Nuovi studi sulle società primitive di cacciatori-raccoglitori mettono in discussione il mito della caccia come attività esclusivamente maschile. I ricercatori hanno scoperto, studiando una serie di reperti etnografici provenienti da tutto il mondo, che le donne cacciavano selvaggina con archi e frecce, coltelli e reti. Cacciavano in gruppo o da sole, con i figli sulle spalle o accompagnate dai cani.

Ne parla un articolo di Michael Le Page sulle pagine di New Scientist (link alternativo)

The idea that men hunt while women stay at home is almost completely wrong, a review of foraging societies around the world has found. In fact, women hunt in 80 per cent of the societies looked at, and in a third of these societies women were found to hunt big game – animals heavier than 30 kilograms – as well as smaller animals.

Secondo Cara Wall-Scheffler (University of Washington in Seattle) l’analisi degli studi etnografici copre ogni continente e ogni società presente nelle varie aree, rendendo significativi i risultati ottenuti.

“There is a paradigm that men are the hunters and women are not the hunters, and that paradigm colours how people interpret data,” says Wall-Scheffler. Her team looked at a database called D-PLACE that has records on more than 1400 human societies worldwide made over the past 150 years. There was data on hunting for 63 of the foraging societies recorded and, of these, 50 described women hunting.
For 41 of these societies, there was information on whether women’s hunting was intentional or opportunistic – that is, whether they were going out to hunt rather than catching animals they stumbled upon while gathering plants, say. In 87 per cent of cases, it was intentional. “That number was higher than I expected,” says Wall-Scheffler.

Un paio di anni fa The Conversation raccontava del ritrovamento sugli altopiani andini di “WP16”, una donna che aveva accanto la propria collezione di strumenti da caccia.

The woman, discovered in the Andean highlands, was dubbed Wilamaya Patjxa individual 6, or “WPI6”. She was found with her legs in a semi-flexed position, with the collection of stone tools placed carefully next to them. These included projectile points – tools that were likely used to tip lightweight spears thrown with an atlatl (also called a spear thrower). The authors argue that such projectile points were used for hunting large animals. WPI6 was between 17 and 19 years old at time of death. It was an analysis of substances known as “peptides” in her teeth – which are markers for biological sex – that showed that she was female. There were also large mammal bones in the burial fill, demonstrating the significance of hunting in her society.

Precedentemente nel sito di Sunghir in Russia, gli archeologi hanno scoperto la sepoltura di due giovani, uno dei quali era probabilmente una ragazza di circa nove o 11 anni, che conteneva preziosi strumenti da caccia. Così come nel 2017 si scoprì che un famoso cacciatore vichingo era in realtà una donna.

In 2017, a famous burial of a Viking warrior from Sweden, discovered early in the 20th century and long assumed to be male, was discovered to be biologically female. This finding caused a significant and somewhat surprising amount of debate, and points to how our own modern ideas of gender roles can affect interpretations of more recent history too.