Female Hunters May Have Been More Common Than We Thought in Prehistoric Times — And Here’s What Scientists Found

For decades, our understanding of hunter-gatherer societies is that men hunted while the women stayed nearby to gather some plants or other types of resources, and took care of the children. However, new research that combines burial evidence, physiology, and ethnography is suggesting otherwise.

The findings suggest that the prehistoric women may have hunted as often as men, where in some cases they were discovered to possess the same tools as men to defeat large animals like mammoths or smaller ones like deer. This is a study that will challenge the stereotype that may not have existed as strictly as we thought they are thousands of years ago.

Revisiting the “Woman the Gatherer” Myth

For almost sixty years, scientists have lamented the rigid idea about the sexual division of tasks between men and women. Men who are more commonly stronger and faster hunted big game, while women gathered resources from their environment and took care of their offspring.

But critics now argue that these may have been brought by cultural values and tradition over the last few thousand years. In other words, the idea could be a cultural bias instead of a historical fact because recent data suggests little to no evidence of women being excluded from the hunt.

Additionally, interdisciplinary scholars like Sarah Lacy and Cara Ocobock demonstrated that female physiology favors endurance-based tasks. This showcases their abilities to support long-distance pursuit during persistence hunting, a type of hunting that relies on humans’ abilities to exhaust their prey before putting them down.

Read more: American Anthropologist

Female Burial Findings Rewrite the Record

Research Suggests Women Also Hunted 9,000 Years Ago

The most valid evidence scientists have aside from physiology is the prehistoric burials from different places across the world. There is a site in Peru, Wilamaya Patjxa, that contains a female skeleton interred with projectile points and butchering tools. These findings suggest that she may have been a big-game hunter, targeting large mammals like mammoths.

However, this particular burial discovery is just one part of a broader pattern that anthropologists have begun to observe. An example would be from 27 burials of prehistoric men and women with weapons, 11 were female, implying that 30–50% of large-game hunters may have been women.

Why Women Might Have Been Effective Hunters

There was a hunting method called persistence hunting created by early humans who did not have the strength or the burst of speed to take down a giant animal like a mammoth or speedy antelopes. Evolutionary data showcase that estrogen-driven metabolism and muscle usage suited this model and not just brute force, which are commonly attributed to men.

However, what scientists are clearly saying here is that women are not completely excluded from any type of hunt. The ancient humans most likely worked together complementarily as males and females to ensure a successful hunt and gathering of food. Men could have been in charge of larger animals, while women participated in small‑game hunting and tracking.

Read more: Phys.org

Critiques & Why It Still Matters

Despite the new studies and evidence, scientists urge that we should not be quick to replace the older models entirely. There could have been some errors, like overstating the frequency of women hunting and misinterpretations of ethnography.

Still, the conclusion is that we are discovering a growing number of evidence that imply the gender roles are not as strict as we thought it was. The men’s and women’s responsibilities could have been more flexible, adapting based on what is needed to survive in their specific environment and circumstances.

Prehistoric women were skilled hunters, new study finds.

Author's Final Thoughts

The idea that men are hunters and women are gatherers may not have been entirely right, nor was it entirely wrong either. It is probably an oversimplification due to the lack of evidence and knowledge, along with cultural bias at the time the idea was introduced. The studies suggest that our survival as a species is more collaborative and far less divided than we once believed.

Read next: If Neanderthals Went Extinct, Why Do Some Humans Still Have Their DNA? — Scientists Finally Explain

References & Further Reading

Haas, R., et al. (2020). Female hunters of the early Americas. Science Advances. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd0310

Anderson, A., et al. (2023). The myth of “Man the Hunter”: Women’s contribution to the hunt across ethnographic and contemporary hunter-gatherers. PLOS ONE. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287101

Venkataraman, V. V., Hoffman, J., Farquharson, K., et al. (2024). Female foragers sometimes hunt, yet gendered divisions of labor are real: A comment on Anderson et al. (2023). Evolution and Human Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2024.04.014

Lacy, S. (2024). Woman the hunter: The archaeological evidence. American Anthropologist. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13914

Venkataraman, V. V. (2024). Female foragers sometimes hunt, yet gendered divisions of labor are real: Supplementary analysis and dataset. (preprint PDF). https://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/media/documents/Venkataraman2024.pdf