The struggle for some sort of comfortable social equation has long been existent between men and women. A man and a woman could belong to the same race, culture, social group and maybe even family yet there seems such strong differences between us. The way we think, feel express and most importantly I think how we treat each other. While googling for women in archaeology I came across these two pics
What is interesting is that both the woman archaeologist( yes the woman on the right is supposed to be an archaeologist!) and the prehistoric woman are both dressed similarly!!! Is it irony, co incidence or male perception?? or just my probably biased view point?? Could be all of the above but none the less the male perception of women in any given society has always coloured a societies perception of women!! So if some part of a society sees women as scantily clothed objects of their sexual fantasy then the depiction of both a prehistoric woman and a modern day archaeologist would be much the same I suppose. Though realistically speaking I do not think either looked/look remotely like the above pictures.
Which brings me to the much spoken about "man the hunter and woman the gatherer" debate : D I am proud to be a women and I believe that separate ladies queues are not any reflection on emancipation of women, but I am no feminist....How much ever men may spread the rumor that they were (and are!?) the ones who were doing the hunting and therefore of greater importance to the survival of that society, gathering was no easy task I'm sure :D. Though view points differ drastically with respect to the two theories, "male-centered scenario did not go unchallenged. Ignoring females or relegating them to a definitely inferior role in human behavioral evolution drew sharp criticism from several quarters." (http://dml.cmnh.org/1995Aug/msg00025.html)
Which is definitely a good think, considering some of the previously thought scenarios seem ridiculous (eg. So, while the males were out hunting, developing all their skills, learning to cooperate, inventing language, inventing art, creating tools and weapons, the poor dependent females were sitting back at the home base having one child after another and waiting for the males to bring home the bacon. While this reconstruction is certainly ingenious, it gives one the decided impression that only half the species--the male half--did any evolving. In addition to containing a number of logical gaps, the argument becomes somewhat doubtful in the light of modern knowledge of genetics and primate behavior )
If you are wondering what these two theories are all about, here is a short summary. "The "man the hunter" model stresses that primitive males hunted for meat and provided food and protection for their mates and children who stayed at the home base. The competing hypothesis suggests that major food of early human beings consisted of plants, obtained by women with the use of tools and shared with their offspring. The contrast focuses on how female behavior is conceptualized: as mobile and active or as sedentary and passive. Responses to both theories, however, depend on which anthropological evidence is used, how it is interpreted, what animal models are used, and which behaviors form the starting point. "What Happened to Woman the Gatherer?,Zihlman, Adrienne L. Sadly I could only find an abstract of this article, it sounds very interesting and I would have loved to have been able to read the rest.
And then I came across an excavation where remains of warrior women were found, “women known to ancient Greek authors as Amazons were long thought to be creatures of myth. Now 50 ancient burial mounds near the town of Pokrovka, Russia, near the Kazakhstan border, have yielded skeletons of women buried with weapons, suggesting the Greek tales may have had some basis in fact. Nomads known as the Sauromatians buried their dead here beginning ca. 600 B.C.; according to Herodotus the Sauromatians were descendants of the Amazons and the Scythians, who lived north of the Sea of Azov.” Warrior Women of Eurasia Volume 50 Number 1, January/February 1997, by Jeannine Davis-Kimball
Bronze arrowheads (1), iron sword (2), fossilized Gryphaea shells (3), and unworked stone in shape ofGryphaea shell (4) were found in a young female warrior's burial. (Jeannine Davis-Kimball)http://www.archaeology.org/9701/abstracts/thumbnails/sarmatians
How cool is that!!!? I would rather believe is the existence of Amazon women than the disregard with which prehistoric women are sometimes depicted!! Any kind of generalization however always seems to be a mistake and I think it’s the same in this case. Just as there are men who may not fit the general concept of a “prehistoric man” (prehistoric man in this case with all their baggage of apeishness ;)), I am sure there are women in every culture, period, generation, century (you get the drift) who were and still are making hand axes and hunting. This is in no way a reflection on the superiority of hunting, in fact how can hunting be considered any sign of greatness!!?? It is a means to an end..survival!! And each person man or woman I am sure has his or her own method of surviving whether is is hunting or gathering….
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