@Daojoan can't remember who put it this way (might have been David Graeber in "Debt"), but it really rings true:
Of course women were equal members of the pre-agriculture tribes! Survival was difficult, and any tribe that attempted to side-line a full half of their members from active participation in hunts etc would simply die off.
@hazelnot@rysiek@Daojoan The Dawn of Everything was so astonishing to me that now I'm reading 3 other of Graeber's books. Someone who met and talked with Graeber said he realized after a little while that Graeber was a true genius. He really was brilliant.
@flyhigh@hazelnot@rysiek@Daojoan Since you're talking so highly of Graeber here, I have to just pop in and say that you will probably like the podcast @srslywrong. They praise him quite often. And it's very good and funny.
@forteller@flyhigh@hazelnot@rysiek@Daojoan@srslywrong
Funny, I expected you to recommend "Everyday Anarchism" since he references to Graeber in almost every episode and the title, and right now does a series on Debt.
@rysiek@Daojoan not just that, (this is again from The same authors), in early proto state like cities, it was often the kings wives who'd be the bureaucratic arm of the state; the wives as a collective had enormous power including the removal of the king of all the wives were in agreement
@Daojoan@StillIRise1963 this was obvious to everyone that paid attention surely? It's only that society as we currently know is predicated on the notion of the white man being at the apex. But African, Asian and (indigenous) American history is beset with female fighters, warriors, generals, leaders and Queens.
@Daojoan Having scanned over the thread I feel I should correct a few more notions: first that of average life expectancy in pre-history. We do not have enough data for good statistics, but several thousand skeletal remains at least for anatomically modern humans in the European and Asian upper paleolithic. State of research there is very good, way better than anywhere else in the world, since almost 200 years now, at least since Schaaffhausen described the Feldhofer 1 Neandertal.
The thing about ancient hunting is that it was endurance hunting. That's what makes humans so vastly more capable hunters than anything else out there: we can sweat, and therefore we can chase an animal for miles on end. Most animals don't sweat, and they can't run long because of it, they overheat and collapse.
It's a total myth that "depth perception" played any role or even that women have somehow worse depth perception than men. Women can run just as well as men.
@Itty53@Daojoan Wait, what? The vast majority of mammals sweat.
My understanding was that our endurance was due to our mental capacity to plan long-term and remain focused above our base instincts and push ourselves beyond normal limits for the expectation of a reward.
@Daojoan I mean if I see how well old people and then mainly grandmas gang up on little kids in my country
Uhhhhh no surprise there 😂😂😂
Old people are vicious 😂
@Daojoan Came here to hermit, not hunt, but thanks for more reading. My grandma decided she’d rather check out early right before Covid hit. If that’s not a hunter witch’s instinct I don’t know what is.
It starts with: "The sexual division of labor among human foraging populations has typically been recognized as involving males as hunters and females as gatherers."
which is plain wrong.
Already in the mid 20th century it was clear that pre-historic societies were rather generalists than specialists.
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