Early hunting was “gender neutral,” archaeologists suggest

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I’ve always heard the argument that’s hard to dispute: “if you’re in a hunter gatherer society and your food supply depends on people succeeding at their task can you afford to force someone into a role they’re worse at based on gender”

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        If a woman is a good hunter and a bad gatherer it would be foolish for hunter gatherers to force her to gather because she’s a woman

        • roastedDeflator@kbin.socialOP
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          11 months ago

          I honestly don’t understand this reasoning. Why are you talking about anyone forcing anyone? Or this thing about gender based roles you mention above?

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            The misconception of hunting as male only and gathering as female only would’ve required gender based rules and force whether social or otherwise. It would have required gender roles.

            Or maybe I’m just having issues with Lemmy’s federation with kbin

            • roastedDeflator@kbin.socialOP
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              11 months ago

              Some humans were or are hunter-gatherers. This doesn’t imply a specific societal model like the one you describe above.

              The “man the hunter hypothesis” is just a product of the eurocentric narrative (hierarchical, patriarchal, colonialist to name a few of its characteristics). As it is mentioned in the article:

              …the idea that all hunters were male has been bolstered by studies of the few present-day groups of hunter gatherers such as the Hadza of Tanzania and San of southern Africa.

              By the way there are many more modern hunter-gatherer groups.

              To my understanding, reality has been much more nuanced than the “man the hunter hypothesis”.

              In different times and different geographical places some hunter-gatherers were hierarchical, some egalitarian, some changed depending on the season, some changed because of colonialism, some were matrilineal, some matriarchal, some patriarchal or a combination of those. And as some say, change is the constant.

              I hope these shed some light on this conversation.