A new study rebukes notion that only men were hunters in ancient times. It found little evidence to support the idea that roles were assigned specifically to each sex. Women were not only physically capable of being hunters, but there is little evidence to support that they were not hunting.
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Posted in r/science by u/mvea • 1,198 points and 306 comments

They're mostly getting dunked on, but they're wriggling around all over the thread raging about science being made "political."

wojak-nooo frothingfash pit clown-to-clown-communication clown-to-clown-conversation grill-broke elmofire Bwaaa NOOOOO

  • happybadger [he/him]
    ·
    8 months ago

    In Braiding Sweetgrass the author mentions this Native American tribe where hunting is predominantly done by men but is only taught to boys by grandmothers. They de-masculinise it so that it doesn't become a toxic competition for male virtues. Instead it's taught as doing a hard but necessary thing in the context of stewardship and reciprocity for the land. They're also learning the plants from the predominantly female gatherers since that's necessary information when you're away from camp. Segregating information based on sex only makes sense if one side is so disproportionately powerful that they think they can completely subjugate the other. That's stupid when you have a limited number of hands and a set number of tasks required to survive.

    • ChaosMaterialist [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      That's stupid when you have a limited number of hands and a set number of tasks required to survive.

      graeber Fragments

      violence, particularly structural violence, where all the power is on one side, creates ignorance. If you have the power to hit people over the head whenever you want, you don’t have to trouble yourself too much figuring out what they think is going on, and therefore, generally speaking, you don’t. Hence the sure-fire way to simplify social arrangements, to ignore the incredibly complex play of perspectives, passions, insights, desires, and mutual understandings that human life is really made of, is to make a rule and threaten to attack anyone who breaks it. This is why violence has always been the favored recourse of the stupid: it is the one form of stupidity to which it is almost impossible to come up with an intelligent response. It is also of course the basis of the state.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        8 months ago

        This is why violence has always been the favored recourse of the stupid: it is the one form of stupidity to which it is almost impossible to come up with an intelligent response. It is also of course the basis of the state.

        This resonates all the way to the USMC where they celebrate the crayon eating meme/joke as a personal identifier.

    • Poogona [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      Unto Others has a section in it that has always stuck with me about division of labor in large groups vs small ones. Members of small groups tend towards being jacks of all trades, and their roles and duties look very similar to one another, and few functional distinctions can be made between them because anyone might have to do anything at any time. Large groups have a lot more specialization of labor within their structure.

      It's not specifically a book about humans, more of a dry text about the evolutionary theories surrounding altruism. Humans demonstrate it well, but it's a dynamic that other social animals like ants demonstrate too.

      • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
        ·
        8 months ago

        Pretty much this. When you're in a small band or tribe it's "all hands on deck" all the time. There might be lowered expectations of the young and the old but everyone does something to benefit the group.