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The theory that prehistoric hunting was for men only appears to be a modern male sexist construct after a discovery in an ancient cemetery in Peru.
The remains of a teenage girl who lived about 9,000 years ago were found, along with a “well-stocked big game hunting toolbox.”
Women were previously thought to be foragers while men hunted, but the researchers say the findings challenge this hypothesis.
The discovery inspired researchers to search for records from other cemeteries in North and South America.
Randy Haas, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, and lead author of the study, said: “An archaeological discovery and analysis of early burial practices overturns the ‘man-hunter’ hypothesis that has long held weather.
“Labor practices among recent hunter-gatherer societies are highly gender-driven, which might lead some to believe that sexist inequalities in things like pay or rank are somehow ‘natural’.
“But now it is clear that the sexual division of labor was fundamentally different, probably more equitable, in the deep past of hunter-gatherers of our species.”
The remains of the hunter were found in 2018 during excavations at Wilamaya Patjxa, a high-altitude site in Peru.
The remains were found at Wilamaya Patjxa, a high-altitude site in Peru.
The tool kit buried with her included “stone projectile points for felling large animals, a knife and rock scales for removing internal organs, and tools for scraping and tanning hides.”
The researchers used protein analysis of the dental remains to confirm that the remains were female.
They used bone tests to conclude that she could be between 17 and 19 years old when she died.
The discovery inspired researchers to search for archaeological records from other burial sites in North and South America.
They found evidence of 27 individuals buried with big game hunting tools, 11 women and 16 men, suggesting that between 30% and 50% of the big game hunters who lived more than 10,000 years ago in the Americas may have been women. .
Professor Haas said: “Our findings have made me rethink the most basic organizational structure of ancient hunter-gatherer groups and human groups in general.
“Among historical and contemporary hunter-gatherers, it almost always happens that the males are the hunters and the females the gatherers.
“Because of this, and probably because of sexist assumptions about the division of labor in Western society, archaeological finds of women with hunting tools simply did not fit the prevailing worldviews.
“It took a strong case to help us recognize that the archaeological pattern indicated actual hunting behavior of the females.”
The research is published in the journal Science Advances.
