• Buglefingers@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I had always assumed that Hunter-Gatherer societies were very loosely sex divided and strongly necessity based. Meaning, sure men could be the typical hunter and women the typical gatherer but if necessity dictates, any person would do any job, and, given the times, that was probably frequently.

    Furthermore they also likely didn’t have societal structures the way modern societies did, meaning people likely weren’t barred from any job or forced into any job, it was a community effort for survival, if you meet a criteria that can help, you do that.

    These are not factual statements, these are just my assumptions on how I figured they reasonably existed.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      At least some of them took the kids down to the creek every 6 months or so, and threw the babies in the water to see who would swim. The ones that didn’t swim stayed back at the camp and fixed pottery, cleaned, cooked, etc. The swimmers became the hunters and gatherers. Several of the Native American Nations in the Eastern US did this when white man came over and invaded. According to their oral histories, they had been doing this for a few tens of thousands of years, which seems to match up to the archaeological evidence we’ve found in the last couple decades.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Same here: the t seems the most logical answer. I’m not especially convinced by the arguments in this article, except that they are at least as strong as “man the hunter” arguments so neither changes my mind

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Man the hunter presupposes any woman is weaker than the weakest man. It really is junk science. When they say those guys ignored evidence of women hunting, they mean it. And at the end of the day, women doing it is the biggest evidence you’re going to find.

    • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Well… many of the younger women would be constantly pregnant back then, and engaged in communal child rearing. So they are going to be spending less time on mammoth hunts.

      Ancient people’s also worked way less than we do now.

  • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I absolutely agree with the thesis that both men and women hunted, but I think the claims of women’s superior endurance are not represented in reality. The fastest marathon time for men is 2 hours 1 minute and for women it is 2 hours 14 minutes. These were in 2023 and 2019 respectively, so it’s not like it was years ago with drastically different treatment of the sexes. Both runners were Kenyans too, so that limits non-sex based biological differences.

    I don’t buy that it is socialization. For one thing, the difference disappears in sports like shooting and horseback riding where physicality is not the determining factor. On top of that, when children compete at sports there are negligible performance differences until after puberty. The article mentions the record a woman holds for swimming across the English Channel. I think that women’s higher body fat provides buoyancy that massively reduces the energy required to stay afloat for a prolonged time. We don’t see the same supposed superiority in other endurance events.

    This link touches on many of the same topics as the main article and adds some more info.

    https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240731-the-sports-where-women-outperform-men

      • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.netOP
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        1 month ago

        Well, the theory is that persistence hunting was one of the main hunting strategies during a large portion of human evolution before ranged weapons were invented. So it may well have relevance for distribution of labor between men and women during most of human prehistory, and therefore our evolutionary psychology.

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Persistence hunting only worked in areas with wide open terrain, like the African or American plains. Prey in the jungle or heavily wooded areas can just disappear into the underbrush and be gone. It doesn’t matter how far you can walk at that point, because you’ll never find that animal again.

            • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              You can’t keep a creature moving without rest if you have to stop to track it, and you can’t track over rock, hard soil, through water, and a variety of other terrains.

              • Romkslrqusz@lemm.ee
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                1 month ago

                There will certainly be areas where the trail disappears, but tracking isn’t necessarily about locating every individual footfall.

                With an understanding of movement and behavior, one can make inferences about where the animal went to find and follow the next sign.

                Even moving over rock or packed soil, sign is left. You may not be able to perceive it yourself, but to someone who spends hours a day reading and studying the ground over the span of years, those subtle differences are perceptible.

                An animal will eventually reach a place to stop and rest, but with repeated interruption that rest won’t count for much.

                • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  I will acknowledge that things that seem impossible to me are probably easy for people who engage in those activities frequently. So, you’re probably right.

        • Hegar@fedia.io
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          1 month ago

          persistence hunting was one of the main hunting strategies during a large portion of human evolution before ranged weapons were invented

          How do ranged weapons invalidate persistence hunting?

          If you’re trying to chase down an animal till it’s exhausted, I think you’d want to be throwing stuff at it to injure or at least to keep it moving.

          Also, was there a time before ranged weapons? As soon as humans have weapons we have ranged weapons because we can throw. Atlatls and slings - tools to help you throw sticks and stones - wouldn’t have been developed if we weren’t already throwing sticks and stones at things.

          • ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            How do ranged weapons invalidate persistence hunting?

            Even with a modern bow it’s still really difficult to sneak close enough to a deer to reliably make a kill shot. You’re not going to sneak close enough to poke it with a spear and with game that size, throwing rocks is not really an option either because that wont kill it. Something like axis deer is quick enough to even dodge a modern arrow.

            The reality is that the animal will notice you and it will out-sprint you as well but it wont outrun a human on a long distance. When the animal is exhausted and no more able to run, then you can then stick your spear in it.

            • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              Even with a modern bow it’s still really difficult to sneak close enough to a deer to reliably make a kill shot.

              Which is why bow hunters typically scout ahead to determine where deer frequent, then hide and use calls and scents to get the deer to come to them.

      • Kethal@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        The OP article said the same thing, and like this article, it provides no evidence for the statement. I looked for some numbers, and for world bests, men had better performance in every category I found. The study linked below looked at speeds over decades and in every case men had better performance. Both men and women have improved over time, and as a percentage the difference is getting smaller, but in absolute difference it appears the same. It is an admittedly brief search, but I can’t find evidence in the form of measured times (not conjecture about estrogen) indicating at all that women perform better in ultra marathons. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3870311

        • Pips@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 month ago

          Those are athletes. To really know, you would need to use average people going for the same time/distance at more moderate speeds. While the fastest men are probably faster than the fastest women across most any distance, I doubt we have good data on average men and women going the same distances.

          • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            That is definitely impressive stamina. An Olympic marathoner can average 12mph for around 2 hours and an “average” marathoner does 8mph, but that is on a road or track. Savannah is one of the few terrains where you could approach those speeds. I would believe they could go 50 miles on a hunt. Trying to run far in sand or snow, through heavy vegetation, or up and down mountains drastically increases the energy it takes (and the max distance and speed you are capable of). That’s a whole other thing.

    • UraniumBlazer@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Speed of marathon doesn’t necessarily serve as a benchmark for endurance, does it? Endurance is a metric of how tired you get over time, no? A cheetah can run 1km waaaay faster than a human. Doesn’t mean that it has better endurance than humans.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        A marathon is a test of endurance. The faster you can complete it, the more endurance you have. Without endurance your body slows to a crawl over the vast distances covered during a marathon. A cheetah sprinting has nothing to do with endurance. They’re terrible endurance runners. Nobody’s saying sprinting speed is a test of endurance, but marathon speed absolutely is.

        • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          You’re adding parameters to say that women don’t have as much endurance as men. Have a race in which everyone has to run the same speed and see how long they can do it. That is true endurance. You can’t add parameters and say it’s a true test of a single one.

          • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Idk what to tell you. You’re arguing that a marathon isn’t a test of endurance, and the speed at which someone can complete it isn’t an indication of their overall strength and endurance. Okay then. You win. Have a nice day.

      • bjorney@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        What (widely popular) race could possibly be a better metric of endurance than the marathon?

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      An under-15 boy’s soccer team destroyed the US World Women’s Soccer Team. That’s just a random group of boys who aren’t anywhere near their peak, vs literally the best female soccer players in the country. The physical strength, speed, and endurance differences between biological males and females is undeniable. Anyone who says differently is being intellectually and probably emotionally dishonest with themselves. Also, this purported evidence that women were the hunters is a very small sample size out of all of our anthropological evidence. Sure, some women hunted, and some women fought. Some cultures probably demanded that more than others. That doesn’t mean that thousands of years worth of history and assumptions are wrong.

      • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Of course, this match against the academy team was very informal and should not be a major cause for alarm. The U.S. surely wasn’t going all out, with the main goal being to get some minutes on the pitch, build chemistry when it comes to moving the ball around, improve defensive shape and get ready for Russia.

        Your anecdotal evidence is countered in the very article you posted

      • yeather@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        Men and women have about the same peaks but the floor is much higher for men.

    • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The fastest marathon time for men is 2 hours 1 minute and for women it is 2 hours 14 minutes.

      “Fastest” does not mean the best endurance. You would be looking at the “longest”.

      • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        There have been several people, men and women who run a marathon every day for months or even years on end. In that sense there is no upper limit, but those people almost certainly all have a genetic mutation which most people don’t that prevents lactic acid buildup.

        • fafferlicious@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Stride length would like a word.

          Strength, speed, and endurance are related. You’re right. But it’s not as clear as faster time == better endurance.

          • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Longer stride length also equals a heavier body weight to move. I’m sure there’s some sort of graph where the vertex represents the most efficient combination of those factors.

    • tatterdemalion@programming.dev
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      1 month ago

      The fastest marathon time for men is 2 hours 1 minute and for women it is 2 hours 14 minutes.

      It’s an unacceptable leap in logic to infer (from that statement) anything about populations of men and women. You’ve picked only a single sample from each population and chosen that highly biased representative.

      • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        That set is inclusive of every official marathon ever ran, so no it is not a single sample. We see consistently that the women’s record always is slower than the men’s record.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Let’s run a marathon where everyone is underfed and has foot injuries as well as painful dental problems. I guarantee you more women will finish the race ;D

      • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Most marathon runners have a lower body fat than is considered medically healthy and their toe nails pop off during the race, so we are already 2/3 of the way there.

  • oyo@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    My theory is that men evolved much higher grip strength due to incessant masturbation.

  • Murvel@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    Mounting evidence from exercise science indicates that women are physiologically better suited than men to endurance efforts such as running marathons.

    Looking at marathon athletic records; that’s not at all true and took me about 3 min to verify. In fact, out of all the top 25 record times, all are by men (and almost all Kenyan and Ethiopian men).

    What is this tripe? They could at least try to be serious…

    • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      your are connecting two different pieces of data. The speed that a person can run a marathon vs. the ability to run a marathon.

      What they are stating is that women are better able to run that distance not that they are faster at running that distance than men.

      • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        A marathon is not a speed race. It is a 42 km endurance race, similar to endurance hunters would have done on, say, the plains of Africa.

        The vast majority of people today would be unable to finish even a half marathon without collapsing due to utter and complete exhaustion.

        • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 month ago

          Speed is less of a factor than endurance in a persistence-hunting scenario where we’re much slower than our prey anyway.

          I don’t know the facts for this specific claim, but the logic is fair. One group can be better suited for endurance without being faster. One group could also be faster on average without having the individual fastest performers. Not only because of cultural factors, but also because the distribution curves might have different shapes for men vs women. There could be greater outliers (top performers) among men even if the average is higher among women in general. It’s not necessarily as straightforward as, say, height, where men’s distribution curve is almost the same shape as women’s, just shifted up a few inches.

          I don’t have the data to draw any real conclusions, though.

          One of the problems looking at athletic records is that it’s really just the elite among a self-selected group of enthusiasts, which doesn’t tell us a whole lot about what might have been the norm 100,000 years ago, or what might be the norm today if all else were equal between genders. These are not controlled trials.

          I’ve read that the top women outperform the top men in long-distance open-water swimming, supposedly due in part to higher body fat making women more buoyant, helping to regulate body temperature, and providing fuel. This is the first time I’ve read that women might have an advantage in running, though.

          I wish the article provided citations. The reality is probably too complex to fit into a headline or pop-sci writeup.

          • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            Women have a higher pain threshold, and may be able to handle long distance endurance better. However, judging by existing tribal groups in Africa who still practice endurance hunting, that really isn’t the case so it’s probably bullshit.

          • Murvel@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            I just looked at the measured data and came to a conclusion. I don’t even know what conclusion you’re trying to communicate, but it beats me…

              • Murvel@lemm.ee
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                1 month ago

                I was asking the commenter to explain what a ‘better’ runner is supposed to mean? And tou perhaps was answering something else…

                • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  Better doesn’t always equal faster.

                  Better can equal going further.

                  Better can equal being more efficient.

                  Efficient means using less calories to do the same thing.

        • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          From what I’ve researched in the past ( I don’t have time to look it up) is that due to fact that women naturally hold more body fat than men that they then have more energy to use on endurance runs. That while they are not faster than men due to smaller muscles they can move for longer periods of time due to having more fat energy.

          I could be wrong it happens often with me.

          • Murvel@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            That may be, who knows (without supprting evidence)? But see, things is, I don’t think hearsay is what a good article in Scientific American should be based on.

            • TacoNot@mander.xyz
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              1 month ago

              If you read the article that was posted, you will see that it confirms what they just stated.

              • Murvel@lemm.ee
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                1 month ago

                Nowhere does it definitely state that’s the case. In fact, the data doesn’t even support that claim since women should excel at ultra marathons, but they don’t. In fact, women don’t excel in any running exercise that I can find.

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.netOP
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      1 month ago

      I agree that they overstated their point there. But regardless, I think it’s fair to say that any differences between men and women in these sports are fairly small, so I don’t think it changes the overall conclusion.

      • dank@lemmy.today
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        1 month ago

        The men’s world record marathon time is 9% faster than the women’s. That’s significant. The male runner would finish over two miles ahead of the female runner.

        • flerp@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          Women were first allowed to compete in marathons in 1972. In 1972 the men’s record was 2:10:30. The current record is 2:00:35 which is about an 8% difference. Pretty close to the difference between men and women currently.

          The first women’s record was 3:40:22 and the current women’s record is 2:11:53.11 which is 40% faster.

          Once funding for women’s athletics reaches parity and once girls are encouraged into athletics as much as boys, then we will see if the ladies catch up. So far they’re doing a pretty good job catching up, and you can’t look at one current window in time and say you have the answer, you need to look at trends.

          • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            And that’s what people miss when quoting sports statistics. They confuse culture with biology. We live in a society that imparts certain roles based on gender. Men are encouraged to exercise and run more from a young age than women are. In an egalitarian society, that disparity wouldn’t exist. We really can’t say how things would play out. That’s why studies of paleolithic skeletons are a much better tool than just navel-gazing based on modern sports. Those statistics cannot be separated from our current society. Instead of just speculating, we can look at the actual skeletons of paleolithic people, which this article discusses. These skeletons record a record of the kinds of lives these people lived. There’s no need to speculate; we can ask these people directly how they lived.

        • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.netOP
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          1 month ago

          I wouldn’t consider 9% to be that large in this context. Certainly a difference that would be overshadowed by individual variation.

          Even if we assume women are physiologically 9% slower at persistence hunting (which that statistic is far from proving) it still suggests they could and likely were successful at it, albeit maybe not the very best.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          How many marathons are run in a weaving path on uneven ground full of underbrush while trying to keep up with an animal that could potentially go in any direction at any time in the hopes that it will get tired before you do?

          Because otherwise this marathon measurement is silly.