A Prehistoric Woman's Place Was Not in the Cave

by Tom Henderson (Subscribe to Tom Henderson's posts)
Jun 2nd 2011 12:30PM

Filed under: In The News

In any primate society -- the females, the males or some of both -- must eventually leave their birth community and join or form other communities. Credit: Hector Guerrero, AFP/Getty

"Flintstones! Meet the Flintstones! They're the newly discovered prehistoric family! Fred stayed home watching Oprah while Wilma explored the territory!"

Not really. Prehistoric Oprah was probably out exploring, too.

Women, apparently, got out and about some 2.7 to 1.7 million years ago, while the guys stayed home and scratched themselves. Some things never change.

Fresh research, reported in Discovery News, challenges the idea that a woman's place is genetically geared to be the home while the more aggressive males go forth into the wider world. Turns out, in prehistoric families, the reverse may have been true.

You have go back a ways -- two species below humans on the evolutionary scale, to be precise -- yet, Discovery News reports human males may have a genetic predisposition for sitting on the couch and eating chips. Meanwhile, women may have the same wanderlust as female chimpanzees and bonobos.

"In any primate society -- the females, the males or some of both -- must eventually leave their birth community and join or form other communities," lead researcher Sandi Copeland, an adjunct professor in the department of anthropology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, tells Discovery News. "One important reason for this is to prevent inbreeding."

Copeland and her team analyzed 19 teeth from both Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus -- two early human forebears who lived in different time periods, but in the adjacent South African cave systems of Sterkfontein and Swartkans.

This is the cool part: Discovery News reports researchers used a technique called laser ablation to zap the teeth with lasers. This measures the choppers' strontium isotope ratios. And this means?

"Strontium isotope ratios are a direct reflection of the foods these hominids ate, which in turn are a reflection of the local geology," Copeland explains.

Researchers were able to deduce from all this that the guys stayed in place while the gals roamed. Women did this for much the same reason they leave their hometowns today: They don't want to keep dating the same guys.

"It is possible that female hominins chose to leave their natal groups in order to mate with unrelated males, an indirect result of the males in their natal group choosing not to leave," Copeland tells Discovery News.

Even though the guys stayed at home, Copeland says that doesn't mean they took care of the kids. Look at chimps, she adds. Male chimpanzees stay at home, too. But do they help raise the children? Forget it, Copeland tells Discovery News.

Another possible implication is that two-legged walking emerged in humans for reasons other than improved locomotion.

"If one interprets our results as indicating that male australopiths rarely moved long distances, then one is left to wonder if the need for energetic efficiency was sufficient to drive the origins of bipedalism," co-author Matt Sponheimer explained.

Then again, researcher Matt Sponheimer, an anthropology professor at the University of Colorado, tells Discovery News there is a lot more to learn.

"This study is one example of how we can sometimes, if we are lucky, coax old bones and teeth to relinquish a few of their secrets," he tells Discovery News. "And I don't doubt that we are getting better and better and getting more from less and less. But I think we have a long road before us. Much about our forebears continues to be resolutely mysterious."

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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 3)

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6-02-2011 @ 2:40PM

Jay R said...

What a misleading piece of drivel. That females were, in effect, forced to leave their home territories in order to mate, while the males remained (and welcomed fresh, new females), says nothing about whether, in day-to-day life, the females remained in or near the cave gathering, cooking, and, you guessed it, taking care of offspring, while the males were out hunting.

6-02-2011 @ 11:15PM

Dee said...

Humans were created by God and not evolved from monkeys or anything else. If we evolved from monkeys how come it isn't still happening? Duh! Everything was created by God but man has certainly messed things up with his stupid man made explanations.

6-02-2011 @ 6:25PM

TakeUtoSchool said...

You seem to have a problem with the fact that the women were adventurous and brave, and expanded the species. What does cooking have to do with it? lol. Actually this article makes a lot of sense, because a male is programmed to mate with anything. ANYTHING - females, males, sheep, horses, relatives, non-relatives, and sometimes even children. This leaves women to decided who to accept as a mate, in order to produce superior children. Early women would instinctively stay in a tribe if it was large enough to accomodate her choices and needs, and leave a tribe if it was too small and the choice of mate was not diverse enough.

6-02-2011 @ 2:28PM

stillwill2 said...

this describes nothing about early humans; it describes chimps, etc.. all dreived from Teeth- and a fertile imagination, no evidence, just speculation. see it for what it is. humans can only produce humans, monkeys only produce monkeys, they cannot interbreed offspring, and the twain shall never meet. there is no such thing as one species evolving into another, it's time we spoke the truth.

6-02-2011 @ 2:56PM

Dan said...

We all know humans were made by God just a few years ago. And no species ever evolve. It's in the good book that man made up several thousand years ago.

6-02-2011 @ 6:29PM

TJK said...

6-02-2011 @ 2:56PM
Dan said...
We all know humans were made by God just a few years ago. And no species ever evolve. It's in the good book that man made up several thousand years ago.

Dan,
Does this explain why the world is in the shape its in???
Before a few years ago,no one was intellegent enough to make the right decisions?

6-02-2011 @ 7:55PM

Tom Martin said...

TJK, the world has been always a mess, with critters getting old, suffering from old age diseases, or being eaten by something bigger, or killed by a volcano or something. So if there is a god or gods, clearly they are not omnipotent and good at the same time, the world would be nice otherwise.

6-02-2011 @ 2:51PM

Gary Wilkes said...

Typical scientific-babbling. How about this - men grabbed women and stole them from other tribes. Men killed the men of another tribe and coopted their females. Men preferred to kill large animals while women gathered berries. Men ate more meat than veggies - still true today. Meaning, this proves absolutely nothing. Intelligent examination would examine what is and then describe. This is extrapolation based on a single datum. That is not scientific - but it gets you on television. Look up "Piltdown Man" if you want to see how this scam works.

6-02-2011 @ 6:51PM

Jessica said...

your high. it was never like that. women werw always the hunters. dream on.

graphx said...

Junk science

6-02-2011 @ 2:55PM

One other point - the nonsense that they must voluntarily leave to provide genetic diversity leaves out a world-wide common practice - slavery. If you capture and breed with a war conquest who now resides in your community, you get genetic diversity. So does raping women when you conquer their tribe. Apes rape. Apes practice war on other tribes. Male apes get laid whenever they can. Baboons practice specific revenge on individuals of another tribe, including laying ambushes. If they knew how to make handcuffs, they'd be carting females from other tribes by the boat-load. Silly scientists - political correctness doesn't let you exam all the possibilities.

6-02-2011 @ 3:02PM

Paul said...

Typical juvenile poppycock from the modern feminist movement. In all areas where men outperform women, deny it. In all areas where women outperform men, admit it. (Yes, I am insensitive and unenlightened. I accept that both occur.) There is always an effort among modern liberals to deny that there is such a thing as human nature, and that God created men and women differently, to perform different functions. (I just discriminated against atheists.) If you seriously want to understand primitive man, look at modern primitives. Men are hunters. Women are gatherers. The day to day care of small children falls on the women. Once male children are old enough to get around on their own, they follow their fathers, to learn how to act like a man. This structure has worked ever since man has been on the Earth. Maybe we could learn something from these inferior people.

6-02-2011 @ 3:47PM

65thFloor said...

I have found the sad truth to the human condition to be more than just sad, its another good reason supporting the many women in poor and repressed environments who take their lives from this unbearable blithe. Having sufficient capital is the only way to assure you will not be controlled by or lead by a male into a life which at its best is 2nd class and at its worst below chattel. The man (men) in my life that I would consider deferring to when it suits me, are all very intelligent, highly educated men who respectfully engage me in monkey sex all I want. I cant imagine the hell of so many women controlled by men no smarter than the examples aforementioned in this article who are forced to submit to Gorilla sex with them AND his buddies. Theres not enough kerosene for these sad women..

William said...

Sounds like prehistoric man was the dominant gender. By getting the women to work while the men hunted and fought other tribes, and mated with as many women as possible.

6-02-2011 @ 3:19PM

JOE said...

Look at history, women were used as symbols of treaties and alliances. Most of the human royal families would marry off their daughters, sending them to live in other countries for the above purposes. This could show this has been going on for a very long time.

6-02-2011 @ 3:25PM

Ungabungainabeenga said...

Glibeetz ouah chonga baia oog....oh this is the modern day blog...I say ol boy, I rather get a ginchy round of indignation at your suggestion I somehow evolved from the likes of a bloody baboon. It right smarts and if you must know, indeed, my knickers are a perplexing agglomeration. Wot!? However, should you be in need of specimens from the Piltdown era through say, Neanderthal, my in laws, male and female, most assuredly have never roamed far from their cave in centuries.

6-02-2011 @ 3:35PM

laughin@stupid said...

what a waste of space and cyberair the nitwitt that wrote this think they are a know it all like the fools in washington and who told you this info your grandparents lol

6-02-2011 @ 3:49PM

Otto Caveda,M.D. said...

The tirade about females being the ones foraying and hunting is ludicrously absurd. Why then were their muscle insertions
- indicating muscle use- much smaller than in the the males? Look, the Paleontologists are neither Sociologists, Anatomists or Physiologists. Read my e book: TROLL TREK about human evolution in the Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's electronic book readers. It simplifies and presents our anatomic, physiologic and psychologic saga in an easy to understand, devoid of scientific rigor mortis and weird names, format from a general surgeon's viewpoint who actually knows the works!

6-02-2011 @ 4:06PM

heldt666 said...

If women were in charge, we would still be in some leaky old boat off the east coast, wondering if it was safe to go ashore.
Men built the boat, got us here, cleared the land for a house and plowed the fields.
Sorry about those dishpan hands ladies.

6-02-2011 @ 7:58PM

Pat said...

You got us here?? Other way around, buddy....women got the men here. You tough guys want to take on childbirth? Nah....didn't think so....enough said!!

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A Prehistoric Woman's Place Was Not in the Cave