Old Ideas Upended: Women’s Roles in Hunter/Gatherer Cultures
A lot of the images in older history books just aren’t accurate anymore. We’ve long known that the images of Native American as lone hunters get in the way of the complex cities, trade routs, and engineering accomplishments that occupied the Americas for thousands of years.
Likewise older notions of what “cavemen” did are out of date. Recently, the dusty old idea that in prehistory times hunting and gathering were gendered activities. Turns out that isn’t the case. Here’s more from Phys.Org:
For a long time, it was assumed that hunting in prehistoric societies was primarily carried out by men. Now a new studyadds to a body of evidence challenging this idea. The research reports the discovery of a female body, buried alongside hunting tools, in the Americas some 9,000 years ago.
The woman, discovered in the Andean highlands, was dubbed Wilamaya Patjxa individual 6, or “WPI6.” She was found with her legs in a semi-flexed position, with the collection of stone tools placed carefully next to them. These included projectile points—tools that were likely used to tip lightweight spears thrown with an atlatl (also called a spear thrower). The authors argue that such projectile points were used for hunting large animals.
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