48
submitted 1 year ago by swope@kbin.social to c/science@kbin.social

The sexual division of labor among human foraging populations has typically been recognized as involving males as hunters and females as gatherers. Recent archeological research has questioned this paradigm with evidence that females hunted (and went to war) throughout the Homo sapiens lineage, though many of these authors assert the pattern of women hunting may only have occurred in the past. The current project gleans data from across the ethnographic literature to investigate the prevalence of women hunting in foraging societies in more recent times. Evidence from the past one hundred years supports archaeological finds from the Holocene that women from a broad range of cultures intentionally hunt for subsistence. These results aim to shift the male-hunter female-gatherer paradigm to account for the significant role females have in hunting, thus dramatically shifting stereotypes of labor, as well as mobility.

top 6 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] aprilfollies@feddit.online 13 points 1 year ago

I suspect that in a subsistence level culture, everyone who can, will take part in any methods to get more food!

[-] Entropywins@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Except me... I'm really, really lazy

[-] swope@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Yes, when I think about it that way it makes the whole "men hunted, women gathered" concept seem really silly.

[-] Thepinyaroma@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

I bet subsistence leads to a level of pragmatism we haven't seen on a societal level since. It takes a certain level of your needs being met to start making up rules.

If the best hunter in the tribe is a woman... Get to it, we all want to eat right?

[-] szczur@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

That's revolutionary!

This is why everything you hear from pop-evolution theories in sociology is likely bs.

“Women like shopping because they used to be gatherers” or other such garbage.

It’s all trying to simplify human behaviour based on half-baked knowledge of the past, and to pass it off as scientific insight. It’s not much different than the pseudoscience used to fuel racism 100 years ago.

Human behaviour is complex. And even though our societies are more complex now than 10000 years ago, it doesn’t mean people back then were simple.

this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
48 points (100.0% liked)

Science

76 readers
7 users here now

This magazine is dedicated to discussions on scientific discoveries, research, and theories across various fields, including physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and more. Whether you are a scientist, a science enthusiast, or simply curious about the world around us, this is the place for you. Here you can share your knowledge, ask questions, and engage in discussions on a wide range of scientific topics. From the latest breakthroughs to historical discoveries and ongoing research, this category covers a wide range of topics related to science.

founded 1 year ago