more with the farming lifestyle, with the idea of property ownership the idea of owning a woman may have become entrenched. The fixed position and routines of farming also differ from the adaptability and flexibility required from hunter gatherers. Just a guess, would be interested if anyone knows more about it.

So how much role differentiation would there need to be for it it affect evolutionary outcomes?

I just don't see this as all that new or that big a change. We have all kinds of records of Europeans encountering hunter-gatherers around the world from the age of exploration on. We know that roles were differentiated in many.

These are also small groups of people with similar pressures, and yes, in many there was flexibility because they needed some of that. Though the pressures of small groups can work both ways - it also means you need women to be maximally taking advantage of their reproductive capacity.

There is no reason to think that in pre-historic times this kind of thing was wildly different, or that different strategies for hunter-gatherers would be successful.

Great article. I must admit I understood the division of roles to be - loosely - hunter-fighter and hunter-gatherer.

Honey, capybaras, coconuts, leaves, fish, tubers, deer, apples, pigeons, wheat - it's all just food. Women had mouths to feed - why wouldn't they hunt? Man as sole provider makes no sense.

I love the fact that some of the women of the Agta (sp?) tribe hunted with dogs. It makes me think of the fabulous Sofia in John Wick 3 - Parabellum, played by Halle Berry. And of course Artemis of classical mythology.

@user9630721458
Yes, it makes sense to me that the adoption of farming and settled territory marked the change and the solidification of the split in gender roles - whatever they were for each society. But I don't have any links, either, I'm afraid.

i believe that the subjugation of women started with agriculture, women were seen as source of children and work. Bones have been examined which shows different wear patterns for the sexes, womens bones are worn in a fashion that would indicate heavy labour grinding corn. Mens bones indicate a lot of sitting on their haunches, no doubt in a management role. I can’t remember the source, it was on a TV programme many years ago.

The Myth of Man the Hunter: Women’s contribution to the hunt across ethnographic contexts | PLOS ONE
@BellaAmorosa I will have to investigate! This is a long scholarly article examining the assumptions about gendered roles and their connection to gendered traits. An interesting example of a female mesolithic burial with hunting kit also. I need to have a proper read, but lacking time right now. Hopefully it's interesting to anyone as interested in these people as I am!

Thanks! I will dive in.