Talk:Women in prehistory

Source dump
Christ, Carol P. “‘A Different World’: The Challenge of the Work of Marija Gimbutas to the Dominant World-View of Western Cultures.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, vol. 12, no. 2, 1996, pp. 53–66. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25002286. Accessed 21 Dec. 2023.

Part of a special section on Marija Gimbutas, archaeologist and scholar of religion. The writer discusses the challenge presented by Gimbutas's work to the prevailing worldview of Western culture. She believes that this will unmask the ideological convictions of Gimbutas's critics and start to clear the way for more widespread, serious scholarly consideration of her work. She then goes on to reflect on some of the methods that Gimbutas used to interpret the symbolic language of the religion of Old Europe.

McDermott, LeRoy. “Self-Representation in Upper Paleolithic Female Figurines.” Current Anthropology, vol. 37, no. 2, 1996, pp. 227–75. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2744349. Accessed 21 Dec. 2023.

This study explores the logical possibility that the first images of the human figure were made from the point of view of self rather than other and concludes that Upper Paleolithic ‘Venus’ figurines represent ordinary women's views of their own bodies. Using photographic simulations of what & modem female sees of herself, it demonstrates that the anatomical omissions and proportional distortions found in Pavlovian, Kostenkian, and Gravettian female figurines occur naturally in autogenous, or self-generated, information. Thus the size, shape, and articulation of body parts in early figurines appear to be determined by their relationship to the eyes and the relative effects of foreshortening, distance, and occlusion rather than by symbolic distortion. Previous theories of function are summarized to provide an interpretive context, and contemporary claims of stylistic heterogeneity and frequent male representations are examined and found unsubstantiated by a restudy of the originals. As self-portraits of women at different stages of life, these early figurines embodied obstetrical and gynecological information and probably signified an advance in women's self-conscious control over the material conditions of their reproductive lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kuhn, StevenL., and MaryC. Stiner. “What’s a Mother to Do?: The Division of Labor among Neandertals and Modern Humans in Eurasia.” Current Anthropology, vol. 47, no. 6, 2006, pp. 953–81. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1086/507197. Accessed 21 Dec. 2023.

Recent hunter-gatherers display much uniformity in the division of labor along the lines of gender and age. The complementary economic roles for men and women typical of ethnographically documented hunter-gatherers did not appear in Eurasia until the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. The rich archaeological record of Middle Paleolithic cultures in Eurasia suggests that earlier hominins pursued more narrowly focused economies, with women's activities more closely aligned with those of men with respect to schedule and ranging patterns than in recent forager systems. More broadly based economies emerged first in the early Upper Paleolithic in the eastern Mediterranean region and later in the rest of Eurasia. The behavioral changes associated with the Upper Paleolithic record signal a wider range of economic and technological roles in forager societies, and these changes may have provided the expanding populations of Homo sapiens with a demographic advantage over other hominins in Eurasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orchastrattor (talk) 01:05, 21 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi . Great article here. It isn't clear what text the Harvard ref "Rountree (2001)" refers to. Is that for Kathryn Rountree's The Past is a Foreigners' Country? gobonobo  + c 16:26, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes I fixed it now, thank you for pointing it out. It was only there to give context for Chris Knight's claims so I copied it over from the inline markup on matrifocal family without checking it myself, my bad. Orchastrattor (talk) 23:21, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Lead image
The current lead image, of the reconstructed clothes of the Huldremose Woman, is very nice, but it's from the Iron Age, c. 160 BCE and 340 CE – so not technically prehistory in most people's books, and quite possibly post-dating decidedly historic figures like Cleopatra or Saint Perpetua. Could we find something more representative? –&#8239;Joe (talk) 12:31, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Taken as an example, the fur cloak does not seem out of place, but the skirt less so. Commons has sparing possibilities, mostly in the form of reenactments and museum displays. Here are a couple., what do you think? gobonobo  + c 09:46, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I think the Huldremose reconstruction is still the cleanest out of the three, the use of a mannequin in a neutral position affords it a level of objectivity not really shared by the other two. I was thinking of using some artifacts or reconstructions from the Egtved Girl as the lead but I don't think the specific dating is actually that much of a concern, its perfectly natural for different cultures to develop writing at different rates. A significant part of the findings presented in the article are even drawn directly from contemporary forager societies. Orchastrattor (talk) 18:30, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Conflating 'prehistoric' and 'nonliterate' is an antiquated definition that will quickly get you into trouble: was the Inca Empire prehistoric? Were Aboriginal Australians in the 18th century? The New Guinea Highlands in the 1930s? In any case, even to a traditionalist, the Scandinavian Iron Age wouldn't be prehistory, but protohistory.
 * Why not go for a piece of prehistoric art, rather than a reconstruction? There are plenty of notable examples that depict women: Venus figurines of course, the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük, Jomon Dogū, the dancing girl from Mohenjo-daro. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 08:20, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The Willendorf or Dolní Věstonice Venuses could work in that regard, however I still think a personal artifact or piece of clothing we know to have been actually used by a woman to be preferable, both the Venuses and a lot of the other artifacts are still total mysteries as to who in their society made them and why. We can infer they depict women but we can't say who they were actually intended for unless they were physically buried with that person, something I think sets the Huldremose or Egtved artifacts apart from more the more abstract options you're proposing.
 * Was the Scandie Iron Age protohistory? Their article seems rather inconclusive as to how much contact they had with any literate neighbors and the Huldremrose Woman's dating puts her solidly towards the beginning of the period rather than the end. Orchastrattor (talk) 20:12, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 07:18, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * "Yes" to the protohistory or the artifacts? I can't find anything about the Scandinavians having had any mention in Greek or Roman sources, the historiography of the 160 BC - 340 AD period of the Huldremose Woman seems perfectly typical of an unrecorded material culture. Orchastrattor (talk) 19:25, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * To your question; the Scandinavian Iron Age is protohistory. Whether or not it was mentioned in Greek or Roman sources isn't really the defining factor, but incidentally they were. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 16:04, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Egtved or Ukok artifacts then? See right. DYK got prepped up so I'll be fast tracking one or the other soon. Orchastrattor (talk) 16:28, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

At least one reference seems to be incorrectly cited
'Notable hunter-gatherer groups in recent or contemporary eras known to lack a distinct sexual division of labor include the Ainu, Agta, and Ju'/hoansi.'

The article cited for Ju'/hoansi literally has the title 'Ju/'Hoan Women's Tracking Knowledge And Its Contribution To Their Husbands' Hunting Success'. Already the title clearly indicates that the primary hunters, who could be successful or not, were the men, while the women specialised in tracking - that may be involvement in hunting, but it is still 'a distinct sexual division of labor' and not lack thereof. 62.73.69.121 (talk) 01:36, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

There are already some serious rebuttals to the 2023 Anderson et al. article
The 2023 Anderson et al. paper that the popularising Ocobock & Lacy article in Scientific American cited here relies on as gospel truth has already been strongly criticised by scholars here and here. The least one can say is that the critiques show that the Man The (Large Game) Hunter / Woman The Gatherer (and Small Game Hunter) view very much continues to dominate in the field - at least with respect to modern hunter-gathering societies. Indeed, Ocobock & Lacy themselves admit that 'today these biased assumptions persist in ... the scientific literature'. The wiki article cites Kuhn, but in contrast to Ocobock & Lacy, Kuhn recognises that most modern foraging societies do have the traditionally posited sex-based division of labour and he only suggests that it was absent before the Upper Paleolithic - basically before the spread of behaviourally modern humans, which is quite a long time ago. It is telling that Ocobock & Lacy resort to Neanderthals to prove their thesis about human female hunters - they feel the need to go all the way to another, extinct hominin (sub-)species! All in all, Ocobock & Lacy appears to be a popular science article trying to promote among the general public a view that apparently hasn't convinced most actual scientists yet. WP:NPOV requires a balanced representation of views found in literature, so at least the fact that there is a debate and serious objections should be reflected; currently the article presents the 'Woman The Hunter' claim (and promotes it further via the DYK) as if there were no controversy at all. 62.73.69.121 (talk) 02:29, 31 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Anatomically premodern humans are still perfectly within the scope of the article, and most of Lacy and Ocobock's claims draw on contemporary evidence for estrogen improving endurance over testosterone. Discussions of contemporary forager societies are limited in this article to only a few offhanded comments following the sources, as they are not directly within the scope of the article, and archeological evidence of H sapiens sapiens in particular is also given due weight - Lucy and Ocobock's discussions on Neanderthals are a. not mentioned in the article here and b. brought up specifically as an example of low population density's impact on SDL. Orchastrattor (talk) 04:07, 31 January 2024 (UTC)