The researchers also found that women become more flexible in their hunting strategies as they age. Which weapons they chose, the game they hunted and who they hunted with changed with age and the number of children or grandchildren the hunters had. “They have different strategies, but they still come out all the time,” said Dr. Wall-Scheffler. Usually, the oldest women participate the most. (In a bow-and-arrow culture, for example, a grandmother is valued for having the best aim.)
Details about female hunting patterns are not easy to discover, Ms. Chilczuk; reports often prioritize discussions of male hunters. But the findings, when they emerged, took on a certain meaning, he added: If hunting was the primary means of survival, why would only men participate? The researchers wondered what other stories ethnographers had overlooked. “We may be missing so many things,” said Ms. Chilczuk. “It’s natural to have assumptions, but it’s our responsibility to challenge those assumptions, to better understand our world.”
Tammy Buonasera, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who identified the gender of the female hunter found in 2018, welcomed the conclusion of the PLoS paper. “I always assumed that women hunted perhaps more often than was recognized,” she said. Generally, she added, women are viewed “as merely passive actors in history.” She noted that the study of plant-gathering and the modern way in which people process plants — an important source of food — has been neglected because these activities are traditionally associated with women.
Randy Haas, an archaeologist at Wayne State University who led the Peruvian excavation, also praised the new paper. “In light of what my study shows, their findings fit the same narrative: We had biased interpretations,” he said. “And the idea that the sexual division of labor is an inherent part of human biology is a trope that has played into structural inequalities today.”
The dawning appreciation for women as hunters came as anthropology, like many scientific fields, began to diversify its ranks, leading scholars to reevaluate how definitions the evidence. “Who you are shapes your questions,” said Dr. Wall-Scheffler. “It shapes expectations of what you see.”