Gendered Division Of Labor Gave Modern Humans Advantage Over Neanderthals

[applegrove]

Gendered Division Of Labor Gave Modern Humans Advantage Over Neanderthals
University of Chicago Press Journals
at Sci-Tech Daily
December 5, 2006


"Diversified social roles for men, women, and children may have given Homo sapiens an advantage over Neanderthals, says a new study in the December 2006 issue of Current Anthropology. The study argues that division of economic labor by sex and age emerged relatively recently in human evolutionary history and facilitated the spread of modern humans throughout Eurasia.

"The competitive advantage enjoyed by modern humans came not just from new weapons and devices but from the ways in which their economic lives were organized around the advantages of cooperation and complementary subsistence roles for men, women, and children," write Steven L. Kuhn and Mary C. Stiner (University of Arizona).

Kuhn and Stiner note that the rich archaeological record for Neanderthal diets provides little direct evidence for a reliance on subsistence foods, such as milling stones to grind nuts and seeds. Instead, Neanderthals depended on large game, a high-stakes resource, to fuel their massive body mass and high caloric intake. This lack of food diversity and the presence of healed fractures on Neanderthal skeletons--attesting to a rough-and-tumble lifestyle--suggest that female and juvenile Neanderthals participated actively in the hunt by serving as game drivers, beating bushes or cutting off escape routes.

The Middle Paleolithic Neanderthal record also lacks the artifacts commonly used to make weather-resistant clothing or artificial shelters, such as bone needles. Thus, it was the emergence of "female" roles -- subsistence and skill-intensive craft -- that allowed H. sapiens in ecologically diverse tropical and sub-tropical regions to take advantage of other foods and live at higher population densities.

..............SNIP"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061204123302.htm

[applegrove]

1. So we must be doing doubly well now that men share in that work.

[Botany]

2. Nice post

.... Now bring me a cup of coffee and what is for dinner?

[gaspee]

3. And now that

We are no longer paleolithic people relying on hunting and gathering to survive, wouldn't a new economic system for men, women and children be more appropriate?

Of course it would, but the people who tout "traditional values" bullshit don't understand either history or economics. Things shouldn't stay the way they are because it's the way they've always been. That's just stupid.

[applegrove]

4. It is about specialization. And people who work outside the home

"specialize" on top of the work a couple does in the home. And machines specialize at work and at home. And people of the world just get more and more productive. Seems if specialization is the key..men or women should be encouraged to work (which includes raising children if you are a stay home parent with young kids). As long as you are specializing..the better we all are. Why employment is so important..and employment numbers. So that people are not "underemployed" as many seem to be these days.

[heidler1]

5. Living on a meat diet tends to make all animals more aggressive

and more warlike. In America there were Indians of both types and the hunter gathers were the most warlike. Neither types died out. It seems more likely to me to me that the hunter gathers in Europe got caught up in an Ice-Age and didn't know how to adapt. It would also seem likely that both Humans and Neanderthal saw the other as a food source and better weapons became important.

[applegrove]

6. Meat also expanded brain size. The act of hunting required more

brains. Soo too cooking. As humans became meat eaters they became human. Hard for vegetarians to find all the amino acids they need for a healthy body & brain. That being said.. I'm all for free range animals and such. But I am a meat eater and cannot deny it.

[silverweb]

7. Yeah, so?

Does this go in the "duh!" file? Or is it just some new RW ploy to make us accept assigned gender roles now?

[applegrove]

8. I think it shoots the Right wingers in the face re: gender roles. If homo sapien

females added to productivity to such an extent that humans survived... then anything women do that increases productivity is a plus and helps society. That includes rearing kids and working outside the home. Just as men doing their share at home helps make humans better off.

I don't know why you see it that way. And by the way it implies that someone working underemployed...not in a job they are suited for..less challenging..it implies that is a net loss to society too. Which means a trickle down economy is a bad thing not something to be desired.

With all the technology we have.. a woman with grown children is better off working or volunteering than staying at home, playing tennis, or watching TV. By volunteering I mean "walking the walk" volunteering ..not just interfearing with other people's lives by becoming a politicized gay hater.

Until the 1920s or perhaps a little later...what women did at home was a huge necessity seeing as though they had huge families and lived on farms. After that..well it is more productive to be educated and have a job to go back to once the kids are well on their way to being adults.

By the way they also found that cities with large gay communities had a vibrancy that came with a large group of unfamilied people being creative on the job and spending lots of money. The cities with the biggest gay communities were the most vibrant cities in the world. For the same reasons. That they devote so much of their lives to creating rather than nothing. Which is what the right wing wants.. a bunch of do nothings or families of 18 children (which is very hard on the children). Neither of which sound productive to me.