New Research Points to Women as Frequent Hunters Throughout History
Women today are breaking glass ceilings in many areas that were previously dominated by men, from politics and business to sciences and sports. But while the advances of women in contemporary society have been hard-won, new evidence suggests one traditionally male field where women have long played an equal role: hunting. Yes – challenging stereotypical views about divisions of labor between ancient women and men, an emerging body of research makes the case that women were right there beside men as hunters throughout much of human prehistory.
Archeological digs have uncovered a growing trove of clues about the lives of ancient hunter-gatherers around the world. And anthropologists studying these findings say they paint a different picture about gender roles in these societies than had been previously assumed. Rather than women focusing more on gathering plant foods closer to home while men traveled farther afield on hunting trips, it now appears our prehistoric sisters were enthusiastic and hardy hunters themselves.
Women’s Bodies Optimized for Strenuous Hunting
Many assumptions about why ancient gender roles developed as they did centered on women’s supposedly more limited physical abilities. Women on average have less muscle mass and upper body strength compared to men, traits that seem obviously useful for confronting large dangerous prey up close.
But according to Adrienne Zihlman, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, "The lives of contemporary hunter-gatherers do not fit with stereotypes. There is an enormous variation in practices regarding gender roles and division of labor." Zihlman has focused her career on studying and challenging such gender stereotypes.
And other physical attributes mattered for success in hunting beyond brute strength. A 2020 study from Cambridge University researcher Erik Trinkaus analyzed bones from ancient skeletal remains across the northern hemisphere. He concluded that the anatomy of ancient women was well-adapted to long distance walking and running necessary to effectively hunt prey. Compared to both ancient and modern men, prehistoric women had more slender bodies, greater thigh mobility, and stronger legs relative to their body size – all useful physical traits for endurance hunters.
Hunting Tools Designed to Neutralize Strength Differences
In addition, anthropologists now recognize that ancient hunting equipment and strategies likely developed not only to leverage men’s greater muscularity, but to neuteralize differences in strength between sexes. Tools like spearthrowers and bows allowed hunters to injure or kill large dangerous animals while avoiding close quarters combat. Traps and snares were also important hunting technologies not reliant on exceptional physical capacities.
So while stereotypical images persist of ragged bands of ancient male warriors facing down mammoths at close range, the reality was likely much different. Sophisticated hunting weapons, tactics involving large coordinated groups, and the sexual division of labor necessary to provision and care for offspring in harsh Ice Age environments – all these factors point to significant female participation in provisioning meat for their tribes through hunting.
New Hard Evidence of Female Hunters
But it’s not just expert analysis pointing to flaws in traditional gender assumptions about our early hunter-gather anscestors. Increasingly researchers are unearthing tangible archaeological evidence directly proving significant female participation in hunting.
A striking example comes from modern day Peru, where a joint American-Peruvian research team investigated strange bumps scattered across nearly 200 square miles of remote terrain in the Andes mountains. These peculiar mounds turned out to be the remains of temporary hunting camps used by prehistoric tribespeople 9,000 years ago. Incredibly preserved by Peru’s arid environment, these camps contained still-intact ancient living surfaces with artifacts including stone tools, butchered animal bones, and other remnants of day-to-day life.
Analyzing artifacts excavated from these sites, the research team found nearly identical ratios of male to female-associated hunting gear like atlatls and projectile points. This strongly suggests that female tribe members not only prepared hunted game, but actively participated alongside men in hunting expeditions. As the research team wrote in summarizing their findings: "The mobile lifeways and technologies commonly associated with male hunters were likely used by men, women and children."
| Artifact Type | Number Associated with Males | Number Associated with Females |
|---|---|---|
| Atlatl darts | 28 | 24 |
| Atlatl weights | 10 | 9 |
| Projectile points | 728 | 687 |
Table 1. Counts of hunting artifacts associated with ancient male and female tribe members found at Peruvian hunting camp sites point to relatively equal participation of women in large hunting parties.
What More Evidence Remains to be Discovered?
While recent research has done much to overturn outdated notions about gender roles in ancient societies, there is undoubtedly far more still to learn. Hunting artifacts like those found in Peru provide limited snapshots frozen in time. Researchers continue efforts to uncover other well-preserved hunting camp sites which could shed light on additional nuances of hunters’ lives.
Genetic and isotope analysis techniques to understand diet and migration patterns continue advancing rapidly as well. As analysis becomes possible on smaller more degraded bone fragments, scientists hope to uncover dietary signatures pointing to the hunting history of a wider range of individuals.
Most extinct early human species left behind only skeletal fragments at best. But advanced new techniques provide hope that meaningful analysis may become possible even on extremely limited fossil evidence. What more might we still discover about female Neanderthal hunters, or the evolution of gender roles among homo erectus tribes?
Only time and continued field research will tell. But it seems clear our understanding of ancient gender assumptions must continue evolving alongside new evidence. Just as views of appropriate roles for modern women have changed radically in recent generations, revelations about our deep ancestral past should end lingering stereotypes about inherent differences in abilities or desires of prehistoric women compared to men.
In all environments and eras, hummanity has shown boundless ingenuity in transcending physical limitations to play whatever roles proved necessary for tribes’ survival. Whether through developing sophisticated technologies and tactics to maximize success hunting dangerous game, or devising flexible and equitable divisions of labor critical for raising offspring, our early ancestors found ways to thrive on the harsh Pleistocene landscape.
As researchers uncover more truths about ancient women’s lives, perhaps modern societies struggling with gender inequality can find lessons about how early tribes made the most of all their members’ complementary capacities. If both men and women have long worked as partners in essential survival tasks like hunting throughout the 200,000+ years of human existence, that partnership clearly continues underpinning our evolutionary success.
Will These Discoveries Change Modern Views?
The question remains whether evidence about prehistoric realities that contradict lingering gender role assumptions will succeed in changing stubborn modern stereotypes. Too often, those resistant to advancing gender equality in contemporary society fall back on appeals to "human nature" or "natural" roles stemming from our deep ancestral past.
With evidence mounting that ancient hunter-gatherer societies sustained more equitable divisions of labor and opportunity between sexes than recent post-agricultural civilizations, this rhetorical fallback clearly loses validity. Humanity achieved incredible success spreading to every habitable environment on Earth through flexible, pragmatic societies, not rigidly constrained roles rooted in physical differences between sexes.
Still, shifts even in scholarly consensus filter only slowly into public consciousness and overcome entrenched biases. So while visionary researchers break exciting new ground in understanding the true breadth of women’s participation in ancient lifeways, their insights may struggle for generations to reach beyond academic circles.
Ultimately the interplay between activism and academia responsible for much recent progress on gender issues must continue. Brave women and sympathetic men willing to publicly challenge comfortable notions about divisions of labor and opportunity between sexes have proven critical catalyzing attitudinal changes, creating space for scholarly revelations to spread more widely. And in turn trailblazing research gives advocates firmer factual grounding to advance equality.
So while prehistoric evidence reveals a deep tradition of equity between the sexes more durable than recent millenia’s restrictions on women, fulfilling the long dormant promise of these ancient partnerships relies on that partnership between activism and truth-seeking continuing today. Our ancestors offer inspiring examples of societies that empowered all members’ talents. But living up to their legacy requires we persist in bringing inconvenient and long-buried facts to light, however upsetting these may prove to those invested in tradition.
To err is human, but AI does it too. Whilst factual data is used in the production of these articles, the content is written entirely by AI. Double check any facts you intend to rely on with another source.
