Stone Age women hunted big game

The excavation of a 9000-year-old hunter grave is changing scientists’ idea of gender roles in Stone Age hunter-gatherer communities.

When scientists from the US University of California recently excavated a 9000-year-old grave in the Andes mountains of Peru, they were in for a major surprise. The grave included many well-made knives and spearheads made of flint, which is usually taken as a clear indication of the deceased being a well-respected hunter.

Apart from valuable hunting weapons, the grave also included prey. The scientists found bones from big game such as deer and llama, together with tools for butchering the animals and scraping their hides.

The surprise came from the hunter’s own bones, which were slender and light, making scientists suspect that it could be a woman. This was confirmed by scrutiny of the protein amelogenin in the tooth enamel, confirming that the game hunter, estimated to have died at age 17-19, was indeed a woman.

The discovery challenges the idea of hunter-gatherer communities in which men hunted while the women took care of other chores such as collecting roots, fruit, and berries. The existing gender role idea is based on modern hunter-gatherer communities in Africa.

The scientists broadened their studies, scrutinising excavation reports from 107 Stone Age graves from 8000+ years ago across South and North America. The result showed that there were 26 graves with hunting weapons, and 10 of them probably belonged to women. This eye opener could help rewrite archaeologists’ view of Stone Age gender roles and social structures.

Nine thousand years ago, a woman aged between 17 and 19 was buried in the mountains of Peru. Her grave included well-made spearheads, indicating that she was a respected hunter.