How do hunter-gatherers live? Do they divide jobs between men and women? Or is this a modern myth? I've talked with scholars from both sides of the debate. Here is my attempt to make sense of it.
In the spirit of Roseman and Ocobock's recent piece on sex in Scientific American, perhaps we need to ask, if the answer is sexual dimorphism, what is the question? Male and female humans are clearly somewhat different. The question is, why? Man the hunter is one hypothesis. We are asking an evolutionary question, and therefore we need to remember our Tinbergen. Man the hunter is a proximate explanation. Man the hunter in turn relies on woman the childbearer as its ultimate explanation. So the question that needs to be tackled is, did ancestral human female childbearing oblige ancestral males to become big and strong so they could hunt? Or is there some other explanation for big strong males?
Well, when we look at any other mammal, including and especially primates, there's actually a very clear answer. The common factor driving sexual dimorphism across all these species is male-on-male aggression. Human sexual dimorphism is rather low, but it's not nothing. And human male-male aggression is also rather low, but again, it's not nothing. And so, given a situation where a certain level of male-male aggression in human ancestors led to a certain level of sexual dimorphism, man the hunter becomes a result, rather than a cause, of sexual dimorphism.
If this is correct, it would explain why man the hunter, as a phenomenon, has a very weak signal in ethnographic and paleoanthropological studies. It's because it is not under strong evolutionary selection pressure. In ecological situations where body size matters, hunting becomes predominantly a male pursuit. Where it matters less, the roles diverge less. Man the hunter is an ecological phenomenon, not an evolutionary one. Whether you find evidence of it or not depends entirely on which groups you are looking at. We see that clearly in contemporary ethnographic studies. In paleoanthropological studies, with so few data points available, we tend to group every fragment of bone and stone together into one ur-group of "ancient hunter gatherers", but there was no such thing. There would be as much ecological diversity in subsistence strategies back then as there is among today's hunter gatherers. And so the "man the hunter" signal is so elusive. Because it's entirely contingent.
So, man the hunter is a thing, in a lot of places and times. But it's not the driver of human sexual dimorphism. Men did not evolve to be hunters. They are, however, pre-adapted to be better at hunting in certain situations.
The corollary of that conclusion is that there are other situations where women are pre-adapted to be better at hunting. And this is where we finally do actually see childbearing as an ultimate explanation of human hunting adaptation, but it's in the females, not the males. Childbearing has selected for females with enhanced physiological endurance capabilities. Therefore we should predict that in ecological situations where endurance hunting is more likely, we will see more women hunting. And I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the ethnographic literature to say whether we have that information or not. But I do note the popular theory that the first human ancestors to hunt, did it by endurance hunting.
Very thoughtful! I think this is very much in line with my own thinking. (As so often, we didn’t exactly “evolve” to do this or that…”) And if I’ve reached one final conclusion from any of this, it is this: hunting is not a viable explanation for sexual dimorphism, whatever sexual divisions there was or is. Lucy was tiny compared to males of her species, but no one is claiming that they were dividing tasks between foraging and hunting.
Is the issue mainly that our brains expect binary, yes-no answers, something like "women are essentially non-aggressive" or "no gender difference at all" and an answer like "X% of women hunted on the avg Y times per year" simply does not feel like a satisfactory answer? Ultimately, people want stories and usually individual, personal stories.
Absolutely, I think this is a a big part of the issue! But of course, there are also genuine questions, like the dating of the emrgence of sexual divisions of labor. There the questions seems to be a genuinely open topic for future science. But yes, well said.
Why wouldn’t men be the hunter the vast majority of the time? Men hunt because we are vastly stronger than women, have thicker skins and denser bones, run faster, and have better spatial throwing skills, all of which is biologically universal and suggests a body made for hunting. Men release more testosterone after eating meat even. Social constructionist marxists try to muddy the waters by suggesting a woman shooting a small squirrel with a bow once a year is equivalent to mammoth hunting. it isnt, and all the blue haired feminists in academia can only lie about it to craft a narrative.
I think this is way too simplistic. What about Agta women? What about Martu women? What about Aka women? They have contributed hugely to the hunting efforts of their groups, not just “shooting a squirrel once a year”. Also, you are immediately turning to mammoth hunting which is a very small part of the puzzle. There’s nothing trivial about the squirrels ;)
To be clear, I don’t have a problem with the _possible_ conclusion that men hunted the vast majority of time. I’m leaning towards it. But you cannot get to the conclusion by thinking in the armchair. This is a scientific debate. Let’s keep it that way.
Agta mostly fish, and is fishing really “hunting”? I see it more as gathering. And Martu women do mostly hunt small fauna. I think big game is what springs to mind when I think Real Hunting.
- Yes, fishing is an under-appreciated part of the puzzle. This is one of the reason why we should probably start using "foragers" instead of "hunter-gatherers". But the public would be confused. Tricky one. This said, the Agta women are famous hunters in a traditional sense, too. They hunt with dogs. (Though curiously, I've heard that they don't do it anymore.) In general, dogs seem to make women's hunting more likely. (See: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/gfphe)
- Absolutely right on Martu! Small game. Again, this is the general pattern: women hunt more small game. (See ref above). But I would insist that this is just as much "hunting" as anything else.
In the spirit of Roseman and Ocobock's recent piece on sex in Scientific American, perhaps we need to ask, if the answer is sexual dimorphism, what is the question? Male and female humans are clearly somewhat different. The question is, why? Man the hunter is one hypothesis. We are asking an evolutionary question, and therefore we need to remember our Tinbergen. Man the hunter is a proximate explanation. Man the hunter in turn relies on woman the childbearer as its ultimate explanation. So the question that needs to be tackled is, did ancestral human female childbearing oblige ancestral males to become big and strong so they could hunt? Or is there some other explanation for big strong males?
Well, when we look at any other mammal, including and especially primates, there's actually a very clear answer. The common factor driving sexual dimorphism across all these species is male-on-male aggression. Human sexual dimorphism is rather low, but it's not nothing. And human male-male aggression is also rather low, but again, it's not nothing. And so, given a situation where a certain level of male-male aggression in human ancestors led to a certain level of sexual dimorphism, man the hunter becomes a result, rather than a cause, of sexual dimorphism.
If this is correct, it would explain why man the hunter, as a phenomenon, has a very weak signal in ethnographic and paleoanthropological studies. It's because it is not under strong evolutionary selection pressure. In ecological situations where body size matters, hunting becomes predominantly a male pursuit. Where it matters less, the roles diverge less. Man the hunter is an ecological phenomenon, not an evolutionary one. Whether you find evidence of it or not depends entirely on which groups you are looking at. We see that clearly in contemporary ethnographic studies. In paleoanthropological studies, with so few data points available, we tend to group every fragment of bone and stone together into one ur-group of "ancient hunter gatherers", but there was no such thing. There would be as much ecological diversity in subsistence strategies back then as there is among today's hunter gatherers. And so the "man the hunter" signal is so elusive. Because it's entirely contingent.
So, man the hunter is a thing, in a lot of places and times. But it's not the driver of human sexual dimorphism. Men did not evolve to be hunters. They are, however, pre-adapted to be better at hunting in certain situations.
The corollary of that conclusion is that there are other situations where women are pre-adapted to be better at hunting. And this is where we finally do actually see childbearing as an ultimate explanation of human hunting adaptation, but it's in the females, not the males. Childbearing has selected for females with enhanced physiological endurance capabilities. Therefore we should predict that in ecological situations where endurance hunting is more likely, we will see more women hunting. And I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the ethnographic literature to say whether we have that information or not. But I do note the popular theory that the first human ancestors to hunt, did it by endurance hunting.
Very thoughtful! I think this is very much in line with my own thinking. (As so often, we didn’t exactly “evolve” to do this or that…”) And if I’ve reached one final conclusion from any of this, it is this: hunting is not a viable explanation for sexual dimorphism, whatever sexual divisions there was or is. Lucy was tiny compared to males of her species, but no one is claiming that they were dividing tasks between foraging and hunting.
Is the issue mainly that our brains expect binary, yes-no answers, something like "women are essentially non-aggressive" or "no gender difference at all" and an answer like "X% of women hunted on the avg Y times per year" simply does not feel like a satisfactory answer? Ultimately, people want stories and usually individual, personal stories.
Absolutely, I think this is a a big part of the issue! But of course, there are also genuine questions, like the dating of the emrgence of sexual divisions of labor. There the questions seems to be a genuinely open topic for future science. But yes, well said.
Why wouldn’t men be the hunter the vast majority of the time? Men hunt because we are vastly stronger than women, have thicker skins and denser bones, run faster, and have better spatial throwing skills, all of which is biologically universal and suggests a body made for hunting. Men release more testosterone after eating meat even. Social constructionist marxists try to muddy the waters by suggesting a woman shooting a small squirrel with a bow once a year is equivalent to mammoth hunting. it isnt, and all the blue haired feminists in academia can only lie about it to craft a narrative.
I think this is way too simplistic. What about Agta women? What about Martu women? What about Aka women? They have contributed hugely to the hunting efforts of their groups, not just “shooting a squirrel once a year”. Also, you are immediately turning to mammoth hunting which is a very small part of the puzzle. There’s nothing trivial about the squirrels ;)
To be clear, I don’t have a problem with the _possible_ conclusion that men hunted the vast majority of time. I’m leaning towards it. But you cannot get to the conclusion by thinking in the armchair. This is a scientific debate. Let’s keep it that way.
(For more of my thoughts on the perils of “armchair Darwinism”: https://onhumans.substack.com/p/distorting-darwinism)
Agta mostly fish, and is fishing really “hunting”? I see it more as gathering. And Martu women do mostly hunt small fauna. I think big game is what springs to mind when I think Real Hunting.
Very relevant points. My brief reactions:
- Yes, fishing is an under-appreciated part of the puzzle. This is one of the reason why we should probably start using "foragers" instead of "hunter-gatherers". But the public would be confused. Tricky one. This said, the Agta women are famous hunters in a traditional sense, too. They hunt with dogs. (Though curiously, I've heard that they don't do it anymore.) In general, dogs seem to make women's hunting more likely. (See: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/gfphe)
- Absolutely right on Martu! Small game. Again, this is the general pattern: women hunt more small game. (See ref above). But I would insist that this is just as much "hunting" as anything else.
Is catching bugs the same as hunting then?