Have you ever heard that in ancient societies, men were the hunters and women were the gatherers?
This idea says that while men hunted for meat, women collected fruits, vegetables, and other plant-based foods.
But a new study published on June 28, 2023, turns this belief upside down.
Abigail Anderson from Seattle Pacific University and her team decided to look into this concept.
They delved into the past 100 years of information from 63 societies around the world where people still hunt and gather for their food. The societies they studied span continents from North and South America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and even islands in the Pacific Ocean.
What they found is groundbreaking! Women were not just gatherers; in fact, they were hunters in 79% of these societies.
And guess what? This didn’t change even when they became moms. They discovered that over 70% of the time, women intentionally hunted animals, instead of just stumbling upon them while doing something else.
Women weren’t just hunting small game, but also going after the big ones.
The study also shed light on how women play a key role in teaching others how to hunt. It even revealed that women used a more diverse range of weapons and hunting strategies compared to men.
The research by Anderson and her team suggests that the traditional idea of men as hunters and women as gatherers is far from accurate.
It also points out that such stereotypes have affected how archaeologists interpret past societies. For instance, some scientists have been hesitant to identify objects buried with women as hunting tools.
This groundbreaking study calls for a reassessment of such evidence and warns against applying the outdated ‘men as hunters and women as gatherers’ concept to future research.
Anderson and her team concluded, “Evidence from around the world shows that women participate in subsistence hunting in the majority of cultures.”
So, the next time you picture a hunter-gatherer society, don’t forget to include women among the hunters!
