The Hunter-Gatherer Divide

[differenceblog]

Much of evolutionary psychology appears to hinge on the idea that men were hunters and women were gatherers, and that gendered traits evolved in response to the different needs of these goals. Hunter-Gatherer economies are thought to be the only mode of subsistence for humans for 2 million years, ending somewhere between 5,000-10,000 years ago.

Comments

[astrogeek01]

The gendered dichotomy in supposed hunter/gather has never made any sense to me, coming from a large family that hunts together (I don't but pretty much everyone else does including my younger sisters and female cousins). They typically have 10-20 people out there, and a gender ratio of about 50%. Everyone hunts. Everyone drives (where you make a line and walk through the woods, driving the deer toward a few hunters). The women bag deer as frequently as the men. While I do think that the stereotype of men doing more hunting (today, in rural WI) is probably slightly true, I think women participate quite a lot more than the deer-hunting-testosteroned-men commercials you see.

[differenceblog]

I was thinking more about the issue of appetite in teenaged boys. I have never known a teenager not to eat pretty much constantly. That suggests grazing type strategy that would be much aided by eating plant matter while they searched for game.

Now, I'm not sure if "ooh, there's some berries here, I think I'll eat them" actually "counts" as true gatherer activity. Gathering may more specifically refer to collecting a high quantity of plant/grub foodstuff to bring back and share (much like you don't eat the whole elk when you bring it down).

[detonate_for_me]

I think it's bullshit. So many of these things seem to be pure speculation and full of assumptions based on the researchers' biases.

[differenceblog]

I agree, but I think my tendency to discount them is no less biased. So I really need more information about the archaeological and anthropological evidence.

[detonate_for_me]

Yeah, same here.

[ukelele]

That reminds me! The current issue of the Economist mentions someone's study where they found that women were better than men at pointing toward the source of food in a farmers' market, despite men's supposed superiority at navigation, and how much better they were was linked solely to the caloric content of the food (a trait the researchers said would be useful for gatherers).

[differenceblog]

Is this the online version of the article you're talking about?Sex, shopping and thinking pink

I had ignored it when I found it Googling, because I thought it was just about the Hurlbert and Ling study we covered last week. The farmer's market navigation looks worth investigating, though: (New et al (2007)

[ukelele]

Yes, the New et al part of it.

[deadkytty9]

I want to know how many of the women used in the study were on restricted-calorie diets at the time, vs. the men. Maybe they remembered where highly caloric food sources were located better because it was more relevant to them; I know when I try to diet, I think about food *constantly*.