Female hunters in pre-historic times. did they exist?

[Hexen]

You know, one of the things that have been bothering me for a long time is the gender division in prehistoric/hunter & gatherer societies where "men hunted & women gathered" while I've been if this is actually a stereotype put out by capitalist society to divide the roles of males & females to ensure the 'non-existence' of egalitarianism due to being antithetical to bourgeois society? Is there any evidence that pre-historical women did hunted whilst pre-historic man did gathered since I remember seeing a article somewhere about Neanderthal women once hunted although it's being used by bourgeois scholars to discredit equality by saying that it 'caused the extinction' of the Neanderthals while ignoring the possibility that women from other human species (homo sapians, Erectus, Boskeps, etc) once did hunted.

[Lynx]

There remain a few hunter-gatherer cultures in existence today. Have you examined them? Are they egalitarian?

[F9]

Yes there are defenetely facts indicate that in pre-historic time woman and man were totally equal,based on what i know from the history of ancient civilizations down here there are evidences showing that there were females hunting and males cooking etc.This are basically based on they found in both gender graves hunting items and cooking!

Fuserg9:star:

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Yes. Like we have any real clue as to how prehistoric man lived his life.

Personally, I would probably say, judging from the animal kingdom, that No, women played seperate social roles than men.

[Lynx]

Egalitarian: because hunter-gatherers did not have the option of accumulating private property?

[Tower of Bebel]

Man is an intelligent social being, which makes it possible that both men and women went hunting. Hunting is a broad term btw. It doesn't necessairly mean you find and fight an animal and then kill it with a spear. Also, it's true that not everyone went hunting. Some men would stay home while others formed a search party.

When a group of people goes hunting some participants wont actually kill an animal while others do. It depends on skill. Even today if people go hunting their is some devision of labour according to skill and who dears to do the dirty work.
Another case is the advanced weaponry of man. When they invented bow and arrow, or made equipment to throw spears more efficiently it was possible for even the weakest member of the clan to kill an animal. So men, women and children could "hunt".


Yet we can assume that most women didn't actually hunt but gathered food. That's no problem. Gathering food was more secure than hunting because it didn't have some nasty consequences like getting lost, being hurt or getting killed. It also takes some time to find and kill an animal big enough to feed the whole clan. I guess women, if they mostly gathered, provided for the most secure resource of food.


Also, doing chores at home meant a lot of work. I think that those who did these chores were very much appreciated back then.

[Hexen]

Another thing I've been hearing is that archaeologists found skeletons of pre-historic humanity which they found that male skeletons had more violent deaths (from hunting) and whilist they found more female skeletons in caves who mostly died from child-birth. I wonder if this actually another distortion made by bourgeoisie scholars?

[Tower of Bebel]

Another thing I've been hearing is that archaeologists found skeletons of pre-historic humanity which they found that male skeletons had more violent deaths (from hunting) and whilist they found more female skeletons in caves who mostly died from child-birth. I wonder if this actually another distortion made by bourgeoisie scholars?

Well, women dying from giving birth was very common. I think it must have been one of the big reasons why prehistoric peoples had high death rates. I don't think it is a distortion. It's the same for men who die of wounds.

A well known distortion is the case where they find graves with many gifts and people think this person must have been the ruler. According to Engels there were indeed rulers, but democraticly elected. That's a view of prehistoric society most 'bourgeois' historians ignore.

[revolution inaction]

Another thing I've been hearing is that archaeologists found skeletons of pre-historic humanity which they found that male skeletons had more violent deaths (from hunting) and whilist they found more female skeletons in caves who mostly died from child-birth. I wonder if this actually another distortion made by bourgeoisie scholars?

how the fuck could you tell from a skeleton that someone died from child birth?
Violent death could mean all kinds of things, including accidents and murder/war.
Also I'm fairly certain that most skeletons are not complete when found, at least up until people started to bury there dead, so I am extremely sceptical you could prove it from the bodies of prehistoric people.
Where have you been hearing this? on the tv, in books, from an archaeologists or from a person who isn't an archaeologist?

What I think about prehistoric people is that they where not homogenous, some tribes/groups would have been egalitarian, some would have been extremely authoritarian.
Also prehistoric covers a huge period of time, there where huge changes during this time including the inventions of agriculture, from your post I assume you meant pre agriculture, and groups of people who never took up agriculture.
I think given the range of cultures which must have existed it is virtually impossible that there wouldn't have been female hunters in prehistory, but unless you find one buried with her weapons you cant prove it, but it seems more improbable that there wouldn't be that that there would so the hypothesis that has to prove its self it the one that says there weren't.
If you want you could try finding out about ancient stories/myths, their is at least one roman goddess who was a hunter, theirs probably lots more stuff it don't know about.

[Hexen]

how the fuck could you tell from a skeleton that someone died from child birth?
Violent death could mean all kinds of things, including accidents and murder/war.
Also I'm fairly certain that most skeletons are not complete when found, at least up until people started to bury there dead, so I am extremely sceptical you could prove it from the bodies of prehistoric people.
Where have you been hearing this? on the tv, in books, from an archaeologists or from a person who isn't an archaeologist?

What I think about prehistoric people is that they where not homogenous, some tribes/groups would have been egalitarian, some would have been extremely authoritarian.
Also prehistoric covers a huge period of time, there where huge changes during this time including the inventions of agriculture, from your post I assume you meant pre agriculture, and groups of people who never took up agriculture.
I think given the range of cultures which must have existed it is virtually impossible that there wouldn't have been female hunters in prehistory, but unless you find one buried with her weapons you cant prove it, but it seems more improbable that there wouldn't be that that there would so the hypothesis that has to prove its self it the one that says there weren't.
If you want you could try finding out about ancient stories/myths, their is at least one roman goddess who was a hunter, theirs probably lots more stuff it don't know about.

Well I heard there's fields of science called "Forensic Pathology (http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/FORHTML/FORIDX.html)" and Forensic Anthropology (http://www.forensicanthro.com/) although I'm not sure that those can be reliable however...

[#FF0000]

There was a tribe of hunter-gatherers in the Philippines in which women hunted exclusively. I can't think of the name but I'm sure you can find it somewhere. Maybe even start with Wikipedia.

EDIT: Also, radicalgraffiti is 100% correct.

[Charles Xavier]

what about pregnant women? or woman with children, or menstrating. I don't see how women would be the hunters or could exclusively hunt. Man subjected woman for thousands of years for a reason. I'm not saying women didn't hunt. I'm saying men would have taken a larger role in hunting, out of the child bearing aspect of being female.


Lions though, the female does most of the hunting.

[Tower of Bebel]

how the fuck could you tell from a skeleton that someone died from child birth?
Violent death could mean all kinds of things, including accidents and murder/war.
Also I'm fairly certain that most skeletons are not complete when found, at least up until people started to bury there dead, so I am extremely sceptical you could prove it from the bodies of prehistoric people.
Where have you been hearing this? on the tv, in books, from an archaeologists or from a person who isn't an archaeologist?
The lack of fractures and signs of illness + a young age can point to death from child birth.

what about pregnant women? or woman with children, or menstrating. I don't see how women would be the hunters or could exclusively hunt. Man subjected woman for thousands of years for a reason. I'm not saying women didn't hunt. I'm saying men would have taken a larger role in hunting, out of the child bearing aspect of being female.


Lions though, the female does most of the hunting.I think that the case of the lion points to an interesting hypothesis: that of an egalitarian society where men didn't subject women because the only real productive activity - the only real source of wealth humanity had - was reproduction itself.
Since man is a social being I think it would be possible for women to hunt. They were not left alone with their children because they were to important to be ignored by men. And even if women didn't hunt, that doesn't necessarily have to mean that they were regarded inferior to men. Gathering fruits and vegetables + setting traps for small animals is much easier and a much securer form of gathering food than hunting. Making baskets can also be hard work. So it is possible that because of the role women played both in reproduction and gathering that women were more important than men. Real subjection only came about when social inequality became common; that's when the family as a social institution became replaced by a state.

[Revy]

Who's to say gathering was an inferior role? It likely was just as important. We wrongly assume that if women were expected in a gathering role they would have felt inferior. Who's to say how it might have been seen. It might have even been a matriarchal society for all we know.

Obviously I'm not defending gender roles but I don't believe we should try to romanticize the distant past. Which would be primitivist most definitely.

[Killfacer]

This is a farce. Is there really anypoint in pretending to yourselves that women hunted in pre-historic societies.

Most of the archeology that has been does suggests that it is the males who did the hunting. You can call it capitalist propaganda all you will, but show me some evidence to counter what is considered common knowledge.

If you look at the majority of today's hunter gatherer societies, then you will see that it is the males who have the role of hunter. Look at aboriginees (aboriginees are used by archeologists today to draw comparisons, as they are considered most like pre-historic hunter gatherer societies) it is the men who do the hunting and the tracking. Women gather yams and other fruits/vegetables. Every documentary i have seen (thats probably about 20 tribes worth) the men have done the hunting. It seems wrong to lie to oneself and pretend that women used to have a role as hunters, even if there is no evidence to back it up.

Anyway, as Stancel says, why is gathering an inferior role?

[StalinFanboy]

The pygmies in Africa often shared most of the duties between men and women. However, there are/were certain jobs that only men did, or only women did.

For example: Women would always build the huts. And while the entire village helped in the hunting process of larger animals, it was the men who did the actual hunting/killing of the prey.

[StalinFanboy]

This is a farce. Is there really anypoint in pretending to yourselves that women hunted in pre-historic societies.

Most of the archeology that has been does suggests that it is the males who did the hunting. You can call it capitalist propaganda all you will, but show me some evidence to counter what is considered common knowledge.

If you look at the majority of today's hunter gatherer societies, then you will see that it is the males who have the role of hunter. Look at aboriginees (aboriginees are used by archeologists today to draw comparisons, as they are considered most like pre-historic hunter gatherer societies) it is the men who do the hunting and the tracking. Women gather yams and other fruits/vegetables. Every documentary i have seen (thats probably about 20 tribes worth) the men have done the hunting. It seems wrong to lie to oneself and pretend that women used to have a role as hunters, even if there is no evidence to back it up.

Anyway, as Stancel says, why is gathering an inferior role?

He brings up a good point. Looking at gathering as inferior to hunting is an extremely patriarchal view. Gathering is just as important as hunting.

[revolution inaction]

Women Hunters

Some people won't believe that women could have hunted in pre-historic times despite the fact that the idea that no women in prehistoric societies where hunters is the one that is ridicules and lacking in evidence. We don't need to prove that women hunted, it is the people who think they didn't that need to provide proof.
And I was going to leave it there but heres some stuff to show that women in primitive societies do hunt, and did hunt.

Article in Discover Margazine, on women during the ice age
http://discovermagazine.com/1998/apr/newwomenoftheice1430


Women in Prehistory: North America
http://books.google.com/books?id=QOl0ZJzO57kC&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=%22women+hunters%22&source=web&ots=e3K9cWbspz&sig=eWpGMO8NId9RBKUKJtBzn48v-l0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PPA21,M1


http://www.sil.org/~headlandt/fourdecd.htm


However, in a trip through the Griffins' research area 90 kilometers north of Casiguran in April 1979, I (TNH) found Agta bands where the women did hunt pig and deer with bow and arrow. I was so skeptical of this that, after interviewing four women hunters [on different days in different camps], I asked to see the bow of the fourth woman. When I saw that she had a bow and arrows (a somewhat lighter bow than men use), I still found it hard to believe. So I asked her if she could demonstrate her skill by shooting at a nearby banana plant. She readily did this with ease, burying an arrow into the center of the trunk from 30 feet away. Her husband, who happened to be a non-Agta farmer and thus a non-hunter, also showed me a row of ten wild pig jawbones in the roof of their house, all of which, he said, were of pigs his wife had shot. By the end of this trip through this northern part of the Agta area, I was finally convinced that the Griffins were right. Here Agta women did sometimes hunt. [Griffin reported after his last field visit to this area in 1991 that because of the near-extinction of game, it is rare to see men hunting anymore, let alone women.]


This book has something about the Agta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeta) hunting, the women are involved
http://books.google.com/books?id=pi-Hd1jabbgC&pg=PA310&lpg=PA310&dq=%22women+hunters%22&source=web&ots=UK9dWM_bok&sig=BxdcuwXRPcmo0zKMfqIcVHtJWWI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result

The Aka (in africa, not India) are hunter gathers, the women hunt about as much as the men
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aka_(Pygmy_tribe)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/jun/15/childrensservices.familyandrelationships

This is also interesting
http://books.google.com/books?id=9ebNF2Ci44AC&pg=PA58&dq=jani+shikar


Killfacer u'r talking shit

Bring It! Though I don't think anyone has said that hunting is superior to gathering, its only patriarchal if you think hunting is inherently male and gathering inherently female.

[StalinFanboy]

It was implied

[F9]

This is a farce. Is there really anypoint in pretending to yourselves that women hunted in pre-historic societies.

Most of the archeology that has been does suggests that it is the males who did the hunting. You can call it capitalist propaganda all you will, but show me some evidence to counter what is considered common knowledge.

If you look at the majority of today's hunter gatherer societies, then you will see that it is the males who have the role of hunter. Look at aboriginees (aboriginees are used by archeologists today to draw comparisons, as they are considered most like pre-historic hunter gatherer societies) it is the men who do the hunting and the tracking. Women gather yams and other fruits/vegetables. Every documentary i have seen (thats probably about 20 tribes worth) the men have done the hunting. It seems wrong to lie to oneself and pretend that women used to have a role as hunters, even if there is no evidence to back it up.

Anyway, as Stancel says, why is gathering an inferior role?

The evidence you want its called HISTORY, and to be more specific pro-history!If you search the funding's in all the tribes all over the world, before 1000ds years, there are in each one of them evidence pointing that hunting and everything else had nothing to do with the sex of the people!
You could find in both sexes graves hunting gear, or cooking gear etc.
This are historical fundings that none can deny!So here is your "evidence" you want, if you want to back it up for sure, just check pro-history books!

Fuserg9:star:

[Killfacer]

The evidence you want its called HISTORY, and to be more specific pro-history!If you search the funding's in all the tribes all over the world, before 1000ds years, there are in each one of them evidence pointing that hunting and everything else had nothing to do with the sex of the people!
You could find in both sexes graves hunting gear, or cooking gear etc.
This are historical fundings that none can deny!So here is your "evidence" you want, if you want to back it up for sure, just check pro-history books!

Fuserg9:star:

That's not evidence thats just you asserting stuff.

[F9]

That's not evidence thats just you asserting stuff.

Yes there are ...!?!?!
It happened for me to study some ancient civilizations in school, where this fact(that there were female hunters) is undeniable!

Fuserg9:star:

[Killfacer]

Women Hunters

Some people won't believe that women could have hunted in pre-historic times despite the fact that the idea that no women in prehistoric societies where hunters is the one that is ridicules and lacking in evidence. We don't need to prove that women hunted, it is the people who think they didn't that need to provide proof.
And I was going to leave it there but heres some stuff to show that women in primitive societies do hunt, and did hunt.

Article in Discover Margazine, on women during the ice age
http://discovermagazine.com/1998/apr/newwomenoftheice1430


Women in Prehistory: North America
http://books.google.com/books?id=QOl0ZJzO57kC&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=%22women+hunters%22&source=web&ots=e3K9cWbspz&sig=eWpGMO8NId9RBKUKJtBzn48v-l0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PPA21,M1


http://www.sil.org/~headlandt/fourdecd.htm


This book has something about the Agta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeta) hunting, the women are involved
http://books.google.com/books?id=pi-Hd1jabbgC&pg=PA310&lpg=PA310&dq=%22women+hunters%22&source=web&ots=UK9dWM_bok&sig=BxdcuwXRPcmo0zKMfqIcVHtJWWI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result

The Aka (in africa, not India) are hunter gathers, the women hunt about as much as the men
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aka_(Pygmy_tribe)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/jun/15/childrensservices.familyandrelationships

This is also interesting
http://books.google.com/books?id=9ebNF2Ci44AC&pg=PA58&dq=jani+shikar


Killfacer u'r talking shit

Bring It! Though I don't think anyone has said that hunting is superior to gathering, its only patriarchal if you think hunting is inherently male and gathering inherently female.


Ok, well your first source mentions that females and children might have done some net hunting. I cannot help but feel that when people talked about hunting they were discusssing hurling spears and mammoths and what not.

"Net hunting is communal, and it involves the labor of children and women"

Not to make net hunting sound crap or anything but if it is done by children as well it would seem it was an easy role selected for the weakest members of the tribe.

Later it talks about how women play a vital role in the survival of hunter gatherer tribes. It makes blase assumptions about what general achealogists think and then criticises them for thinking it. I would certainly not deny that that women played a hugely important role in tribal life, simply that they only hunter on very rare occasions.

"Women and children have set snares, laid spring traps, sighted game and participated in animal drives"

Once again you will notice how women a grouped with children and how the list of activites excluded hunting.

And here is the killer blow to the first site.

"they even hunted, on occasion"

It would seem that my "baseless" assumption was right. They hutned very rarely and only in a small amount of tribes.

[Killfacer]

Yes there are ...!?!?!
It happened for me to study some ancient civilizations in school, where this fact(that there were female hunters) is undeniable!

Fuserg9:star:


I fail to see how you stating that you learnt about female hunters at school qualifies as evidence.

[F9]

I fail to see how you stating that you learnt about female hunters at school qualifies as evidence.

Its not evidence, its HISTORY written down by archeologists!!

[Hexen]

I think Killerface is accepting the bourgeoisie sterotyped view of world history which is flawed and it takes a open mind to see that were female hunters during pre-history...Not to mention that spears and nets weren't the only tools used wihich they were also bows & arrows involved with hunting aswell that groups of women could have easily picked them up and start firing arrows at their prey not to mention that could also throw spears aswell since their not always used for close range you know (which I'm not denying that women are just as compatible of close range hand to hand combat as men)...I also imagined that pre-history women looked liked todays female body builders due to hunting & gathering activities (as both sexes did egliterianly) than most women look today.

[Pawn Power]

Off the top of my head I cannot recall a specific group of people which had predominately women as hunters. However, for most of human history women have remained the main producers of food.

[Glenn Beck]

When I took history and anthropology courses I was taught that the general consensus was that while there has always been a great degree of variety in human cultures, in a primitive society biological differences between men and women take on more significance than in our advanced and technologically assisted culture. The general consensus seems to be actually that women did most of the work just like lionesses. Think about it: gathering is safer and a more steady and reliable food supply, while hunting is a high risk, high reward activity. Gathering provided the day to day sustenance of the tribe whilst hunting provided more occasional but significant payoffs (obviously differences in ecological settings need to be taken into account here). Taking these facts into account, it's logical and not at all sexist or essentialist to see why women were typically gatherers and men were typically hunters (my girlfriend who was an anthropology major in university came and pointed out that older men who were no longer fit for hunting also tended to take up gathering duties in many tribes).

Several reasons: due to the mechanics of sexual reproduction in human beings women are more valuable than men individually speaking because each woman of child-bearing age that dies equals one less child the social unit can have at a time. If somebody has to die, better for it to be a man as having less males than females does not compromise the ability of the social unit to reproduce itself nor does it cause as much social tension as two men cannot reproduce with one woman as two women can with one man. For this reason, it is better to take the safe bet with the tribes women and assign them to a less hazardous role, and it is better to save the high stakes gamble for the younger men, both because they are less important to the continuation of the tribe and also because any physical advantage they might have, no matter how slight, would tip the odds a bit in the favor of the tribe. Thus it would make sense that women were mostly relegated to gathering except in cases where a woman was so exceptionally fit for hunting that it would be a waste not to use her. It equally makes sense that men who are equally adept at hunting or gathering should opt for hunting unless there are more people required to gather because of special circumstances, because the risk/reward ratio to the tribe is more favorable for male hunters than female hunters.

Hope that made sense, I feel like a rambled a bit and I've been drinking so whatever. Thank god for spell check I guess

[gewehr_3]

I think Killerface is accepting the bourgeoisie sterotyped view of world history which is flawed and it takes a open mind to see that were female hunters during pre-history...Not to mention that spears and nets weren't the only tools used wihich they were also bows & arrows involved with hunting aswell that groups of women could have easily picked them up and start firing arrows at their prey not to mention that could also throw spears aswell since their not always used for close range you know (which I'm not denying that women are just as compatible of close range hand to hand combat as men)...I also imagined that pre-history women looked liked todays female body builders due to hunting & gathering activities (as both sexes did egliterianly) than most women look today.

Ok, I'm sorry, but there isn't a bourgeois stereotyped world in self respecting science. Any good scientist, be it natural or social, will put behind his/her preconceptions that s/he has picked up from the society they live in and use EVIDENCE to find out FACTS. This has nothing to do with what bourgeois society tells you to believe. I believe its you with the closed mind trying to warp everything to your viewpoint. Men have been the physically stronger and women the mentally stronger throughout history, and its only when man's social structure evolves to a certain point, the chauvinistic tendencies will be rooted out. And yes there were and still are matriarchal primitive society, but the fact is that man usually subjugated/ subjugates women

[Lynx]

Hope that made sense, I feel like a rambled a bit and I've been drinking so whatever. Thank god for spell check I guessMakes sense to me!

[Killfacer]

When I took history and anthropology courses I was taught that the general consensus was that while there has always been a great degree of variety in human cultures, in a primitive society biological differences between men and women take on more significance than in our advanced and technologically assisted culture. The general consensus seems to be actually that women did most of the work just like lionesses. Think about it: gathering is safer and a more steady and reliable food supply, while farming is a high risk, high reward activity. Gathering provided the day to day sustenance of the tribe whilst hunting provided more occasional but significant payoffs (obviously differences in ecological settings need to be taken into account here). Taking these facts into account, it's logical and not at all sexist or essentialist to see why women were typically gatherers and men were typically hunters (my girlfriend who was an anthropology major in university came and pointed out that older men who were no longer fit for hunting also tended to take up gathering duties in many tribes).

Several reasons: due to the mechanics of sexual reproduction in human beings women are more valuable than men individually speaking because each woman of child-bearing age that dies equals one less child the social unit can have at a time. If somebody has to die, better for it to be a man as having less males than females does not compromise the ability of the social unit to reproduce itself nor does it cause as much social tension as two men cannot reproduce with one woman as two women can with one man. For this reason, it is better to take the safe bet with the tribes women and assign them to a less hazardous role, and it is better to save the high stakes gamble for the younger men, both because they are less important to the continuation of the tribe and also because any physical advantage they might have, no matter how slight, would tip the odds a bit in the favor of the tribe. Thus it would make sense that women were mostly relegated to gathering except in cases where a woman was so exceptionally fit for hunting that it would be a waste not to use her. It equally makes sense that men who are equally adept at hunting or gathering should opt for hunting unless there are more people required to gather because of special circumstances, because the risk/reward ratio to the tribe is more favorable for male hunters than female hunters.

Hope that made sense, I feel like a rambled a bit and I've been drinking so whatever. Thank god for spell check I guess

This is what i would have said if i had done an anthropology course.

[Killfacer]

I think Killerface is accepting the bourgeoisie sterotyped view of world history which is flawed and it takes a open mind to see that were female hunters during pre-history...Not to mention that spears and nets weren't the only tools used wihich they were also bows & arrows involved with hunting aswell that groups of women could have easily picked them up and start firing arrows at their prey not to mention that could also throw spears aswell since their not always used for close range you know (which I'm not denying that women are just as compatible of close range hand to hand combat as men)...I also imagined that pre-history women looked liked todays female body builders due to hunting & gathering activities (as both sexes did egliterianly) than most women look today.

I think you're painfully deluded, know nothing about pre-history and are making baseless assumptions about what i do and do not know.