Many of us are familiar with the tale: women were gatherers and men were
hunters in the ancient era. Because of the differences in their anatomy
between males and women, women were not physically fit to hunt.
Additionally, males drove human evolution since they were hunters.
However, research by Sarah Lacy, an anthropology professor at the
University of Delaware, has refuted that narrative. Her findings were
recently published in
Scientific American
and two publications in the journal
American Anthropologist.
Lacy and her University of Notre Dame colleague Cara Ocobock studied how
sex influenced work division between 2.5 million and 12,000 years ago,
during the Paleolithic era. They looked through the literature and existing
archeological findings, and they couldn't find anything to back up the
theory that different sexes were given different duties. In addition, the
researchers examined the physiology of females and discovered that there is
minimal evidence to suggest that women were not hunters in addition to the
fact that they were physically capable of doing so.
Ocobock is a physiologist who draws comparisons between the present and the
fossil record, while Lacy is a biological anthropologist who investigates
the health of early people. Once they "complained about a number of papers
that had come out that used this default null hypothesis that cavemen had
strong gendered division of labor, the males hunt, the females gather
things," they became friends in graduate school and worked together. "Why is
that the default?" we asked. We have a ton of information to refute it, Lacy
stated.
Examples of gender equality in ancient tools, nutrition, art, cemeteries,
and anatomy were discovered by the researchers.
"When we discovered artifacts from the past, people just assumed they were
male and failed to see that all of the people whose remains we have
discovered had these marks, whether they be in the form of stone tools
buried with them or in their bones. Really, we have no way of knowing who
made what? Regarding the process by which stone tools were formed, Lacy
remarked, "We can't say, 'Oh, only males flintknap,' because there's no
signature left on the stone tool that tells us who made it." "But from what
evidence we do have, there appears to be almost no sex differences in
roles."
The group also looked at whether women's inability to hunt was due to
physiological and anatomical differences between males and women. They
discovered that while women outperform men in sports demanding endurance,
like jogging, men outperform women in sports requiring speed and strength,
like throwing and sprinting. In the past, both sets of tasks were necessary
for hunting.
The scientists emphasized that a major factor in bestowing that advantage
is the hormone estrogen, which is more prevalent in women than in males.
Estrogen helps protect muscles from wearing down by regulating muscle
breakdown and increasing fat metabolism, which provides muscles with a
longer-lasting energy supply. Researchers have discovered that the proteins
known as estrogen receptors, which help the hormone find its proper location
in the body, date back
600 million years.
"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 stated.
The majority of individuals in the Paleolithic era lived in tiny groups.
The notion that only a portion of the group would go hunting was
incomprehensible to Lacy.
"You inhabit such a little community. You must possess extreme
flexibility," she remarked. "Any role must be able to be taken on by anyone
at any moment. Although it seems apparent, that wasn't how many interpreted
it."
The hunter, man
In 1968, anthropologists Richard B. Lee and Irven DeVore released "Man the
Hunter," a compilation of academic papers given at a symposium in 1966,
which popularized the idea that males are hunters and women are gatherers.
The scientists argued that, in contrast to our ape counterparts, hunting
contributed to the formation of larger brains in prehistoric humans by
adding meat to their diets. The writers believed that every hunter was a
man.
Lacy cites the gender bias of earlier researchers as the cause of the
concept's widespread acceptance in academia and its diffusion into popular
culture. Textbooks, feature films, museum exhibitions, and television
cartoons all supported the notion. When female academics produced research
that contradicted this, it was mainly disregarded or undervalued.
According to Lacy, "there were women who were publishing about this in the
1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, but their work kept getting reduced to, 'Oh, that's
a feminist approach or critique.'" This was prior to the publication of a
great deal of research on physiology, the function of estrogen, and
genetics. We intended to provide all the fresh information while also
bringing up the points they had already made."
According to Lacy, the "man the hunter" paradigm still has an impact on the
field. Although she recognizes that there is still a great deal of study to
be done on the lives of prehistoric people, particularly women, she believes
that her theory—that labor was split between the sexes—will become the
standard method for future studies.
According to Lacy, for three million years, both sexes engaged in
subsistence hunting and gathering for their groups, which led to a
dependency on meat.
"It's not something that only men did and that therefore male behavior
drove evolution," she stated. "The gender roles that we now accept as
standard are not innate; our predecessors did not possess these traits. For
millions of years, we were a pretty egalitarian species in many
respects."
Provided by
University of Delaware
