Was prehistory a feminist paradise? | Archaeology

THere is an obstinate and widely retained idea that in a previous phase of the existence of our species, women had a status equal to men, or even reigned, and societies were happier and more peaceful for this. Then came the patriarchy, and a lot of bloodshed and oppression later, we are all there.

This notion of matriarchy and patriarchy as polar opposition – with a switch having been thrown between them – was sown in the 19th century by Marxist theory, taking root in archeology without much proof. From there, he spread to public conscience.

Anthropologists tended to be more skeptical. They saw a lot of diversity in sexual relations in human societies, both modern and historical, and some of them suspected that diversity was also the rule of prehistoric times. It was difficult to prove, however, in part because biological sex – not to mention the genre – was often difficult to determine in ancient remains. About 20 years ago, it changed.

The so -called old DNA revolution – the ability to extract the DNA from ancient bones and analyze it – meant that suddenly it was possible to determine the sex of people who have been dead for a long time and to wonder how they were linked to each other. The chemical composition of their bones and their teeth – in particular, the ratio of isotopes or variants of certain elements which are there – revealed if they had experienced in different places and underwent food changes accordingly. The image emerging thanks to these new tools is that the diversity of sex relations was the rule of prehistory, and that there was no watershed when a system gave way to its mirror image.

The Marxist idea, in fact credited with Marx’s collaborator, Friedrich Engels, was that humans were egalitarian until agriculture spread from the Middle East about 10,000 years ago. With the lifestyle and the accumulation of more sedentary wealth that agriculture has brought came to defend this wealth and set rules for its inheritance. As the populations grew, men monopolized the elites who formed to coordinate these things, in part because they were better in war and that wealth was gravity towards the male line. Male parents were also more likely to stay in place, their female comrades moving to live with them. Female oppression was often a by-product of these changes.

An alternative theory, advanced by the Lithuanian archaeologist Marija Gimbutas in the 1960s, was that societies focused on women dominated longer in Europe – up to 5000 years – when they were overthrown by nomades incoming in the steppe.

Matrilinearity (where wealth passes over the female line) and matrilocality (where female parents remain together) often go together, and the two are associated with higher female status and influence. In 2017, American geneticists reported that for more than 300 years around the 10th century, an elite matrilinear group lived in Chaco Canyon, in what is now new-mexic. Then, in June, Chinese researchers reported a matrilineal agricultural community which prospered almost as long in eastern China, more than 3,000 years earlier. These results join the others, suggesting that matrilineal companies existed on all inhabited continents, at least from the arrival of agriculture.

But although they enjoy higher status, women in matrilineal societies do not necessarily make decisions. This remains the reserve of men – just women of women rather than their husbands. And as ancient DNA and isotopes cannot tell you a lot about the female agency, gender power relations in prehistory remain a question of debate. In fact, this work line forced researchers to wonder what they hear by power. If the female consort of a male sovereign influenced his entourage by patronage and the rear channels, and his own policies by counseling, is it less powerful than him?

Archaeologists are experiencing several examples of couples jointly governing the Bronze Age – the period after the arrival of these nomads in Europe – and later, historical files attest that elite women take decisions in such ways, separate continents. Perhaps they did it in previous times too. Females carrying out gentle power in male predominance societies may even have preceded Homo Sapiens. In his book in 2022 on sex and gender, different, The primatologist Frans de Waal described how a female alpha, a mom, has a successor to the alpha male – which has outclassed it – with a kiss.

In recent years, something else has become clear. Although Engels may have been much right to associate wealth with patrilinearity, other factors have also shaped sex relations – such as the way a society earns its life. In February, Chinese and British researchers indicated that the traditionally tibet matrilineal villages have become more neutral gender in the last 70 years, because they have gone from an agricultural economy to an economy on the market. The conflict also plays its role. Although matrilocal and patrilocal societies are just as bellicose, known as anthropologist Carol Ember of the University of Yale, internal conflicts – as opposed to the war against an external enemy – pushes societies towards patrilocality, because clans at war prefer to keep their sons close.

Meanwhile, evidence accumulates that women fought, chased and acted like shamans in a distant past. No role or position has always been prohibited, everywhere. And although women’s decision -makers were rare, they were not absent. The new discoveries of ancient DNA of Trinity College Dublin show that there were at least matrilla pockets throughout Great Britain, when the Celtic tribes dominated the island in the iron era. Combined with archaeological evidence for female warriors and the Roman descriptions of the chiefs of the tribe, it seems that Celtic women can miss hard as well as soft power.

Matrilineal companies still exist today – the Mosuo de China are an example, as is the Arizona Hopi, descendants of these Chaco Canyon clans. Their number decreases, because national governments flex their patriarchal muscles, but they recall that certain extinct societies have tilted gender equality more than many of our modern, and that all societies have the capacity to change.

Upon reading

Different: what monkeys can teach us about genre by Waal Frans (Granta, £ 10.99)

Patriarchs: how men came to reign by Angela Saini (4th estate, £ 10.99)

Eve: how the female body led 200 million years of human evolution by Cat Bohannon (Penguin, £ 12.99)