A fresh study is forcing us to rethink what we have known about prehistoric life so far. It is challenging the idea that men hunted while women gathered. The research, led by Sarah Lacy, who teaches anthropology at the University of Delaware, suggests prehistoric women might have been more involved in hunting than we thought.
The study focuses on prehistoric women during Paleolithic times
This study delves into the Paleolithic era, a time that stretches back from around 2.5 million to 12,000 years ago. What’s unique about this research is that it determined that roles in these ancient times may not have been strictly linked to one’s gender.
Professor Sarah Lacy, who specializes in early human health, joined forces with Cara Ocobock from the University of Notre Dame. Ocobock is an expert in connecting what we know about the human body today with the clues in the fossil record.
Researchers wanted to challenge the common belief that people back then had specific jobs based on their gender. They were curious as to why so many people thought that men hunted while women gathered. Lacy points out, “We have so much evidence that that’s not the case.”
Ancient discoveries suggest gender equality
A thorough examination of ancient tools, diets, art, burials, and the structure of bodies has painted a remarkable picture of fairness between the genders.
Professor Lacy remarked, “People found things in the past and they just automatically gendered them male and didn’t acknowledge the fact that everyone we found in the past has these markers, whether in their bones or in stone tools that are being placed in their burials.”
She further said, “We can’t really tell who made what, right? We can’t say, ‘Oh, only males flintknap,’ because there’s no signature left on the stone tool that tells us who made it.” Based on available evidence, it seems there were almost no distinct differences in the roles of men and women in ancient times.
Examining physiological barriers of prehistoric women in hunting
One of the central questions tackled in this study was whether there were physical reasons that hindered women from participating in hunting activities.
While men might have certain advantages in activities requiring speed and power like sprinting and throwing, women tend to do well with endurance tasks, such as long-distance running. These different abilities were both important for hunting.
New study suggests that prehistoric women were hunters during the Palaeolithic period pic.twitter.com/vxztgN5oRb
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Estrogen, a hormone that’s mainly found in women, plays a big part in enhancing how the body uses fat for energy, controlling muscle wear and tear and providing a more long-lasting source of energy. The discovery that estrogen receptors can be traced as far back as six hundred million years ago further supports its crucial role in our biology.
“When we take a deeper look at the anatomy and the modern physiology and then actually look at the skeletal remains of ancient people, there’s no difference in trauma patterns between males and females, because they’re doing the same activities,” Lacy said.
In the Paleolithic era, most folks lived in small groups. To Lacy, it just didn’t add up that only a portion of the group would be responsible for hunting.
She explained, “You live in such a small society. You have to be really, really flexible. Everyone has to be able to pick up any role at any time. It just seems like the obvious thing, but people weren’t taking it that way.”
Challenging a long-standing idea
Professor Lacy refers to a book published in 1968 called Man the Hunter, written by anthropologists Richard B. Lee and Irven DeVore. This book placed a lot of importance on hunting in the evolution of humans and unintentionally created a story that assumed all hunters were men.
Even though this old idea of “man the hunter” has stuck around for many years, Professor Lacy aims for this new research to shine a light on the fact that both men and women have always played pivotal roles in their communities.
As Professor Lacy explains, “There were women who were publishing about this in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, but their work kept getting relegated to, ‘Oh, that’s a feminist critique or a feminist approach.'”
“This was before any of the work on genetics and a lot of the work on physiology and the role of estrogen had come out,” Lacy said. “We wanted to both lift back up the arguments that they had already made and add to it all the new stuff.”
Throughout a span of three million years, both men and women took part in gathering essential resources for their communities, and both genders played a role in supplying meat through hunting, according to Lacy.
Professor Lacy stresses, “It’s not something that only men did and that therefore male behavior drove evolution. What we take as de facto gender roles today are not inherent, do not characterize our ancestors. We were a very egalitarian species for millions of years in many ways.”
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