What’s a Mother to Do?: The Division of Labor among Neandertals and Modern Humans in Eurasia

Recent huntergatherers 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 huntergatherers did not appear in Eurasia until the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. The rich archae...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current anthropology 2006-12, Vol.47 (6), p.953-981
Main Authors: Kuhn, StevenL, Stiner, MaryC
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Animal feeding behavior
Archanthropus and paleanthropus
Asia
Associations
Demographics
Diet
Division of labor
Division of labour
Ecological competition
Economics
Europe
Food
Food security
Foraging
Gender
Gender roles
Generalities
Hominids
Human paleontology
Humans
Hunter-gatherers
Mediterranean Region
Methodology and general studies
Mothers
Neanderthals
Neanthropus
Paleolithic Age
Paleontology
Prehistory and protohistory
Sex roles
Subsistence hunting
Women
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Recent huntergatherers 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 huntergatherers 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 womens 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 ofHomo sapienswith a demographic advantage over other hominins in Eurasia.
ISSN:0011-3204
1537-5382
DOI:10.1086/507197