Woman the Hunter

[PaleoPhil]

Recent research has found that, not only did Paleolithic hominids (including homo sapiens) and even chimps hunt effectively, but even females of these species may have done more hunting than was assumed. Among chimps, females appear in early research to be MORE aggressive and effective in at least one type of hunting (for bushbabies), and teach their hunting techniques to the younger chimps.

Female chimps move to fore in hunting.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Female+chimps+move+to+fore+in+hunting.(Tools+for+Prey)-a0160812407

"Woman the Hunter: The Agta"
Agnes Estioko-Griffin and P. Bion Griffin
http://www.ndnu.edu/about-us/mission_diversity/documents/Estioko-Griffin-WomantheHuntertheAgta.pdf
"in contradiction of one of the sacred canons of anthropology, [Agta] women in one area [of northeastern Luzon in the Philippines] frequently hunt game animals. They also fish in the rivers with the men and barter with lowland Filipinos for goods and services."

Extensive Female hunting by some Agta appears to be an adaptation to their environment:
"1) Many Agta never heard of women hunters
2) Female Agta hunters hunt close to camp (<10 km)
3) Women use dogs
4) Many women hunters were
sterile or post-reproductive
5) Carbohydrate roots were sparse and unprofitable"
From: "Lecture 6: Sexual Division of Labor, ANTH 129MG (Winter 2008): Behavioral ecology of hunter-gatherers,"
Dr. Michael Gurven, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California-Santa Barbarahttp://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~sangin/HBE/hglect6.pdf

Stone Age feminism? Females joining hunt may explain Neanderthals' end
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2007/11/10/stone_age_feminism/

"Female Hunters in the Pleistocene?", Christopher H. Boehm, Director of the Jane Goodall Research Center, Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences, Society for Scientific Anthropology, Talk/Oral Presentation, New Orleans, 2008 

[goodsamaritan]

Well, I've always thought that "man the hunter" meant "humans as a whole as a hunter."

[PaleoPhil]

Well, it is true that females were always acknowledged as part-time hunters of small game through setting of traps and what not, but it appears they may have done somewhat more than they were given credit for, and they are also starting to get more credit for the important supplementary role of the small-game hunting that they were acknowledged to do. Small game hunting is still hunting, after all, though it does produce less food per kill and less nutritious fat than big game.

Males do appear to be better adapted to big-game hunting, which requires more far-sight vision than small-game trapping and gathering. [See "Hunter gatherer brains make men and women see things differently: Men and women see things differently because of ancient hunter-gatherer programming in their brains, research suggests." Published: 7:00AM BST 30 Jul 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5934226/Hunter-gatherer-brains-make-men-and-women-see-things-differently.html]

[PaleoPhil]

Here's a shout-out for all the hunter gals out there:

Woman on the Hunt
Journeyman Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vPzA5fLaw0&feature=channel

"The feeling I get, when aiming at an animal is indescribable. I don't notice anything else around me. I'm in my own world. To analyze this would destroy the magic." --Anna Mathis, a forest engineer and hunter from Scuol in the Egadin,

"I think back to earlier times, when man was a hunter-gatherer." --Pirmina Nay-Caminada, ornithologist and hunter

[TylerDurden]

This isn't, IMO, a zero-carb theme really, it's more about cultural palaeo practices, so I'll move it into off-topic where it belongs.

*I should add that any claims re women being largely hunters are fraught with difficulty(for example it's been shown that women have instinctual fear of creepy-crawlies(eg:- spiders,snakes etc.) because, when they went gathering for plant-food, it was these very same creatures they came into close contact with on a daily basis - men, on the other hand, do not have such residual instincts given their large-game hunting).

Another point as raised in the Neanderthal comment(though I strongly suspect that there is a better explanation for their extinction such as intermarriage with humans etc.) is that using females for hunting is a very poor way to survive as it exposes women to a much higher risk of death. Having some men killed in battle with large prey doesn't harm the tribe unduly, but if women die, then there are far more serious consequences re falling birth-rate not keeping up the numbers). Simply put, it seems such a strong instinct in males to protect the females for various reasons re childcare etc.  that it would not be a characteristic of palaeo tribes.

[PaleoPhil]

Yes, women's (and children's) hunting duties have always been assumed to be the lower-risk ones and tend to be closer to the camp, such as setting snares, hunting smaller and less dangerous game like rabbits and turtles, or participating in directing/herding animals toward the hunters/cliff/trap/etc. The women in that video are more into what are traditionally regarded as the male hunting roles. I thought it was interesting, though because it challenged some of these basic assumptions about hunting roles that you and I hold. That doesn't mean the traditional roles didn't exist by any means, but it does at least raise the interesting possibility that maybe they weren't followed 100% always and everywhere. Of course, these are modern women with modern attitudes, so they may be complete outliers. It's also fair to consider that even if women never hunted, that shouldn't mean they can't hunt today. So here's more power to them!

During the golden age of megafauna, when massive animals with large stores of fat were plentiful, I'm guessing that women and children participated in the obtaining and processing of meat than today's hunter gatherers who must rely more on plants (other than whatever remnants are still mostly hunting). The remaining traditional practices of the Inuit may give a glimpse of what it was like in those days. I've seen documentaries on Inuits/Eskimos, and the women and children took part in the processing of the whales and the children did low-risk hunting like using sling shots on seagulls. When meat is the mainstay, the women and children are bound to be involved in it somehow, even if mostly in the processing of it.