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| Science & Technology |
| Stone Age feminism? |
| 2007-11-12 |
| Females joining hunt may explain Neanderthals' end The Neanderthal extinction some 30,000 years ago remains one of the great riddles of evolution, with rival theories blaming everything from genocide committed by "real" humans to prehistoric climate change. But a recent study introduces another explanation: Stone Age feminism. Among Neanderthals, hunting big beasts was women's work as well as men's, so it's a safe bet that female hunters got stomped, gored, and worse with appalling frequency. And a high casualty rate among fertile women - the vital "reproductive core" of a tiny population - could well have meant demographic disaster for a species already struggling to survive among monster bears, yellow-fanged hyenas, and cunning Homo sapien newcomers. The University of Arizona's Steven L. Kuhn and Mary C. Stiner, use archeological evidence to argue that Neanderthal females - unlike Homo sapien women of the Upper Paleolithic period - joined men in hunts at a time when stabbing giant beasts with a sharpish stone affixed to a stick represented the cutting edge of technology. That's courageous, but probably bad practice for a population that never numbered much more than 10,000 individuals. The loss of a few males to a flailing hoof or slashing antler is no big deal, in the long run. But losing females of child-bearing age could bring doom to a hard-pressed species. "All elements of [Neanderthal] society appear to have been involved in the main subsistence pursuit" of hunting large animals, Kuhn said. "There's not much evidence of classic female roles. Putting the reproductive core of the population - pregnant women, mothers of infants, children themselves - at such danger could have put Neanderthals as a whole at serious demographic disadvantage," he said. Not only would women suffer casualties, Kuhn said, their full participation in the hunt would mean they were not harvesting wild grains and other foods that could sustain their roving bands when game was scarce. What finished off the Neanderthals is still bitterly disputed by paleoanthropologists and others in the field. On one side are those who think Neanderthals were "culturally" overwhelmed by modern humans who just happened to possess better tools and weapons - throwing spears, for example, not jabbing spears - or adopted customs more appropriate for the Ice Age. From early days, human women appear to have sewed hide clothing, tended fires, and gathered vegetables rather than risking their lives on the hunt. On the other side are those who believe modern humans were inherently superior, possessing "cognitive advantages" - read: more smarts - that made their ascent and Neanderthal decline inevitable. Cavefolk simply couldn't compete effectively with the more clever new kids on the block. "Neanderthals were smart, sophisticated. They mastered fire. They made tools. But modern humans had selectively advantageous [genetic] traits that gave them an edge," said Richard G. Klein, a Stanford University paleoanthropologist. "Even tiny advantages in cognition, communication skills, and memory would have had huge downstream effects over time." There are other plausible explanations for the Neanderthal extinction. Warming at the end of the Ice Age surely wasn't easy for robust people built for the cold. Or an epidemic could have so depopulated Neanderthal bands that the survivors couldn't replenish the species. A more sinister idea is that early humans wiped them out in a prehistoric genocide. "On the other hand, humans and Neanderthals coexisted for thousands of years, so I think talk about genocide says more about how modern humans think," said Paabo. "What finally happened could be really boring. Maybe Neanderthals ran out of reindeer to hunt. So they dwindled and died. Species can disappear without us killing them." |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #8 So, the wimmen folk and widdle kiddles were sent to their deaths against far more formidable foes. Where have I heard this |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-11-12 23:13 |
| #7 Well, at least they had a job equality, it oughtta count for something. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2007-11-12 21:32 |
| #6 Bush lied; Neanderthals died (you see he got into a Haliburton time machine, then using money from Saudi bribes he... convinced the Neanderthals to invade Mesopotamia which was really far away and they died on the way...; yeah that's the ticket-- heh that would make a great movie -- a sure win at Cannes) |
| Posted by: michael moore 2007-11-12 21:26 |
| #5 I thought it was Bush and Halliburton. (Someone had to say it.) |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2007-11-12 20:50 |
| #4 Meanwhile, H. Sapiens evolved its gene for metabolic syndrome & became almost invulnerable to starvation... |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-11-12 19:29 |
| #3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjxY9rZwNGU |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2007-11-12 12:53 |
| #2 good point JFM. It sounds more likely to be the product of someone with the agenda that women really would be better off barefoot, berry picking and bearing babies. In the days before the Internet, a story like this, repeated often enough, could get some urband legend type traction. Now, with the interaction of the internet, the writer just looks like what he is - a dribbling fool. |
| Posted by: Unutle McGurque8861 2007-11-12 12:10 |
| #1 It was not impossible that given the stae of their technology and a shortage of game they had no choice: it was either women helped in the hunting (and extinction in the long run) or face extinction by hunger in the short run. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-11-12 11:24 |