As an indigenous Canadian I can confirm this.
Both of my parents were born and raised in the wilderness. I don’t mean that they were born in a modern hospital and later raised in the bush. They were born in the 40s in a teepee with the help of traditional midwives.
Dad was a great hunter and trapper and did all the things you could imagine a hunter and gatherer could do.
Mom did the same as well, not as much or as well as dad but good enough to survive on her own or with children. She hunted birds, fished and could bring down gut clean prepare butcher moose, caribou, bear, wolf, lynx and any other large animal if she had to … when she was a young woman that is. She could also travel, walk, snowshoe, use dog team, paddle a canoe, portage, sail, and survive alone in the bush for weeks or months on her own. In her prime, she was a far better hunter and gatherer than most men I know now including myself.
It only makes sense … prehistoric hunters and gatherers didn’t sit around and relegate women to only do certain things. Everyone no matter what gender had to be capable of doing everything in order to ensure and secure the survival of everyone.
Early enough in human history we weren’t even relying on weapons to hunt as much as the fact that despite not having as high of a top speed as our prey, we could literally chase them until they died of exhaustion, that doesn’t seem like gender would make too much of a difference in it. We all get out ran by prey in the short term, and we all have the stamina and speed to catch up.
Stamina and precision are universal human traits, yep. Nobody can toss a rock and then run a marathon like an angry hairless ape
Whether that hairless ape was a man or woman also didn’t matter.
Aerodynamics change very little, yep
Whether that hairless ape was a man or woman also didn’t matter.
Yep, and we can all look at verifiable evidence like professional sports and Olympic records to show…oh, wait a second…
Ok let’s forget that indisputable evidence for a sec…We can look at scientific analysis of dug up remains to see what their body types and structures were like an…d…uh… Huh.
Ok denying all that open-shut evidence, let’s study endocrinology and loo…fuck.
Literally just walk down animals and eat them, like a paleolithic terminator. We could carry water and possibly some jerry/nuts, so could literally go for days without stopping.
Horses can gallop for like a mile or two and maybe go for like 20 without stopping.
And we have tracking abilities. There was some meme about that paleolithic terminator thing. Like an animal would see these weird naked apes in the distance and that’s it, they’re done. Doesn’t matter if they run or not, death is coming.
And we definitely still have that ability, physically.
Check this out.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Young_(athlete)
Albert Ernest Clifford Young OAM (8 February 1922[1] – 2 November 2003[2]) was an Australian[2] athlete from Beech Forest, Victoria. A farmer, he became notable for his unexpected win of the inaugural Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon in 1983 at 61 years of age.[3][4]
In 1983, now aged 61 years old, Young won the inaugural Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon, a distance of 875 kilometres (544 mi). The race was run between what were then Australia’s two largest Westfield shopping centres: Westfield Parramatta in Sydney and Westfield Doncaster in Melbourne.[8] Young arrived to compete in overalls and work boots, without his dentures (later saying that they rattled when he ran).[9] He ran at a slow and loping pace and trailed the pack by a large margin at the end of the first day. While the other competitors stopped to sleep for six hours, Young kept running. He ran continuously for five days, taking the lead during the first night and eventually winning by 10 hours. Before running the race, he had told the press that he had previously run for two to three days straight rounding up sheep in gumboots.[10] He said afterwards that during the race he imagined he was running after sheep trying to outrun a storm. The Westfield run took him five days, fifteen hours and four minutes,[1] almost two days faster than the previous record for any run between Sydney and Melbourne, at an average speed of 6.5 kilometres per hour (4.0 mph).
And what a sportsman:
All six competitors who finished the race broke the old record. Upon being awarded the prize of A$10,000 (equivalent to $36,011 in 2022), Young said that he did not know there was a prize and that he felt bad accepting it, as each of the other five runners who finished had worked as hard as he did—so he split the money equally between them, keeping none.[11] Despite attempting the event again in later years, Young was unable to repeat this performance or claim victory again.
All thanks to the wonderful muscles of the human ass. I can’t help but laugh sometimes.
All at the cost of having to wipe those cheeks
Huh. Can’t help but wonder if this is connected to why a significant amount of people find asses sexually attractive across gender lines - something about signs of a good persistance hunter (likely quite overstated by base monkey brain), and therefore ability to provide for spawn.
Probably not, but makes ya think. I also accept that I’m thinking about it from a heteronormative, sex as biological imperative for spreading genes POV - so limited and overall probably wrong.
It’s probably because the sexual organs are located there
Dude very literally had ass for days
Ayo fellow Canadians here though not indigenous. Thanks for sharing your story!
It makes me sad how overlooked the stories and lessons of the indigenous people are in Canada and the discrimination still present to this day.
Absolutely badass. Crazy to think that folks just a coupla generations up from us had lives without modern medicine and stuff (eg birth in a teepee!) Incredible. I guess sometimes it feels like modern medicine has been around longer than it has.
Best comment on this thread
Also, amazing life
I think this is just whitewashing history… Even if you look to the ancient Western world, they had goddesses like Artemis
Generally, men fought wars. Like a lion pride - the males are the defenders because they’re bigger and stronger. Hunting doesn’t require raw strength - it requires diligence, patience, and/or endurance
But they all hunt. Lionesses are known for it, but lions do it too. Complete division of responsibilities is an insect thing
I’ll bet she couldn’t carry as much meat as a man tho.
I’ll bet she could carry more meat than you.
Don’t be so sure, I can carry a lot of meat.
This study this meme is based on is completely incorrect and should be retracted. Here’s a lay summary of its issues:
And the published article detailing the problems with that study’s issues:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513824000497
I remember reading this simply terrible article in Scientific American; the entire article was based on this research paper referred to the meme above.
The paper was a complete fraud, and people just guzzled the cool-aid. He’ll they still do, looking at this thread.
I refuted this article when it was published based on their incredibly biased and cherry picked data sources which were entirely baseless.
I wish more people were willing to apply critical thinking and analysis to such claims. All falsified claims are a setback and detriment to humankind’s comprehension of the universe.
To say it’s “completely incorrect” is an exaggeration at best. The paper you cited is far more nuanced than that.
A bit of an exaggeration, sure. But only a bit. The lay summary of the article I referenced states the following:
Venkataraman et al. find that the paper commits every error that it was possible to make in the paper: leaving out important papers, including irrelevant papers, using duplicate papers, mis-coding their societies, getting the wrong values for “big” versus “small” game, and many others.
“commits every error that it was possible to make in the paper,” and, “completely incorrect,” aren’t very different.
So you’re saying women are capable of taking out the garbage and recycling?
I should tell my girlfriend this news!
deleted by creator
I hate to break it to you, but She-Ra is less about hunter gatherers and more about interstellar empires with magitech
don’t forget evil wizards
I’m gonna use that saying, lol
anyone who tries to claim there was any absolute standard of behavior for pre-industrial tribes like that is just doing fantasy worldbuilding
Every social organization you can think of was probably the way of life for someone out there, from patriarchy to matriarchy, communal to hierarchical
I wonder whether there was an infantarchal society where they took direction from toddlers. I suppose they wouldn’t have lasted very long if they did exist…
Pharaoh Tut was nine when he ascended to the throne, I’m sure it’s happened to younger people.
Edit: John I of France reined from his birth until his death five days later. Bummer.
That’s so ageist.
There was this group that had a teenager as a prophet. She ordered to sacrifice all the cattle to the gods. They all starved.
Search for Nongqawuse
Those aren’t an ancient but a modern phenomenon :p
You’re describing monarchies lmaooo
I urge everyone to look up the book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. The cultural patriarchy is crazy.
Nobody questions how archeology is influenced by contemporary culture. When archeologists find a grave and goes “the body is buried with weapons and a shield, therefore it must be a warrior and thus a man. And they still fucking note how it’s weird that this definitely-a-man is smaller than other men from this culture, and his hips are wide, almost like a woman… But he’s a dude, he’s got weapons after all!” smh
Did women also hunt? Yes.
“As much as men”?
No, beyond any shadow of doubt. Stop trying to white wash over history and verifiable evidence to try and push your personal agenda of stoking culture-wars.
Unless we’re talking about tribes where the men took care of the children, the above statement is exaggerated at best and borders on anti-history/anti-anthropology nonsense at worst.
You might as well post that the men spent as much time taking care of the children than the women. And if you can admit that is false for the majority of human history, then you can clearly see how this being false also disqualifies the “women spent as much time hunting” statement.
Again, there is no debate on the fact that many women were great hunters and not just gatherers, but you also can’t deny that most of the women took care of the kids.
Looks like I took the bait, didn’t I…smh lol
What if I were to tell you that the word “some” was implied instead of the “all” that you decided was the implication instead?
Edit: understood the misunderstanding. I read the meme as “All”, instead of “some”.
deleted by creator
Yeaaah… the whole “We were matriarchs!” myth…
deleted by creator
Do you have a link to that evidence? I remember reading a while back about a find in South America that had female hunters but would be interested in reading more evidence about it being widespread.
One of the original supporting data sources was a myth of the Ainu people containing a woman who hunted.
If you want biased and unscientific sources keep digging into their claims.
I thought everyone knew this. Tasks based on sex were not so prevalent until high cultures formed and people started settling down instead of being nomadic.
Not just nomadic. Many sedentary societies lack strong gender divisions in labor as well.
You can downvote me and science, but wake me up if you come up with a real argument disputing the entire field of endocrinology, molecular biology, and the rest of biology by extension. Not to mention archeology and anthropology.
At the very simplest way to understand, you do know the difference between testosterone and estrogen, and their biological mechanisms, correct? Rhetorical.
It’s the anthropology that proves the claim.
Tell us more about your opinions on high school biology and how no woman ever hunted as much as men in her culture.
Edit: edited out my petty comment directed towards a miscommunication that is now resolved.
So you agree with the meme, great.
(I thought) the meme implies all women. Oh I understand your other comment now. My comment is only valid if the meme implied all women, and i had no malicious intent.
If reading as “some”, then yes I fully agree. I guess it depends who is reading it, and I’m assuming it was written that way by design, to get people like us to fight over a misunderstanding.
Sending good vibes🤙
Edit: (I thought)
Tasks based on sex were not so prevalent until high cultures formed…
Like being pregnant and giving birth (as many times as possible), breastfeeding, and raising those same infants while the men are doing tasks that are unfeasible for pregnant breastfeeding women taking care of infants?, like hunting, building shelters and going to war, among other things? (Which some women did, but the majority did not)
Oh, ya ya, for sure. A lot of people in this thread seem to be sharing the same anti-anthropology delusion. Which is very concerning but not surprising in the age of misinformation. More culture-war BS.
Anthropology tends to support the fact that women and men pretty much all had equal share of pretty much every task in the palaeolithic and neolithic eras.
You shouldn’t just reject scientific advances because it goes against what you learned at school. What you learned was wrong. Science adapts based on new evidence. You can too.
deleted by creator
Men definitely did more hunting then woman in most of human history lmao you are insane
prove it
Men are faster and stronger. Men don’t spend a good portion of their lives growing children and breastfeeding them. So more free time to hunt. Men’s eyesight is literally better at picking up motion than woman’s and men have better reflex’s and hand eye coordination. Men outperform woman in almost all aspents of what it takes to be a great hunter back in the early human days.
deleted by creator
Insert pic of Arnie giving birth
You really like that therapy line huh. Look there is a reason we have womans and men’s divisions in sports. Men would destroy the woman at almost all sports. If your fragile femininity cannot handle that, I recommend therapy. This has nothing to do with my masculinity and everything to with science and results. Sorry it doesn’t work out the way you want it to. Again. Therapy.
Edit: word
Actually, the history of why women divisions arose in sports is far more nuanced than you seem to believe. The main reasons for doing so were primarily rooted in sexism. Historical records show that women were able to compete with, and win against, men in sporting events during the early middle ages.
Anyways, I see there’s no reasoning with you, so I hope you have a pleasant evening
What are you even looking at records from the middle ages for? Humans haven’t changed that much since then lmao. All we have to do is look at records from today. And guess what? Across the board men perform at a way higher level in almost all sports and physical activities. What makes you think the reason for different divisions was sexism? if the woman could compete with the men society would let them. Especially nowadays, why don’t you see men’s vs woman’s hockey on TV? Because it would be boring, the men would beat the woman everytime it wouldn’t even be fair. This is a really hard pill for you to swallow isn’t it?
And looking at you comment history it doesn’t look like you have any personal experience being athletic in the slightest, let alone being near the top in a given sport. You are disabled and can’t stand without sever pain. I have been an athlete my entire life and so have my sisters. Guess what? I can destroy every one of my sisters at every sport and it’s not even close. And they aren’t couch slobs, they play sports at a very high level, they just play against other woman. They know they don’t stand a chance against the men. We’re two very different things when it comes to physical ability.
THIS IS A GROUP EFFORT, PEOPLE!
Its almost as if people need to be flexible to stay alive
No, you don’t understand, this is all communist propaganda! /j
Yes, octomom has a baby.
My mom would puke at these, even I feel some nausea. It just was such a horrible time to be alive. I wouldn’t wish these times on my worst enemy
Would be a nice plot twist, but do you habe any sources for your claim? If this is real I would like to know more
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10306201/
This paper has a lot of back and forth. Another commenter posted a rebuttal.
Don’t spread it around. It’s a complete fraud of a paper for all we know. Just the fact that it has convincing rebuttals is enough to make you consider it irrelevant.
It’s not a fraud. Science isn’t black and white. Discussing things is a good thing. It’s still peer reviewed and not retracted in a decent journal. Not everyone dismisses it. The authors have responded to some of the criticisms by publishing additional information in the linked “correction” (functions like an attachment added later). Science is a conversation.
No, you’re thinking of philosophy. Philosophy is a discussion. Science is a process. Just the fact that they are being accused of being misleading and outright falsyfyiing evidence is enough to simply ignore their purported results until they can produce a paper that fixes all those problems.
It’s not a discussion whether we can agree on something. The evidence should do the only talking.
Check out “The Dawn of Everything” by Wengrow and Graeber
Different point of view on your “source”, which is a mass market paperback made to sell and be consumed, not for serious scientific inquiry.
This author is a crackpot that also went after Chomsky. Chomsky had a hilarious rebuttal from what I remember. He really has a thing for anarchists. I’ll trust these critics more when they do published rebuttals. I’m pretty sure several chapters in this book were published in some journals.
Yeah it’s a summary work that draws on decades of research. Both of these authors are extremely well-published in their respective fields. I’m like a third of the way through Dawn of Everything and it’s just as academic as “Debt” was, and neither are mass-market pulp. But work like this always draws hit pieces because it’s a way for critics to get their name out there.
Yeah, that critic made a career on doing hit pieces. I also find it unconvincing lmao.
What I find interesting about this article is that it critiques heavily about the first 200 pages, says almost nothing about the next 600, and then says the conclusion is unsatisfactory because it didn’t quote the book the author wrote in 1991. It’s transparently personal.
Academics write books. Get over it.
In any way all of those are just speculations, it’s very hard to be sure about anything when you go more than 10000 years back in time, all I know is that in school they teach mostly lies
Oh yeah? Then why am I always angry at everyone all the time?!
Boom. Scienced!
\s
