4 ms·

> Oh? If you have any information that goes against civilitty's comment there, I'd be interested to read it. I was always under the impression that in most hun

> Oh? If you have any information that goes against civilitty's comment there, I'd be interested to read it. I was always under the impression that in most hunter/gatherer cultures the men were primarily involved in the hunting.

lucideer 8y ago
The answer is we don't know (and I'd suspect the tendency to believe it was men is simply a result of assumption based on modern gender roles) but there is some research pointing to both sexes being initially involved in early hunting and the division of roles emerging later (possibly with agriculture, possibly before). From a study[0][1] of contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes: > In the Philippines population, women are involved in hunting and honey collecting and while there is still a division of labour, overall men and women contribute a similar number of calories to the camp. In both groups, monogamy is the norm and men are active in childcare. From another study[2][3] on the emergence of division of labour: > We argue that the typical patterns of labor division emerged relatively recently in human evolutionary history [...] > gender roles were not always the same in early-human cultures, and there's nothing that predisposes either sex toward certain kinds of work. > "That women sometimes become successful hunters and men become gatherers means that the universal tendency to divide subsistence labor be gender is not solely the result of innate physical or psychological differences between the sexes; much of it has to be learned," [0] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-women-equal-scientists https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-wo... [1] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/796 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/796 [2] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-humans.html https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-... [3] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/507197 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/507197
- King-Aaron 8y ago
  Thanks for that!
- flukus 8y ago
  > gender roles were not always the same in early-human cultures, and there's nothing that predisposes either sex toward certain kinds of work. Except the biological differences in strength, speed, etc. Unless they're arguing that these came about after agriculture, but a look at our close relatives would suggest it's always been there. > In the Philippines population Correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't think the Philippines had much in the way of large game, this and the general geography (mountainous rain-forest) could be negating the advantages men had in other parts of the world. > and I'd suspect the tendency to believe it was men is simply a result of assumption based on modern gender roles I'd suspect it's based on the belief that you'd want the stronger, taller, faster people doing the work the involve strength and speed. This won't always be men, but usually it will be. We are a sexually dimorphic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism#Humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism#Humans) species, it shouldn't be at all surprising that we divided labor based on these obvious physical differences.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    Even without sexual dimorphism in regards to strength it’s not hard to understand why. 14,000 years ago most people didn’t live pass 30-40, pregnancy takes you out of commission as far as hunting goes for at least a year for population growth it means that a woman had to successfully give birth to more than 2 children that would manage to survive till purberty on average, there are no indications that puberty was any different than it is today which would mean that essentially they only had 10-15 or so years to pop out 3-4 kids if not more considering the child mortality rates of the era.
    - cimmanom 8y ago
      That's been debunked. The low average life expectancy was not because adults died young but because child mortality (especially for children under 5) was sky-high. There was also an article on here just yesterday about how we list ancient skeletons as "50+" instead of "75" years old because we can't distinguish ages of skeletons above 50, which also contributes to that misconception. Long story short: a prehistoric human who made it to puberty had a pretty good chance of living to be 60-80, well past menopause.
- JetSetWilly 8y ago
  None of those sources contradict the common understanding that men primarily did the hunting in hunter-gatherer societies. They certainly point out that there have existed societies where women hunt, but even one of your own pull-quotes states that normally, it was men.
  - lucideer 8y ago
    Neither study was entirely conclusive on that particular question (especially as the first is of contemporary tribes); as I said at the start of my comment: "we don't know". My main intent linking them was pointing out the ambiguity around the question. The general assumption is that men are more likely to be the hunters: I'm not contradicting this, just pointing out it's not definitive. The previous poster was stating it as fact, and the first commenter was being questioned for daring to question said unverified fact. Often the assumption is based on the need for speed and strength, but a lot of hunting (even of big game) was trap-aided, and primarily called for practised skill rather than simple strength and speed.
    - bloak 8y ago
      Speed and strength for hunting? That's crazy. Why would anyone think that? Unless by speed you mean quick reactions. That might help for catching a lizard by stamping on its tail. (I did that as a child: the tail came off so it wouldn't have been many calories.) I imagine persistence hunting as being a big thing in olden times. You'd need to have a long-distance runner's physique, and ability to follow tracks. Also bow and arrow: skill in moving quietly, and aiming well, obviously.
    - marci 8y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting When it involves mostly running for hours, sex probably matter much less.
      - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_world_record_progression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_world_record_progress... indicates otherwise. Well in a way. "Less" would be accurate than it might matter in contests of strength, but it's still hugely relevant. I think the older races may even be more informative since that would be more of contests of raw athleticism as opposed to the extreme diet/supplemental/developmental process that high level athletics is today.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  I don't think we can know for sure but the "outliers" may hint at hunting and gathering being more akin to genders in the sense of rolls distinct from biological sex. Like the sensationally reported "gay caveman". A similar concept exists with twospirits. Although women getting pregnant provides strategic reasons and better color and taste distinguishing would suggest a pro-gatherer bias for women worked out better or is just an accident of x-linked trait redundancy protecting against flaws there. Of course individual apitudes matter the most on a per individual basis. A colorblind woman distinguishing toxic from nontoxic plants would be at a disadvantage. Evolution isn't goal oriented but the survival bias can shape things in a shockingly strategic way like with lactose tolerance trait/technically a mutation as seen on maps. Traditionally herdsmen regions have it higher and the swiss practically have it ubiquitously. Although with wandering there may be intelligent selection bias where the ones who would be sickened by dairy decide to risk going elsewhere.

lucideer 8y ago

The answer is we don't know (and I'd suspect the tendency to believe it was men is simply a result of assumption based on modern gender roles) but there is some research pointing to both sexes being initially involved in early hunting and the division of roles emerging later (possibly with agriculture, possibly before). From a study[0][1] of contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes: > In the Philippines population, women are involved in hunting and honey collecting and while there is still a division of labour, overall men and women contribute a similar number of calories to the camp. In both groups, monogamy is the norm and men are active in childcare. From another study[2][3] on the emergence of division of labour: > We argue that the typical patterns of labor division emerged relatively recently in human evolutionary history [...] > gender roles were not always the same in early-human cultures, and there's nothing that predisposes either sex toward certain kinds of work. > "That women sometimes become successful hunters and men become gatherers means that the universal tendency to divide subsistence labor be gender is not solely the result of innate physical or psychological differences between the sexes; much of it has to be learned," [0] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-women-equal-scientists https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-wo... [1] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/796 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/796 [2] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-humans.html https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-... [3] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/507197 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/507197

King-Aaron 8y ago
Thanks for that!
flukus 8y ago
> gender roles were not always the same in early-human cultures, and there's nothing that predisposes either sex toward certain kinds of work. Except the biological differences in strength, speed, etc. Unless they're arguing that these came about after agriculture, but a look at our close relatives would suggest it's always been there. > In the Philippines population Correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't think the Philippines had much in the way of large game, this and the general geography (mountainous rain-forest) could be negating the advantages men had in other parts of the world. > and I'd suspect the tendency to believe it was men is simply a result of assumption based on modern gender roles I'd suspect it's based on the belief that you'd want the stronger, taller, faster people doing the work the involve strength and speed. This won't always be men, but usually it will be. We are a sexually dimorphic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism#Humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism#Humans) species, it shouldn't be at all surprising that we divided labor based on these obvious physical differences.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  Even without sexual dimorphism in regards to strength it’s not hard to understand why. 14,000 years ago most people didn’t live pass 30-40, pregnancy takes you out of commission as far as hunting goes for at least a year for population growth it means that a woman had to successfully give birth to more than 2 children that would manage to survive till purberty on average, there are no indications that puberty was any different than it is today which would mean that essentially they only had 10-15 or so years to pop out 3-4 kids if not more considering the child mortality rates of the era.
  - cimmanom 8y ago
    That's been debunked. The low average life expectancy was not because adults died young but because child mortality (especially for children under 5) was sky-high. There was also an article on here just yesterday about how we list ancient skeletons as "50+" instead of "75" years old because we can't distinguish ages of skeletons above 50, which also contributes to that misconception. Long story short: a prehistoric human who made it to puberty had a pretty good chance of living to be 60-80, well past menopause.
JetSetWilly 8y ago
None of those sources contradict the common understanding that men primarily did the hunting in hunter-gatherer societies. They certainly point out that there have existed societies where women hunt, but even one of your own pull-quotes states that normally, it was men.
- lucideer 8y ago
  Neither study was entirely conclusive on that particular question (especially as the first is of contemporary tribes); as I said at the start of my comment: "we don't know". My main intent linking them was pointing out the ambiguity around the question. The general assumption is that men are more likely to be the hunters: I'm not contradicting this, just pointing out it's not definitive. The previous poster was stating it as fact, and the first commenter was being questioned for daring to question said unverified fact. Often the assumption is based on the need for speed and strength, but a lot of hunting (even of big game) was trap-aided, and primarily called for practised skill rather than simple strength and speed.
  - bloak 8y ago
    Speed and strength for hunting? That's crazy. Why would anyone think that? Unless by speed you mean quick reactions. That might help for catching a lizard by stamping on its tail. (I did that as a child: the tail came off so it wouldn't have been many calories.) I imagine persistence hunting as being a big thing in olden times. You'd need to have a long-distance runner's physique, and ability to follow tracks. Also bow and arrow: skill in moving quietly, and aiming well, obviously.
  - marci 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting When it involves mostly running for hours, sex probably matter much less.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_world_record_progression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_world_record_progress... indicates otherwise. Well in a way. "Less" would be accurate than it might matter in contests of strength, but it's still hugely relevant. I think the older races may even be more informative since that would be more of contests of raw athleticism as opposed to the extreme diet/supplemental/developmental process that high level athletics is today.
Nasrudith 8y ago
I don't think we can know for sure but the "outliers" may hint at hunting and gathering being more akin to genders in the sense of rolls distinct from biological sex. Like the sensationally reported "gay caveman". A similar concept exists with twospirits. Although women getting pregnant provides strategic reasons and better color and taste distinguishing would suggest a pro-gatherer bias for women worked out better or is just an accident of x-linked trait redundancy protecting against flaws there. Of course individual apitudes matter the most on a per individual basis. A colorblind woman distinguishing toxic from nontoxic plants would be at a disadvantage. Evolution isn't goal oriented but the survival bias can shape things in a shockingly strategic way like with lactose tolerance trait/technically a mutation as seen on maps. Traditionally herdsmen regions have it higher and the swiss practically have it ubiquitously. Although with wandering there may be intelligent selection bias where the ones who would be sickened by dairy decide to risk going elsewhere.