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2024-11-11

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The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong (www.scientificamerican.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/15901115

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Evidence shows that women have better endurance for long distances. They tend to be less susceptible to fatigue and beyond 195 miles are actually faster than men. Considering humans were better at outlasting their prey and chasing them to exhaustion rather than burst speed, this data indicates that women are at least as capable as men at those tasks if not better.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (3 children)

So your theory is that women were the hunters, because they're faster after 200 miles? These people walked like 10-20 miles a day, and had to carry the food back home so that everyone else could eat. You imagine them going on month-long expeditions, carrying dead animals for 2 weeks back home? Are they also carrying mini fridges to keep the meat from spoiling?

I'm trying to even, but I can't.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Yeah long term endurance hunting sounds like "bad hunting". You use up more calories, the prey expends more calories, you waste a whole day walking around in dangerous terrain and then you have to carry back the meat all the way back.

So even if their claims of greater female stamina bears out this would presumably only show that women can hunt better in certain worst case disciplines.

How does this make sense or am I missing something?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago

That's not my theory. That's the data.

One interpretation could be that women were constantly engaged in strenuous endurance activities and so through evolution built up tolerances against exhaustion that at least rivals if not exceeds that of men. And one historical activity that used a lot of stamina and took a lot of tolerance against fatigue was the way in which ancient humans hunted.

That's not what a theory is, it's a hypothesis at best, hope that helped.