An excavation from the Andean Highlands in Peru of the remains of a woman reveals that hunting tools were buried alongside her. The tools recovered include six stone projectiles and 24 other stone artifacts
this whole thing is weird, seems just like a dumb headline. of course a woman could hunt. that doesn't mean division of labor didn't exist, it does in basically every very early society, even hunter gatherers. the idea that not hunting means they're useless is really REALLY stupid tho. The women basically do ALL of the work, the men just hunt and chill when not hunting. The hunting doesn't even bring in all that much food for modern San people (probably the closest thing to ancient humans that exists), though it's probably safe to assume that in ancient periods this was likely not the case.
It's a pretty basic idea, the more expendable and larger members of the group go and do the dangerous activities that usually result in lots of good food, while the more important members stay at home to prepare food and gather plant foodstuffs (which almost always accounts for a majority of the food outside the big game hunting communities).
this whole thing is weird, seems just like a dumb headline. of course a woman could hunt. that doesn't mean division of labor didn't exist, it does in basically every very early society, even hunter gatherers. the idea that not hunting means they're useless is really REALLY stupid tho. The women basically do ALL of the work, the men just hunt and chill when not hunting. The hunting doesn't even bring in all that much food for modern San people (probably the closest thing to ancient humans that exists), though it's probably safe to assume that in ancient periods this was likely not the case.
It's a pretty basic idea, the more expendable and larger members of the group go and do the dangerous activities that usually result in lots of good food, while the more important members stay at home to prepare food and gather plant foodstuffs (which almost always accounts for a majority of the food outside the big game hunting communities).