Women in Human Evolution Redux

Khorasani, Dänae G.; Lee, Sang‐Hee

doi:10.1017/9781108569125.002

Cited by 5 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, several scholars have theorized that such division of labor would have been less pronounced or even altogether absent among Paleolithic HG (Haas et al, 2020 & Power, 2015;Haas et al, 2020;Khorasani & Lee, 2020;Noss & Hewlett, 2001;Waguespack, 2005). Especially relevant to the Paleolithic is the potential participation of females in large game hunting (Brink, 2008;Haas et al, 2020) in driving large animals to a trap where their movement can be curtailed (Churchill, 1993) or in driving them to expecting male hunters (Waguespack, 2005); methods that provide the opportunity for communal hunting (Lee, 1979, p. 234).…”

Section: Plantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As discussed in the Ethnography section, the different ecological conditions in the Pleistocene may have also affected the extent to which females gathered plants compared to the Paleolithic period. There is evidence for female hunting in ethnographic and Paleolithic contexts (D. W. Bird et al, 2013; R. B. Bird & Power, 2015; Haas et al, 2020; Khorasani & Lee, 2020; Noss & Hewlett, 2001; Waguespack, 2005). Especially relevant to the Paleolithic is the potential participation of females in large game hunting (Brink, 2008; Haas et al, 2020) in driving large animals to a trap where their movement can be curtailed (Churchill, 1993) or in driving them to expecting male hunters (Waguespack, 2005); methods that provide the opportunity for communal hunting (Lee, 1979, p. 234).…”

Section: Archaeological Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene

Ben-Dor

Sirtoli

Barkai

2021

American J Phys Anthropol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The human trophic level (HTL) during the Pleistocene and its degree of variability serve, explicitly or tacitly, as the basis of many explanations for human evolution, behavior, and culture. Previous attempts to reconstruct the HTL have relied heavily on an analogy with recent hunter-gatherer groups' diets. In addition to technological differences, recent findings of substantial ecological differences between the Pleistocene and the Anthropocene cast doubt regarding that analogy's validity. Surprisingly little systematic evolution-guided evidence served to reconstruct HTL. Here, we reconstruct the HTL during the Pleistocene by reviewing evidence for the impact of the HTL on the biological, ecological, and behavioral systems derived from various existing studies. We adapt a paleobiological and paleoecological approach, including evidence from human physiology and genetics, archaeology, paleontology, and zoology, and identified 25 sources of evidence in total. The evidence shows that the trophic level of the Homo lineage that most probably led to modern humans evolved from a low base to a high, carnivorous position during the Pleistocene, beginning with Homo habilis and peaking in Homo erectus. A reversal of that trend appears in the Upper Paleolithic, strengthening in the Mesolithic/Epipaleolithic and Neolithic, and culminating with the advent of agriculture. We conclude that it is possible to reach a credible reconstruction of the HTL without relying on a simple analogy with recent hunter-gatherers' diets. The memory of an adaptation to a trophic level that is embedded in modern humans' biology in the form of genetics, metabolism, and morphology is a fruitful line of investigation of past HTLs, whose potential we have only started to explore.

show abstract

Section: Plantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Archaeological Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene

Ben-Dor

Sirtoli

Barkai

2021

American J Phys Anthropol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…One is that “feminine” activities like childrearing, cooking, clothing manufacture, etc., are just as important to defining what it means to be human as hunting is and are equally a part of hominin evolutionary success (e.g., Adovasio, Soffer, and Page, 2007; Gero, 1991; Zihlmann, 1997). The other approach lambasts the idea that activities could be feminine and masculine in the past at all—at least in the way we see these terms—and without clear evidence to the contrary, no reconstructed behavior should be gendered (e.g., Hrdy, 1981; Khorasani and Lee, 2020). Though there are contemporaneous publications taking these two approaches, and some authors suggest both (e.g., Conkey, 1991; De Beaune, 2019; Knapp, 1998), the former approach could be described as second‐wave feminism increasing awareness of women's contributions and the latter a third‐ or fourth‐wave feminist paradigm challenging whether gender roles are inherent at all.…”

Section: Background: Earlier Feminist Archaeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Though there are contemporaneous publications taking these two approaches, and some authors suggest both (e.g., Conkey, 1991; De Beaune, 2019; Knapp, 1998), the former approach could be described as second‐wave feminism increasing awareness of women's contributions and the latter a third‐ or fourth‐wave feminist paradigm challenging whether gender roles are inherent at all. The problem with the first approach is that it still assumes a gendered division of labor while celebrating women's roles (Khorasani and Lee, 2020). Childbirth and lactation notwithstanding, we favor an approach more toward the latter and suggest authors should approach potentially gendered behavior with a differential discussion as opposed to assuming its presence.…”

Section: Background: Earlier Feminist Archaeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet it is this inaccurate popular image that is implicitly and explicitly presented in the figures of anthropology and archaeology textbooks when Pleistocene men are depicted as the protagonists of the images, and hunting—specifically male‐only hunting—is celebrated as the behavior that differentiates humans from the other primates (Gifford‐Gonzalez, 1993). Recent surveys found that Paleolithic textbooks and museum images have become more biased toward centering men over time, not less (Khorasani and Lee, 2020; Solometo and Moss, 2013). These images of “Man the [hero] Hunter” and “Woman the [background] Gatherer” become the public face of paleoanthropology, and the assumptive hypothesis from neighboring disciplines is frequently that the sexual division of labor in the Pleistocene must have been extreme (e.g., Arner et al., 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Woman the hunter: The archaeological evidence

Lacy,

Ocobock

2023

American Anthropologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Women carry for less: body size, pelvis width, loading position and energetics

Wall-Scheffler

2022

Evolut. Hum. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The energetic cost of walking varies with mass and speed; however, the metabolic cost of carrying loads has not consistently increased proportionally to the mass carried. The cost of carrying mass, and the speed at which human walkers carry this mass, has been shown to vary with load position and load description (e.g. child versus groceries). Additionally, the preponderance of women carriers around the world, and the tendency for certain kinds of population-level sexual dimorphism has led to the hypothesis that women might be more effective carriers than men. Here, I investigate the energetic cost and speed changes of women (N=9) and men (N=6) walking through the woods carrying their own babies (mean baby mass=10.6kg) in three different positions—on their front, side, and back using the same Ergo fabric baby sling. People carrying their babies on their backs are able to maintain their unloaded walking speed (1.4m/s), and show the lowest increase in metabolic cost per distance (Joules/meter, 17.4%). Women carry the babies for a lower energetic cost than men at all conditions (p<0.01). Further energetic and kinematic evidence elucidates the preponderance of back-carrying cross-culturally, and illustrates the importance of relatively wider bi-trochanteric breadths for reducing energetic costs of carrying.

show abstract

Women in Human Evolution Redux

Cited by 5 publications

References 26 publications

The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene

The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene

Woman the hunter: The archaeological evidence

Women carry for less: body size, pelvis width, loading position and energetics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About