by Archaeological excavations at the site of Wilamaya Patjxa in the high Peruvian Andes have revealed a 9,000-year-old female burial associated with a big-game hunting toolkit.
An archaeological discovery and analysis of early burial practices overturns the long-held ‘man-the-hunter’ hypothesis,” said lead author Dr. Randy Haas, a researcher in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California Davis and the Collasuyo Archaeological Research Institute.
“We believe that these findings are particularly timely in light of contemporary conversations surrounding gendered labor practices and inequality.”
“Labor practices among recent hunter-gatherer societies are highly gendered, which might lead some to believe that sexist inequalities in things like pay or rank are somehow natural.”
“But it’s now clear that sexual division of labor was fundamentally different — likely more equitable — in our species’ deep hunter-gatherer past.”
In 2018, during archaeological excavations at a high-altitude site called Wilamaya Patjxa in Peru, Dr. Haas and colleagues found a 9,000-year-old burial that contained a hunting toolkit with projectile points and animal-processing tools and determined that the hunter was likely a 17- to 19-year-old female.
Continued...
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An archaeological discovery and analysis of early burial practices overturns the long-held ‘man-the-hunter’ hypothesis,” said lead author Dr. Randy Haas, a researcher in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California Davis and the Collasuyo Archaeological Research Institute.
“We believe that these findings are particularly timely in light of contemporary conversations surrounding gendered labor practices and inequality.”
“Labor practices among recent hunter-gatherer societies are highly gendered, which might lead some to believe that sexist inequalities in things like pay or rank are somehow natural.”
“But it’s now clear that sexual division of labor was fundamentally different — likely more equitable — in our species’ deep hunter-gatherer past.”
In 2018, during archaeological excavations at a high-altitude site called Wilamaya Patjxa in Peru, Dr. Haas and colleagues found a 9,000-year-old burial that contained a hunting toolkit with projectile points and animal-processing tools and determined that the hunter was likely a 17- to 19-year-old female.
Continued...
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