Woman the hunter: The archaeological evidence
Date
2023-09-04
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Anthropologist
Abstract
The Paleo-fantasy of a deep history to a sexual division of labor, often described as “Man the Hunter and Woman the Gatherer,” continues to dominate the literature. We see it used as the default hypothesis in anatomical and physiological reconstructions of the past as well as studies of modern people evoking evolutionary explanations. However, the idea of a strict sexual labor division in the Paleolithic is an assumption with little supporting evidence, which reflects a failure to question how modern gender roles color our reconstructions of the past. Here we present examples to support women's roles as hunters in the past as well as challenge oft-cited interpretations of the material culture. Such evidence includes stone tool function, diet, art, anatomy and paleopathology, and burials. By pulling together the current state of the archaeological evidence along with the modern human physiology presented in the accompanying paper (Ocobock and Lacy, this issue), we argue that not only are women well-suited to endurance activities like hunting, but there is little evidence to support that they were not hunting in the Paleolithic. Going forward, paleoanthropology should embrace the idea that all sexes contributed equally to life in the past, including via hunting activities.
Description
This article was originally published in American Anthropologist. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13914. © 2023 by the American Anthropological Association.
Keywords
feminist archaeology, Neanderthals, Paleolithic, sexual division of labor
Citation
Lacy, Sarah, and Ocobock, Cara. 2023. “ Woman the hunter: The archaeological evidence.” American Anthropologist 00: 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13914