This painting in the cave of Lascaux in France, dating 20,000 years ago, shows the dots believed to mark mating and birthing seasons. Women also used specialized tools: In the Philippines, for example, Agta women hunted with knives, bows and arrows, or a combination of the two weapons, depending on personal preference. Women hunted game of all sizes, “with large game pursued the most,” the study authors reported. And in 87% of those societies, the records described planned, intentional hunting. Of the 63 foraging communities examined, 50 had records documenting women hunting. The study authors first identified records that described hunting practices in 63 societies, then looked for descriptions that focused on women. “That’s what prompted my students and I to start reading everything that we could find that gave details of hunting strategies around the world.” (Wall-Scheffler conducted the research while at Seattle Pacific and is currently a visiting scholar at Charles University in the Czech Republic.)įor the study, scientists combed through a database containing ethnographic records of 1,400 human societies worldwide, going back 100 years. If scientists’ biases led them to overlook important clues about women in the archaeological record, “maybe we’re missing what’s happening in the ethnographic literature as well,” Wall-Scheffler said. But that initial misinterpretation - and its reversal - sparked questions for Wall-Scheffler, she told CNN. Morphological analysis and DNA testing confirmed that the ancient hunter was female. Women killed big game, new discovery suggests Matthew Verdolivo/UC Davis IET Academic Technology Services Illustration of female hunter depicting hunters who may have appeared in the Andes 9,000 years ago. But when the remains were first uncovered, the presence of burial weapons led archaeologists to assume that the skeleton was male, said biological anthropologist Cara Wall-Scheffler, a professor and cochair of biology at Seattle Pacific University and senior author of the new study. In 2020, another team of scientists reported finding a 9,000-year-old female skeleton in the Andes Mountains, buried alongside tools for hunting and dressing big game. The new study, published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One, consolidates lines of proof that women not only were habitual hunters but also that they hunted using specialized tools and strategies, and even taught children to hunt.Ī recent archaeological discovery set the stage for the investigation. The findings add to a growing body of archaeological and observed evidence that has steadily eroded the long-held notion of strictly gendered roles in so-called hunter-gatherer communities from prehistory to the present, overturning the idea that men were always the hunters and women were exclusively gatherers. They hunted in groups or alone, with their children and with hunting dogs, and wielded weapons such as bows and arrows, knives and nets. But researchers have found that women in foraging societies were often the ones bringing home the bacon (and other prey, too).Īccording to a review of ethnographic records from around the world and spanning the past century, women - young and old alike - hunted large game as well as small animals. Such work was once thought to belong solely to the domain of men. Neanderthals hunted massive elephants that once roamed northern Europe
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