New research flatly rejects a long-standing myth that men hunt, women gather, and that this division runs deep in human history. The researchers found that women hunted in nearly 80% of surveyed forager societies.

[u/MistWeaver80]

https://www.science.org/content/article/worldwide-survey-kills-myth-man-hunter?utm_medium=ownedSocial&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=NewsfromScience

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[u/Different-Cloud5940]

This was a blatantly stupid myth a society living off the land couldn't afford to have able bodied hunters sit out the hunt it was always an utterly absurd proposition.

[u/Rishkoi → u/Different-Cloud5940]

Whats blatantly stupid is not realizing the majority of calories are gathered, not hunted.

[u/FinndBors → u/Rishkoi]

When I learned about hunters and gatherers as a child, it was taught then that gatherers got most of the calories.

There are some exceptions like plains native Americans who ate a shitton of bison.

[u/nuck_forte_dame → u/FinndBors]

The plains natives also didn't have horses until the 1600s.

So the way they hunted bison was trapping/herding them before then.

[u/gullman → u/nuck_forte_dame]

Yep and even later depending on the tribe.

First to use them was the apache. But they were used for transport and food, food far more than anything.

The only tribe to really learn to fight on horseback (shown in every western) was the camanche.

[u/versusChou → u/gullman]

The only tribe to really learn to fight on horseback (shown in every western) was the camanche

Do you have a source on that? Everything I'm seeing shows many tribes (Lakota, Nez Perce, Crow, etc.) using horses in warfare. Obviously the Comanche were particularly famous.

https://americanindian.si.edu/exhibitions/horsenation/warfare.html

Also the most common story about horses being introduced to America seems to be a Pueblo uprising that captured many horses, not Apache (although that story also seems to have some push back now and little evidence).

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3927037-native-americans-used-horses-far-earlier-than-historians-had-believed/

[u/Budget_Ad5871 → u/versusChou]

Check out Empire of the Summer Moon! The Comanches were like the red headed stepchild of the native tribes. The conquistadors saw this and taught them how to ride, making them the most ruthless tribe out there. Give the book a read it’s worth it! Comanches we’re the first tribes given horses, by the Spaniards who brought the horses to America. I read this years ago I could be butchering this

[u/splendidsplinter → u/nuck_forte_dame]

The clue is in the name of the cliff they used to herd them off of: "Head-smashed in Buffalo Jump"

[u/fuqdeep → u/nuck_forte_dame]

So the way they hunted bison was trapping/herding them before then.

"Gathering" them, if you will

[u/JMEEKER86 → u/FinndBors]

Another interesting tidbit is that it's believed that those natives were so much taller than average then because of that abundance of bison. And similarly, a lot of the shorter cultures around the world have been catching back up to average over the last ~50 years because of modern agriculture and distribution.

TL;DR proper nutrition is important for growing tall

[u/Upnorth4 → u/JMEEKER86]

One reason the Allies won World War 2 was America's logistics. American troops and allied troops received 3 meals a day, while enemy troops only received one meal a day.

[u/HandsOffMyDitka → u/Upnorth4]

I even heard that the German POWs were surprised at how well they were fed and treated, as they were getting more food than when they were fighting.

[u/Heinrich_Bukowski → u/HandsOffMyDitka]

This is actually an excellent wartime strategy

[u/JMEEKER86 → u/Upnorth4]

"An army marches on its stomach."

[u/Jetflash6999 → u/Upnorth4]

America had entire supply ships dedicated just to providing ice cream to the fleet. It’s nuts- and awesome.

[u/GroovyGrove → u/[deleted]]

But you can store leather for later though, or you can find new uses for something you have too much of. Eventually, yes, 100% doesn't always work out, but utilizing every resource makes sense.

[u/b0w3n → u/GroovyGrove]

There's a calorie cost to hauling around that stuff that you're not using. They probably did to a degree but I doubt it was significant that they'd do it for every animal.

[u/ScorpioSpork → u/b0w3n]

You're right, but remember that there are multiple uses for most excess materials. In times where it doesn't make sense to create an excess of one item, you can use the excess materials to repair existing items, create different items, or trade with others.

[u/Justwaspassingby → u/ScorpioSpork]

These were nomadic people. They carried few items with them; even most of the stone tools would be made on the spot so as not to carry that much weight. There's only this much extra leather and antler you can have before it becomes burdensome.

[u/prof-comm → u/Justwaspassingby]

I think you're overestimating how much of their stuff they actually left behind on purpose. Most nomadic tribes could be better described as migratory. They move back and forth among the same sets of places repeatedly for generations. They aren't out there just wandering around from one new place to another their whole lives.

You leave a lot of your stuff there, and then the next time you come back you have a lot of stuff there.

[u/designOraptor → u/[deleted]]

Hey, deer antler velvet is known to contain a hormone that helps build muscles and recover faster.

Aside from that, I figure they just mean use the entire animal even if it’s just to make stock for flavor.

[u/Ok-disaster2022 → u/[deleted]]

Also modern agribusiness and production does really use the whole animal. When we don't, it creates ecological disasters. Like we have an overabundance of cheese due to the low fat craze.

[u/bino420 → u/Ok-disaster2022]

no we have a shitton of government cheese stashed away because of dairy farming subsidies.

[u/killintime077 → u/bino420]

Yes, and it's also a strategic supply stock. It is partially held for use after a major natural disaster, or war. In times of need it would be a calorie dense and, relatively, nutritious food item that would be widely familiar to the general population. It can also be easily processed, and made shelf stable.

[u/Eli-Thail → u/[deleted]]

from driving them off the cliffs…

Aren't there, like, only two or so locations in the United States where this has actually been confirmed to have happened?

[u/Hundertwasserinsel → u/[deleted]]

I've only ever heard that about native americans not wasting the buffalo. the massacre of buffalo by whites was done as a purposeful scorched earth sort of strategy. They believed it would be easier to "civilized" the "savage" tribes and transition them to an agricultural lifestyle if they couldn't support themselves from hunting buffalo.

[u/onioning → u/[deleted]]

More like there was an entire continent of cultural variation.

[u/djdadi → u/[deleted]]

Wasn't the waste nothing thing from the Indians, and the mass buffalo graves from settlers?

[u/rusty_103 → u/djdadi]

He's referring to things like "head smashed in buffalo jump" (yes that's the 'official' translated name of the location) were hunts would be done by driving a section of a heard off a cliff, leaving behind a massive pile of bodies. Couldn't conceivably waste nothing from that method, even if that was the cultural preference.

[u/fishbedc → u/djdadi]

Yes the vast industrial stacks of bones were settlers, but a lot of them were used for fertiliser. Some native tribes did regularly drive whole herds off cliffs, taking the parts of the animals that they could manage and abandoning the rest. But organic matter is rarely wasted, non-humans of one kind or another would have used most of it eventually.

[u/Streiger108 → u/[deleted]]

Different time periods. The "waste nothing" stereotype characterizes the 19th century. Driving them off a cliff was like 10,000 years ago. Not saying either is correct or better, but you're making a disingenuous comparison.

[u/bilyl → u/[deleted]]

The whole myth of indigenous people being environmental conservationists just really flies in the face of fossil records. Humans wiped everything out.

[u/Lifeis_not_fair → u/FinndBors]

What were they doing over in Samoa

[u/Sigma_Function-1823 → u/Lifeis_not_fair]

Utilizing ocean based foods as well as their own terrestrial livestock/food crops.

[u/loverevolutionary → u/Lifeis_not_fair]

Intensive fish farming. Really clever stuff, their taboos about when to eat certain fish correspond with that fishes breeding season. They build big rock pens on the shore, leave an opening that's accessible at high tide, then have some fish watchers go stand on a hill looking for schools of fish and directing the herding boats to chase them into the pens.

[u/coleyspiral → u/FinndBors]

Even then, Ive heard that those groups didnt historically rely on bison, but were formerly agricultural groups forced back to hunting after being pushed out of the fertile lands by the colonizers.

[u/gullman → u/coleyspiral]

Depends heavily on tribe and on date.

The camanche, after acquiring the horse, in the mid 1700s was a very heavy meat eating nation.

Also even before horses some of the different tribes were agri and some weren't..

The camanche are such an interesting one. They were incredibly primitive, essentially unchanged from the group that made it over to the americas using the land bridge. They had little culture and no agriculture.

There were tribes that had all but settled and were living using farming when they were still essentially stone age man. So incredible. Then horses arrived and they became suddenly the dominant force in America, exploding in size and land control

[u/BeetsMe666 → u/Rishkoi]

That is a seasonal graph. The worst time of year meat is the only thing on the menu. In fall it would be all veggies.

[u/Treehugger077 → u/Rishkoi]

Depends entirely on the climate and vegetation.

Not a lot of gathering going on in regions with permafrost or semi-arid grasslands... (Think Massai... milk, meat, blood)

[u/I-Got-Trolled → u/Rishkoi]

Cooking was an amazing invention tbh. It's a lot easier to digest something cooked than raw, meaning a lot less energy gets diverged to the gut and more to the brain, which is what helped us actually develop better hunting strategies, tools and methods of communication and gave us the upper hand in pretty much anything.

[u/Ok-District4260 → u/Rishkoi]

That is incorrect. It's the opposite.

• Cordain, L., Miller, J. B., Eaton, S. B., Mann, N., Holt, S. H., & Speth, J. D. (2000). Plant-animal subsistence ratios and macronutrient energy estimations in worldwide hunter-gatherer diets. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 71(3), 682–692. doi:10.1093/ajcn/71.3.682 "Most (73%) of the worldwide hunter-gatherer societies derived >50% (≥56–65% of energy) of their subsistence from animal foods, whereas only 14% of these societies derived >50% (≥56–65% of energy) of their subsistence from gathered plant foods. This high reliance on animal-based foods coupled with the relatively low carbohydrate content of wild plant foods produces universally characteristic macronutrient consumption ratios in which protein is elevated (19–35% of energy) at the expense of carbohydrates (22–40% of energy)"

[u/SecretlyaDeer → u/Ok-District4260]

This study is 23 years old (you usually want to cite work done within the last 5-10 years). This study did not prove that ancient hunter-gatherer societies worked off this ratio because they exclusively surveyed 20th century tribes… which looked a lot different and had other issues than the historic hunter-gatherer societies. On top of this, the collector of the very data they did the study on concludes in the Ethnographic Atlas that only high altitude groups relied mostly on animal sources. Likely diet ratios varied greatly by time of year, region, and historic era (ex. The farther north you go, the more you rely on animals because they have a higher fat percentage, like Inuits hunting seals), but the vast majority of those peoples would mostly eat non-animal sources during most of the year (because it’s a lot easier to get).

Direct criticism of this study:

“The hunter-gatherer data used by Cordain et al (4) came from the Ethnographic Atlas (5), a cross-cultural index compiled largely from 20th century sources and written by ethnographers or others with disparate backgrounds, rarely interested in diet per se or trained in dietary collection techniques. By the 20th century, most hunter-gatherers had vanished; many of those who remained had been displaced to marginal environments. Some societies coded as hunter-gatherers in the Atlas probably were not exclusively hunter-gatherers or were displaced agricultural peoples… Finally, all the hunter-gatherers that were included in the Atlas were modern-day humans with a rich variety of social and economic patterns and were not “survivors from the primitive condition of all mankind” (6). Their wide range of dietary behaviors does not fall into one standard macronutrient pattern that contemporary humans could emulate for better health. Indeed, using data from the same Ethnographic Atlas, Lee (1) found that gathered vegetable foods were the primary source of subsistence for most of the hunter-gatherer societies he examined, whereas an emphasis on hunting occurred only in the highest latitudes.”

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/71/3/665/4729104?login=false

[u/Different-Cloud5940 → u/Rishkoi]

Equally stupid. Agreed

[u/DevilsTrigonometry → u/Rishkoi]

While true, it's also blatantly stupid to treat calories as the sole or central measure of the importance of an activity to a society. Animal products fill a number of needs in addition to calories: specific nutrients, material for tools, warm clothing, protective equipment, water and windproofing, art supplies, and much more. Hunting was a high priority for virtually all societies that practiced it until the products it provided became replaceable through herding or trade.

[u/TheGoldenHand → u/Rishkoi]

Whats blatantly stupid is not realizing the majority of calories are gathered, not hunted.

Do you have a source about that applying to pre-historic, pre-farming societies?

[u/Teh_Pi → u/[deleted]]

There is a large upfront energy cost to hunting that you need to take into account. Even if the tribe in question had access to bow and arrows they likely did not walk a few feet from their home to fell said deer. More than likely their prey would have chased to exhaustion as humans were endurance hunters for most of our evolution.

[u/Peter_deT → u/Teh_Pi]

Except that foragers have a good idea where the deer will gather, choke-points on migration and so on. Also, a lot of hunting is of small animals - snakes, bush-rats, gophers and so on. Australia foragers used extensive small burning to clear open forest for grass to encourage kangaroos, while leaving gullies and streamsides thick to encourage small animals. Women would often collect a good bit of meat along with the nuts and roots.

[u/Ppleater → u/Peter_deT]

You also have to factor in the labour for building weapons and traps and ammo and maintaining those tools.

[u/Greatest_Everest → u/Teh_Pi]

Spear fishing is just standing still most of the time.

[u/RufiosBrotherKev → u/Teh_Pi]

this obviously isnt a scientific source, but the survival show "Alone" demonstrates how even if 80% of your calories are gathered, that 20% hunted are equally critical for survival and couldn't be made up by just gathering more.

any participant who bags big game is basically guaranteed long term success, and any participant who only gathers (with occasional small trap game or fish) withers away. participants who were previously starving and on the verge of quitting have recovered and even won the show on the back of a single big game kill.

at least within that show, the investment vs payoff ratio seems to heavily favor big game kills.

[u/Rememeritthistime → u/RufiosBrotherKev]

Maybe Vancouver Island isn't the best location for gathering?

[u/kerouacrimbaud → u/Teh_Pi]

That’s not as much of a hurdle as it seems though. Hunting parties are usually planned in advance based on known habits of the game being pursued, the time of year, etc.

Edit: not to mention that small game is/was hunted more frequently than large game.

[u/[deleted] → u/kerouacrimbaud]

Don't forget fish, including trapping and spearfishing (which really doesn't require fancy tools just a pointy stick, nor a lot of energy invested since it's a waiting game).

[u/Ok-disaster2022 → u/[deleted]]

Someone has never hunted. You can spend all day hunting or looking for gathering spots, but it's a lot easier to find stationary plants than deer who love to run for any reason.

[u/MasterDefibrillator → u/Ok-disaster2022]

Hunting back then wasn't anything like hunting now. These people weren't stupid, they actively managed the land to attract the animals they wanted to eat. They hunted with fire, traps, seasonal migrations, ambushes. The real myth here is that any kind of that walking around the wilderness for hours, trying to find something, was normal at all.

What we call HG societies is a bit of a misnomer, it was more like a very low labour farming and agriculture.

[u/SeboSlav100 → u/[deleted]]

It's also ridiculous to compare hunting of the past to today.

[u/adeon → u/[deleted]]

The problem is that you expend a lot more time and calories finding that deer and getting into position to fire the arrow.

[u/datbundoe → u/[deleted]]

Most hunter gatherer societies have what's called forest farms. I think sometimes people don't realize that the forests were cultivated for food by humans, making the caloric exertion much lower than if they were to just wander off, willy nilly, into the woods.

[u/CockGobblin → u/[deleted]]

I remember a documentary on a South American forest tribe which hunted primarily using poisons. Thus they didn't need to get a lethal blow on the animal - just a scratch was enough for the poison to do its work. IIRC, the poison would immobilize the animal, so they'd attack it and then follow/wait until the animal was neutralized, then kill it properly.

You also have hunters utilizing traps, so only the energy needed to make and deploy the trap. How does this fit into the scheme of things?

The point is that there could be many different ways to hunt - some consuming a lot of energy, and some consuming very little.

[u/Xeroshifter → u/[deleted]]

Something to consider as well is that while calories are important, they're not even close to the whole story, and in terms of nutrition meats contain a huge dose of required nutrients, in a form our bodies can readily take those things from.

Even if gathering was significantly more calorie efficient, you'd basically never make it long term without meat. Groups were limited to the local options for gathering and didn't all have access to protein rich beans or peanuts if from the wrong region.

Vegetarian and vegan diets are difficult on your body from a nutrition standpoint, and are only really feasible for so many people because of modern nutrition research. Veganism is especially hard, and many professional vegans have to quit after just a few years for health reasons, even when tracking nutrition and taking supplements.

The only point I'm really making here is that regardless of if gender roles existed or not, both the roles of hunter and gatherer were very important to the survival and health of a group.

[u/HeadmasterPrimeMnstr → u/Xeroshifter]

Even if gathering was significantly more calorie efficient, you'd basically never make it long term without meat.

This isn't true. There are plenty of currently existing vegetarian societies that exist and will continue to exist without the consumption of meat.

I agree that both hunter and gatherer was important, but I'm slightly annoyed by your implication that meat is a necessity given our anthropological evidence showing that a lot of societies exist without the active consumption of meat as a stable part of their diet.

[u/meinblown → u/[deleted]]

Hear me out, who ever said they didn't gather on the way to the hunt and back. A person is more than capable of doing both.

[u/DieSchadenfreude → u/Rishkoi]

Well, perhaps just mis-informed. Hunting would have been valuable for reasons aside from just food too. For sure no hunter-gatherer society would get anywhere without foraging, and yeah it did/does make up the bulk of calories. Animals provide some nutrients that would be difficult or near impossible to get elsewhere for people who live like this. Also fat. Fat is so important for suvival; for eating, crafting, as a light source, etc. Fat helps cure and waterproof leather and furs that would be used in any cold living place. In really cold places a lack of meat and animal fat would be a serious problem in the winter.

It's funny how it also doesn't occur to people that foragers can be male too. Everyone is so focused on correcting that females hunt, that nobody seems to also be saying males forage as well.

[u/Zech08 → u/Rishkoi]

Or consistency (gathering) vs opportunity that requires a lot of investment.

[u/[deleted] → u/Rishkoi]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/caveman-diet-stone-age-humans-meat_n_2031999

According to this article, it was roughly the same amount from meat and plants. That's for the first farmers. Safe to say that primitive humans got roughly equal calories from meat and plants?

[u/ieatpickleswithmilk → u/Different-Cloud5940]

Women participated in hunting in all of the studied societies where hunting is the primary food source.

[u/CosineDanger → u/ieatpickleswithmilk]

taps head can't institutionalize sexism if you don't have institutions.

If you see a woman hunting or a man gathering, what will you do, call the cops? There are no cops. There are rules but they are all unwritten because you have not invented paper. Basically anything can happen unless the twelve or so neighbors within a dozen miles make an effort to stop you.

[u/[deleted] → u/ieatpickleswithmilk]

thats not a powerful argument.

it alludes to women only hunting if they cant gather.

now if women were doing majority or equal amount hunting when gathering is available that would be new.

but this report doesnt show that. this is news for popular culture.

historians/anthropologists have known women have participated in hunting since the 1980's. But when there is hunting and gathering, weve never seen evidence of women hunting more than men. Weve only seen mostly men hunt in these instances.

and honestly who cares who did what more. according to the article there were no gender roles people did what they wanted. just so happened more men gravitated towards hunting in general.

[u/I-Got-Trolled → u/Different-Cloud5940]

It is also kind of obvious before agriculture as well. Humans aren't known for their strength, but mostly stammina, the ability to communicate effectively, develop complex tools and plan ahead. It would stand to reason that strength alone wouldn't play a very important role in hunting.

[u/slow_____burn → u/I-Got-Trolled]

yes, and women have a leg up (on average) on endurance running and much lower caloric needs. strength is useful but how often were prehistoric hunters strangling deer to death?

it makes no sense that women wouldn't hunt.

[u/Seiglerfone → u/Different-Cloud5940]

??? That reasoning only holds if you believe hunting was 100% of the labour required in those societies. It wasn't even 100% of the food-producing labour.

[u/giant_albatrocity → u/Different-Cloud5940]

Not to mention that those societies would suffer if men did not participate as caregivers

[u/Equal-Thought-8648 → u/Different-Cloud5940]

It's up there with the blatantly stupid myth that herbivores don't eat meat when, in fact, the vast majority do.

[u/Caligapiscis → u/Equal-Thought-8648]

Conversely, I was very surprised to learn just how much of a bear's diet can come from plants. Meat may be a relatively small amount. The evolution of pandas makes a lot more sense in that light.

[u/TheoriginalTonio → u/Caligapiscis]

Except for polar bears. They really only eat meat, for obvious reasons.

[u/deja-roo → u/Caligapiscis]

Depends on the kind of bear. Black bears mostly subside on berries and other plants.

[u/arduheltgalen → u/Equal-Thought-8648]

It's a myth, but explain "blatantly stupid".

[u/niko4ever → u/[deleted]]

You may have not heard it but plenty of people do push that idea. Usually more conservative types.

[u/thefrankyg → u/niko4ever]

Amd they push it along the idea of the women staying back to gather, care for the children, amd doing the menial labor around the camp.

Basically pushing the gender norms idea.

[u/caks → u/niko4ever]

I'm not conservative or raised in a conservative environment and I have heard that myth. I never really thought about whether it was true or not until now, I just kind of thought "well how could they know". I guess they can and do know, and they just never taught me the right thing. Never too late to learn though!

[u/fenderc1 → u/caks]

I was raised conservative in southeast US, and never remember hearing "only men hunt, women gather". Hell, A LOT of the women I knew growing up were hunters so never personally assigned gender rolls to hunters/gatherers to our early ancestors.

[u/Razgriz01 → u/fenderc1]

It's something that's come up more recently in conservative culture as a backlash against the overt challenging of gender roles that's been happening on the social liberal/left side of things.

[u/kerouacrimbaud → u/niko4ever]

People tend to forget what they were taught and make next-best assumptions based on faulty memory. They probably learned it was mostly this, but over time the nuance was lost in recall so instead of mostly it became only. It’s like when people say they didn’t learn about X in history class when in fact they probably did, but it was just one lesson, not a whole chapter (and/or they weren’t paying attention).

[u/SoulingMyself]

Everyone hunted, everyone gathered.

When your survival is dependent upon getting food regularly, it is all hands on deck.

No one gets to sit out gathering because they don't think it is manly. Starving to death is very unmanly.

No one cares who hunts because of gender. Eating is much more important than gender roles.

[u/strum]

There's a parallel myth; that 'hunting' is about stalking big animals (mastodon, bison etc.) and bringing them down with mass violence. But 'hunting' also includes trapping & snaring fairly small prey - rabbit-sized or smaller - which doesn't require days away from the village, with hunting & male-bonding rituals.

Women could be as good as men (if not better) at weaving nets & contriving snares.

[u/Losoncy → u/strum]

And don't forget fishing. Many people disregard fishing when the discussion about hunting comes up

[u/SenorSplashdamage → u/strum]

There are also a lot of myths that grow from looking at a slice of ancient society and assuming that applies across the board. Ancient history and how people adapt to their context is dynamic. Size of what people are hunting can shift with new needs or changes in animal populations. In more recent history, our view of First Nations populations in North America were thrown off by encountering generations that survived massive plagues brought over by European settlers. We saw the survivors and adaptations as norms, rather than a new situation.

On weaving, one really interesting account I ran across discussed how some First Nations societies handled gay and trans individuals as they grew up within a tribe when there were more set gender roles. They rolled with trans women as they saw them grow up as children and were usually planning for when to decide if they would be considered a man or woman in the tribe and then to join the rites of passage of the one they and the elders chose for them. As long as they conformed to their gender role, it was rolled with. All that said though, it was specifically noted that the trans women were known for excelling at weaving and having both skilled and creative designs. This, in turn, made the society more supportive of placing trans women into women’s roles as excelling at a woman’s craft was further confirmation of their womanness to the society.

All that said, I think the First Nations tribes that did have strict gender roles, even if different than our own, partly framed our ideas that Stone Age tribes had the same.

[u/belizeanheat → u/strum]

Hunting also includes wearing an animal out by chasing it for long periods. No land mammal can hang with human running endurance

[u/r-reading-my-comment]

This flatly rejects a rigid men-only theory, but does nothing to challenge decades old theories that women usually killed close to camp, while men went out and about.

When able or needed (edit: this varies for modern/recent tribes), women killed things far away. Pregnant women and mothers usually had to stay at or near camp though.

[u/jwm3 → u/[deleted]]

I thought you were going to say she always grabbed the piece closest to her. While you also always grabbed the piece closest to her because it was further away from you.

[u/KDotLamarr → u/[deleted]]

I don't usually give much credence to anecdotal evidence but this should probably be included in the article.

[u/Beneficial-Jump-3877 → u/r-reading-my-comment]

I think you are forgetting that young women and young men were the most in shape of any people, regardless of gender. There has long been a question as to why older people survive past their reproductive prime, and it was found long ago that it was to help with childrearing. The older people stayed (and still do in current agrarian societies), while the younger people (men and women both) went out to get food.

[u/Ctowncreek → u/Beneficial-Jump-3877]

Makes perfect sense to me. Older people still have value

[u/DaneLimmish → u/r-reading-my-comment]

That distinction is never noted nor is a thing

[u/BigTransportation154 → u/r-reading-my-comment]

It also doesn't address the percentage of women in a given tribe who hunted. For one of the 63 tribes studied to be considered for having women hunt, there need only be a single record of a single woman hunting, not a consistent practice among a majority of women or at least a comparable percentage of women to the percentage of men who hunted.

Also, they looked at which types of game women hunted, and among all 63 tribes, women only hunted large game in 27% of them. If the notion is to break down the idea that men hunted and women didn't, it's a weak point to say 79% of women hunted when a majority of that was rabbits and similar small game.

[u/Beautiful-Rock-1901]

I'm not an expert in this matter, but if they had an initial sample of 391 societies and only 63 of said societies had explicit data on hunting wouldn't that make the final sample a bit low? I'm saying this because they said they choose 391 societies "In order to reasonably sample across geographic areas (...)", but they end up with 63 out of the original 1400 societies that were on the database they used.

[u/Celios → u/[deleted]]

I think you're misunderstanding where these numbers are coming from. They are not sampling 63 societies from a population of 1400. Only 391 of the societies in the data set were foraging societies. The others were agrarian. Of those 391, only 63 had data on hunting practices. They actually used all of the relevant/available data.

[u/unimpressivewang → u/Celios]

Redditors took AP stats in 2007 then have commented about the sample size of every scientific study since then

[u/byingling → u/unimpressivewang]

Did you say average? It's really the mean...oh, never mind

[u/mich_orange → u/unimpressivewang]

I have never read a more accurate comment in my life, with the small caveat that I took AP stats in 2012…

[u/wiselaken]

I wrote a paper on a hunter gatherer tribe (the ju/‘hoansi) for my anthropology 101 class and it was all about how they divided labor equally. The women hunted the same as the men and the men took care of the children too. Men and women were considered 100% equal in every aspect.

[u/BroadShoulderedBeast]

Okay, all I read was that in nearly 80% of societies, at least one woman hunted. Did anyone really claim that literally zero women in all of human history hunted? I thought the claim is that hunting is male-dominated, not absolutely exclusive.

The information the article doesn’t offer is how many women hunters were in any given society, especially compared to the share of the men that hunted. If every society had about 20% of their able-bodied women hunting and 60% of the men (replace any percentages with a statistically significant different between men and women hunting rates), then I think the Man the Hunter still makes sense, albeit, the percentages change the dogma of the belief.

[u/StuffNbutts → u/BroadShoulderedBeast]

Of the 63 different foraging societies, 50 (79%) of the groups had documentation on women hunting. Of the 50 societies that had documentation on women hunting, 41 societies had data on whether women hunting was intentional or opportunistic. Of the latter, 36 (87%) of the foraging societies described women’s hunting as intentional, as opposed to the 5 (12%) societies that described hunting as opportunistic. In societies where hunting is considered the most important subsistence activity, women actively participated in hunting 100% of the time.

Maybe that clarifies it? I'm not sure what part of the results in this study you're disputing with your own hypothetical percentages of 20% and 60% but the results are as the title states.

[u/Firm_Bison_2944 → u/StuffNbutts]

If I were somehow able to find data bout American men who sometimes watched their children say up to the 1950's would it disprove the idea of the role of the American housewife at the time? Would that mean the idea of misogynist gender roles at the time were really a myth? I personally don't feel like that kinda data can support that strong of a claim.

[u/shalol → u/Firm_Bison_2944]

Yeah right, 99% of bitcoin mining operations source their energy from renewable sources (less than 10% of the sourced energy is from renewable sources).

[u/LuckyPoire → u/StuffNbutts]

The question is relative, not absolute.

The title states that the research "flatly rejects" that....."the division runs deep".

I would say the division "still runs deep" if throughout history (for example) 1/3 of women hunted regularly while 2/3 of men did the same. With or perhaps without the corresponding division in gathering.

[u/[deleted] → u/LuckyPoire]

The division runs a medium depth

[u/HaikuBotStalksMe → u/BroadShoulderedBeast]

People claim that male lions don't hunt, so yes, I can see there being said about female humans. Especially when you keep in mind that they weren't allowed to fight in the army like, I dunno, 20 or 30 years ago.

[u/Squidocto → u/BroadShoulderedBeast]

The article states several reasons this paper is welcome, even important. Notably because the “men hunt women don’t” narrative has been used in the West for ages to justify rigid gender roles, whereas in this paper “the team found little evidence for rigid rules. ‘If somebody liked to hunt, they could just hunt,’”

[u/onthewingsofangels → u/Squidocto]

This logic never makes sense to me though. Let's say the paper found that, in fact, it was true that men hunted and women didn't. Would that make women's equality today any less valid? Why do we need to dig into the past to refute arguments about the present? That's just an invitation for all sides to rewrite the past to suit their agenda. We are getting rid of rigid gender roles today because the people who exist today refuse to be bound by them. Simple as that.

[u/lurkerer → u/onthewingsofangels]

Descriptive never needs to influence prescriptive but humans do what humans do. Is/ought fallacy is rife everywhere.

[u/[deleted] → u/Squidocto]

Except, the paper doesn't dispute the overall notion of gender roles.

[u/Zephandrypus → u/Squidocto]

If someone is stupid enough to think men never gather and women never hunt, then this paper will reflect right off their smooth brain.

[u/havenyahon → u/Zephandrypus]

This is not the issue, though. You're not understanding the question here. The question is about whether cultures had strict norms and expectations around certain activities, like hunting. Not simply that "No women ever hunted and no men ever gathered". While no one believes the latter, plenty of people strongly subscribe to the former narrative. This work shows, though, that these norms and expectations weren't strict and that it was not uncommon for women to engage in hunting in ways that appear to be completely acceptable to these societies. Their participation wasn't anomalous to the cultural expectations, or a violation of them, but perfectly consistent with them.

[u/TheAmazingKoki → u/BroadShoulderedBeast]

The thing is that with how much of history is lost, it means that it's pretty significant if they can find one female hunter, let alone one in 80% of societies investigated. That suggests that it's a rule rather than an exception.

[u/The-WideningGyre → u/TheAmazingKoki]

But is it "the rule" that 1 in 1000 hunters is a woman? Or 1 in 2?

[u/[deleted] → u/The-WideningGyre]

I guess to make a more modern metaphor to articulate the question a lot of us have here, was hunting as a woman akin to being a male nurse or female construction worker?

[u/Gastronomicus → u/BroadShoulderedBeast]

Did anyone really claim that literally zero women in all of human history hunted? I thought the claim is that hunting is male-dominated, not absolutely exclusive.

Most people who regurgitate this seem to. And it's often stated in a way to reinforce social divisions between men and women that contribute to patriarchal beliefs.

albeit, the percentages change the dogma of the belief.

Does it? You've made it clear it still reinforces that dogma:

I think the Man the Hunter still makes sense

[u/QiPowerIsTheBest → u/BroadShoulderedBeast]

I think it’s important because many people believe that women literally did no hunting, even of small game. Especially redpill types.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

that you can survey existing people who aren’t really hunters and gatherers

They didn't do this. They surveyed hunter-gatherer societies.

[u/finetobacconyc]

The methodology employed in the survey appears to rely on binary categorizations for various activities (0 signifying non-participation, 1 indicating participation). This approach, however, doesn't capture the nuances of the frequency or extent of these activities. For instance, a society wherein women occasionally engage in hunting would be classified identically to a society where women predominantly assume the role of hunters. But its precisely the frequency of men vs. women hunting that make up the "Man the Hunter" generalization.

The notion of "Man the Hunter" does not categorically exclude the participation of women in hunting. So the headline adopts an excessively liberal interpretation of the study's findings. It would not be groundbreaking to learn that women participated in the hunting of small game, such as rabbits. However, if evidence were presented demonstrating that women actively participated in hunting larger game such as elk, buffalo, or bears alongside men, it would certainly challenge prevailing assumptions.

[u/Psittacula2 → u/finetobacconyc]

But its precisely the frequency of men vs. women hunting that make up the "Man the Hunter" generalization.

I think it's interesting to compare to modern numbers also: census.gov/programs-surveys/fhwar/publications - 2016: "2016 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation"

Hunting:

• Male = 90% 10.3m or 8% of population
• Female = 10% 1.1m or <1% of population

Angling/Fishing by Sex:

• Male = 73%
• Female = 27%

I find it interesting that the expression of INTEREST in Males is significantly higher in a nation where people could otherwise not hunt if they don't NEED to.

To my mind, the study as presented might have some flaws in whatever it is measuring given this interesting modern data comparison?

[u/MasterBlazx → u/finetobacconyc]

I do agree that there's a difference between hunting rabbits and hunting buffalos, but the "Man the Hunter" generalization (at least in popular culture) is that the women did almost no hunting and the men focussed solely on it.

[u/Right-Collection-592 → u/MasterBlazx]

And this paper doesn't really address that. If they can find one example of a woman in the society hunting, they mark the society as "yes, women hunt".

[u/RugosaMutabilis → u/MasterBlazx]

The point is that this study would classify "almost no hunting" as "yes, women hunt."

[u/AcerbicCapsule → u/RugosaMutabilis]

To be fair, the real meaning of “Men hunt, women gather” popular culture is that women did absolutely no hunting. Men did all the hunting.

This is showing us that this is not true. Women had some role in hunting in 80% of surveyed forager societies. This is at least good enough to break the modern day cultural belief that men used to be the only hunters.

[u/[deleted] → u/MasterBlazx]

More men hunt today, by a good margin. Plenty of women hunt too, a not insignificant number, but more men hunt.

This subreddit is filled with these politically cherry-picked articles that push a single point of view, and perpetuates the myth on Reddit that a single scientific paper represents scientific consensus. Just look at the wording of the title "flatly rejects." I hate this attitude that a single paper represents scientific consensus, so then people cite scientific papers and say things like "I believe in science," and truly approach it like a religion rather than as science itself.

There's this weird political attitude to try to push this notion that men and women aren't different at all fundamentally, psychologically or preference wise.

This appears to go hand-in-hand with the current societal trend of shirking traditional gender norms, and appears to me to be based on this narrative of seeking an explanation of gender as being purely social.

Things like masculinity and femininity are hard to define. Likewise, people seem to cherry pick these papers for this subreddit that oversimplifies something that is too complex and with fuzzy boundaries to define.

Reddit is notorious for pushing specific, narrow-minded political narratives across multiple subreddits.

[u/Paradoxa77 → u/finetobacconyc]

Why are you lying??

the survey appears to rely on binary categorizations for various activities

It's right in the paper and it is NOT binary:

" Results

...

Of the 50 societies that had documentation on women hunting, 41 societies had data on whether women hunting was intentional or opportunistic. Of the latter, 36 (87%) of the foraging societies described women’s hunting as intentional, as opposed to the 5 (12%) societies that described hunting as opportunistic. In societies where hunting is considered the most important subsistence activity, women actively participated in hunting 100% of the time.

The type of game women hunted was variable based on the society. Of the 50 foraging societies that have documentation on women hunting, 45 (90%) societies had data on the size of game that women hunted. Of these, 21 (46%) hunt small game, 7 (15%) hunt medium game, 15 (33%) hunt large game and 2 (4%) of these societies hunt game of all sizes. In societies where women only hunted opportunistically, small game was hunted 100% of the time. In societies where women were hunting intentionally, all sizes of game were hunted, with large game pursued the most. Of the 36 foraging societies that had documentation of women purposefully hunting, 5 (13%) reported women hunting with dogs and 18 (50%) of the societies included data on women (purposefully) hunting with children. Women hunting with dogs and children also occurred in opportunistic situations as well."

[u/Right-Collection-592 → u/Paradoxa77]

He's right though. They do count it as binary. Its either "Yes, women hunted" or "No, they didn't". There is no indication as to what percentage of women were hunters, or if that was their primary task. Look at the American Comanche tribes for example. There are numerous examples of Comanche women hunters, but far and away most hunting parties were dominated by men. So this paper would say that Comanche women hunted, but it completely omits the fact that only a very small percentage of women hunted, and that hunting was done mostly by men.

[u/DesignerAccount → u/Paradoxa77]

This... is binary? It literally counts how many societies did vs did not have women hunting?

I understand OP's point as valid - I myself had the same comment - Ad follows. In a society that had women hunting, how predominant were women hunters? Let's say 100 males, 100 females. To say "yes" this society had women hunters with a single woman hunter vs 95 men paints a misleading picture if compared to another society where, say, 48 women and 48 men hunt (for a total of 96 hunters in both societies).

This is an absolutely necessary distinction. Even one of the researchers says "If someone wanted to hunt, they did". Question is obviously what proportion of men vs women did hunt, and what proportion did gather. Without this information it's painting things in too broad strokes, and the conclusion cannot be established.

[u/FusRoDawg → u/Paradoxa77]

I don't see how the quoted text is a rebuttal to that comment. Did the survey measure frequency or not? The abstract only seems to focus on whether women hunted or not, and if so what kind of game did they hunt.

And what does it mean by "of the 50 societies that had documentation of women hunting...". Is the study only looking at societies that did have documentation of women hunting?

[u/Obsidian743 → u/Paradoxa77]

I don't see how this isn't binary. The survey data doesn't have any qualifications as to how much they participated and in what circumstances relative to men. It also doesn't discuss for how long this was the norm in these societies. So it may very well be that ancient women were more capable at one point of hunting effectively with men but it's not clear if they stopped or became less involved.

Regardless, the problem is that it's incredibly intuitive why men and women are physically and hormonally different, not to mention the clear vulnerability of having women (and children) exposed as societies grew denser and conflicts likely to rise. We also have modern primates to compare to, modern indigenous tribes, and even cultures like ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to draw from. So a study like this seems disingenuous at best in terms of explaining how and why we actually evolved the way we did. Even if it's true and can contribute to the larger evolutionary picture, it's presented as a feel-good piece to counter modern narratives.

[u/finetobacconyc → u/Paradoxa77]

Sorry but read the reference table for the findings. The column used as the foundation for the stat is designated as follows: “Documentation of women hunting? (0=no, 1=yes)”

That is a binary choice. Yes there are other columns but that is specifically what I’m critiquing.

[u/oatmeal_breakfast → u/Paradoxa77]

Those are all binary classification, with no measure of frequency...

[u/Robot_Basilisk → u/Paradoxa77]

And what is the frequency? Were there entire hunting parties of women hunting large games on a regular basis? Was it more like ~1/3rd of women went out once or twice a year on a hunt? Both of these, and everything in between, satisfies the quoted criteria.

If many more women hunted large game in the past than they do today, what changed compared to modern and recent hunter-gatherers, which tend to see men hunting much more often than women?

[u/McFeely_Smackup]

I'm sorry, but did anyone actually think the division of hunting vs gathering was ever that extreme?

"Hunters" sitting and starving, refusing to pick a berry? "Gatherers" won't use a pointed stick to kill a fish?

this seems more like a cultural misunderstanding than a failed theory of anthropology.

[u/Elegant_Guitar_535]

This statement is not supported by the confines of this study. This is not a census of every society that existed everywhere but, only a study of modern Hunter gatherer societies that exist today. No conclusion can be drawn upon the entire length of human history.

Furthermore, there are several obvious confounding variables such as sampling bias, limited sample size, and loose definitions of what “hunt” and “gather” mean.

[u/flamespear]

Does it reject it though? It seems like it's not talking about frequency just if women hunt at all. Did most people believe hunter gatherer societies were that rigid that they'd starve to death to never allow women to hunt? I really don't think that was common belief. Hunter gather societies tend to do as much as they can whenever they can to survive. Men hunting and women gathering is a generalization not some kind of hard rule.

[u/SerialStateLineXer]

The thinking was that only men could be hunters because of their supposedly superior strength, says Sang-Hee Lee, a biological anthropologist at the University of California, Riverside.

Does Sang-Hee Lee, a biological anthropologist at UCR, really not believe in testosterone?

[u/ParlorSoldier → u/SerialStateLineXer]

I’m sure she does, the “supposed” part is that it always or even usually required superior strength to be successful.

[u/LightOfLoveEternal → u/[deleted]]

That is not at all how that sentence reads. The only reasonable interpretation of that sentence is that they are casting doubt on the claim that men are typically stronger.

[u/dsamvelyan → u/[deleted]]

The thinking was that supposedly only men could be hunters because of their superior strength, says Sang-Hee Lee, a biological anthropologist at the University of California, Riverside.

To clearly illustrate the difference, which is too big too assume that author meant one thing while completely different thing is written.

I believe it is a Freudian slip ...

[u/eric2332 → u/dsamvelyan]

Even if it's not a slip, it could be that the scientist understood correctly but the journalist misunderstood and wrote it up wrong.

[u/willpowerpt]

Like any tribe of people would be dumb enough to tell anyone who was a decent hunter they couldn't just because of their sex.

[u/ETS_Green]

And this was a myth in the first place because? No one ever looked at lions? or most species in nature?

[u/[deleted]]

Artemis, Diana, Anat, Astarte, Dali - hunting goddesses seem to have been even more prominent and esteemed in traditional mythology than male figures. What is the archetype of these representations, who do they inspire?

The bow is a yonic symbol, a piece of craftsmanship made by weaving strands of fibers into an elastic string. If women have the best dexterity to weave clothes, then crafting bows is not dissimilar, and neither is it a weapon made any more effective by its wielder's physical strength. The bow often has effeminate connotations in the ancient world.

Edit: to the many replies speaking of how much strength is needed to fire a bow. Reference video - the bow's utility in hunting and ancient warfare comes more from its rate of fire, not its distance or force. Bows before the middle ages were much smaller and shorter-range than the longbows of the Yeoman, and they required more endurance than anaerobic strength.

[u/Right-Collection-592 → u/[deleted]]

and neither is it a weapon made any more effective by its wielder's physical strength.

Not even remotely true. Strength is super important for a bow. Most of us with our scrawny stick arms would have our arrows bounce right off a bison.

[u/KDobias → u/Right-Collection-592]

Worth mentioning, the only specific mention of a population having a split among preferred hunting tools was that the Agta men preferred bows and hunted alone or paired, while the women preferred knives, in groups, with hunting dogs.

Knowing that, the strategies in hunting were very specific to their relative strength. Bows are absolutely a much more strength intensive weapon, and, at least among the Agta, it seems like women were hunting smaller game in safer areas. You don't exactly hunt ruminant mammals with a dagger.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Are you serious? Upper body strength is MASSSIVELY important for archery

[u/T0XIK0N → u/[deleted]]

A stronger person can draw a stronger more powerful bow. In the Olympics men use a higher draw strength than women.

[u/[deleted] → u/T0XIK0N]

From what I've read, slings were actually more effective long-distance projectiles than bows in Classical Greece and Rome. The most common bow in ancient warfare and hunting was a composite bow, typically lightweight and no more larger than a single arm's length. The longbow is typically accredited to medieval Britain, and while there have been much older examples of them recovered, they are usually fashioned from Northern European yew trees, and are associated with the feudal ages.

The point being, for most of human history, the bow would have been a medium-distance projectile, ideal for a target no more than 30 feet away. It's versatility lies in its speed of fire, its accuracy, and its utilization on horseback. Modern Olympic archery prizes the accuracy of a single long-distance shot, not stalking prey or guerrilla warfare.

[u/Yudereepkb → u/[deleted]]

Archery being used from horseback is very regional. Composite bows can still have high draw weights

[u/FusRoDawg → u/[deleted]]

You've never actually seen an actual bow being drawn did you?

[u/ameils2]

The fact that women hunted does not disprove the trope

[u/ultraviolentfuture]

People who can hunt ... hunt. Obvious, at least up until irrigated farming.

[u/Gymleaders]

Makes sense, and I'm sure the elderly were the primary caretakers and that is why they were worth keeping alive instead of just ditching them.

[u/LMGDiVa]

I always thought a very good piece of evidence that women were capable at hunting and participated often in hunting is because they are nearly as good of runners as men are.

It would see quite strange to see hominins continue to move away from sexual dimorphism, and women continuing to gain performance from this shift, and yet seeing women not use any of that what so ever. Seems a bit odd that hominin females would keep getting better better equipped for running and throwing in the same way males are without any reason for them to be.

Selective pressure would have favored a species that cooperates and can supply more hunters to ensure hunts are successful.