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Published Monday, November 23, 2020
Prehistoric women's job: Cook, wash,
dress kids and kill dinner,
researcher says
By Jay Brodell
Women all over the world, including in Costa Rica, complain about the so-called second shift. After they finish their day job, they face cleaning, cooking and child rearing at home.
A recent scientific article suggests this situation may not just be a condition of modern life. Archaeological researchers reported this month that the burial of a young woman in Perú suggests that women also participated in big game hunting, something that had been thought to be a mostly male occupation.
The woman, 17 to 19, lived about 9,000 years ago in the Andean highland. Unexpectedly archaeologists found along with her a hunter's tool kit that included stone projectile points. The site also showed that Andean deer, vicuña and a species of camel were part of the local diet, according to the report printed in Science Advances, an online publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. There were seven authors, and in lead position was Randall Haas of the University of California at Davis.
The report received a lot of publicity, perhaps because it suggests an early form of gender equality. The researchers also studied 429 additional burials in the Americas at 107 sites from about the same period. None was in Costa Rica. Of these burials, 11 of the individuals were identified as female, said the report. They were among the 27 individuals whose graves contained big game hunting materials, it said.
“The sample is sufficient to warrant the conclusion that female participation in early big-game hunting was likely nontrivial,” the report read.
Until now, the general theory among archaeologists was that Stone Age women generally did domestic chores while the men were the hunters. That is the gender roles now in the few hunter-gatherer societies that still exist.
The report notes, however, that “Early subsistence economies that emphasized big game would have encouraged participation from all able individuals.” Women could easily drive wild animals in a hunt, and the spear-throwing could easily be handled even by pre-teens of both genders, it added.
As is true with most archaeological research, there are few certainties. Although the report concludes that some women in that era were hunters, there is no guarantee that the presence of items in a grave means the individual used the tools in an expected fashion, as the report notes.
In addition, the report notes that determining the sex of the long-dead is difficult, although in the Peruvian case scientists were able to radiocarbon date the remains and perform other scientific tests. An occupant of another grave at the same site was identified as a male.
Women have been warriors, as one Viking burial showed. The leader of an anti-Roman uprising by the Celts in Britain, Boudica, was a woman, and the warrior women known as Amazons are cited in ancient literature.
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Editor's note: Mr. Brodell, founder and long-time editor of A.M. Costa Rica, can be reached at: jay@amcostarica.com
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