そもそも女性の居場所は家庭ではなかった？　狩猟者の３～５割は女性　研究

【ワシントンＡＦＰ＝時事】女性の居場所が家庭であったことは、そもそもなかったかもしれない──このような研究が4日、科学誌「サイエンス・アドバンシス」に発表された。（写真はペルーのWilamaya　Patjxaで発掘作業を行う考古学者ら。米カリフォルニア大学デービス校提供）
　論文を発表した米カリフォルニア大学デービス校のランドール・ハース氏率いる研究チームによると、ペルーのアンデス山脈で、９０００年前の若い女性の遺骨が、大物狩りの道具一式とともに発見された。
　研究チームが、同様の道具とともに埋葬地で発見した２７人の遺骨を詳細に解析した結果、同時代の米大陸の狩猟者の３０～５０％は女性だったとの結論に至った。これは、狩猟採集民社会において、狩猟者は主に男性で採集者が主に女性という、一般的に考えられてきた説とは相反している。
　「少なくとも先史時代のある時期については、その説が正確ではなかったということになるだろう」とハース氏はＡＦＰに語った。
　ハース氏はさらに、この結果は「今日の労働慣行における格差、すなわち男女の賃金格差や肩書、地位などの格差を浮き彫りにしている。この結果は、実際はこれらの格差には何ら『自然』なことはないかもしれないことを明確に示している」と指摘する。
　ペルー高地の重要な考古学的遺跡「Ｗｉｌａｍａｙａ　Ｐａｔｊｘａ」で２０１８年、ハース氏と地元住民らは、狩猟者２人を含む６人の遺骨を発見した。
　狩猟者２人の骨の構造および歯のエナメル質のペプチドと呼ばれる生体分子を分析したところ、２人のうち１人は１７～１９歳の女性で、もう１人は２５～３０歳の男性であることが確認された。
　発掘が進む中でハース氏らは、大型動物を仕留めるための先端をとがらせた石器、内臓を取り出すための石の刃物や破片、皮をはぎ、なめす道具といった、一連の狩猟および獲物の処理加工道具を発見。それが、その女性が狩猟者であることを示す強力な証拠となった。

■例外ではない
　女性狩猟者が異例の存在なのか、あるいは大勢いるうちの一人なのかを調べるために、研究チームは１万７０００～４０００年前の米大陸の１０７か所に埋葬された４２９人について再調査を行った。
　性別が確定しており、大物狩りの道具とともに埋葬されていた２７人が見つかり、その内訳は男性１６人、女性１１人だった。
　研究チームは統計モデルを用いて当時の社会での狩猟者の３０～５０％は女性だったと推定し、「そのサンプルによって十分に裏付けられる結論は、初期の大物狩りへの女性の参加は重要なものだったということだ」と論じている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/11/06-13:43）

A new study says a woman's place might never have been at home to begin with.
Scientists said Wednesday they had discovered the 9,000-year-old remains of a young woman in the Peruvian Andes alongside a well-stocked big game hunting toolkit.
Based on a further analysis of 27 individuals at burial sites with similar tools, a team led by Randall Haas at the University of California, Davis concluded that between 30 to 50 percent of hunters in the Americas during this period may have been women.
The paper, published in the journal Science Advances, contradicts the prevalent notion that in hunter-gatherer societies, the hunters were mainly men and the gatherers were mainly women.
I think it tells us that for at least some portion of human prehistory, that assumption was inaccurate, Haas told AFP.
He added that the results highlight the disparities in labor practice today, in terms of things like gender pay gaps, titles, and rank. The results really underscore that there may be nothing 'natural' about those disparities.
The skeletal remains of six people including two hunters were discovered in 2018 by Haas and members of the local Mulla Fasiri community at Wilamaya Patjxa, an important archaeological site in highland Peru.
Analyses of the hunters' bone structure as well as biological molecules called peptides in their tooth enamel allowed scientists to identify one as a 17- to 19-year-old female, and the second as a 25- to 30-year-old male.
Excavating the teen's burial site was particularly interesting and exciting for the team, said Haas.
As they dug, they uncovered an array of hunting and animal processing tools that provided strong evidence for her hunter status.
These included stone projectile points for felling large animals, a knife and flakes of rock for removing internal organs, and tools for scraping and tanning hides.
The artifacts were likely placed together in a perishable container like a leather bag.
According to the paper, the teen, dubbed WMP6 by the scientists, would have used a weapon called an atlatl, a spear throwing lever that allowed our ancient ancestors to throw spears much further.
Her main prey at the time would have been species like the vicuna, a wild ancestor of the alpaca, and Andean deer.
- Not an anomaly -
To find out whether the female hunter was an outlier, or one of many from her time, the researchers conducted a review of 429 individuals buried across 107 sites in the Americas from around 130,000 years ago to about 8,000 years ago.
Of those, they found 27 individuals whose sex had reliably been determined and who were buried alongside big game hunting tools -- finding that 16 were male and 11 were female.
The sample is sufficient to warrant the conclusion that female participation in early big-game hunting was likely nontrivial, the team wrote, using a statistical model to estimate between 30-50 percent of hunters in these societies were women.
The new study adds to a body of literature that supports the contention that modern gender constructs often do not reflect past ones, the team wrote.
This includes the 2017 confirmation of a female Viking warrior through a genetic study.
Certain questions remain -- such as why many modern hunter-gatherer societies do show sex-bias in hunting activities.
Theories include they could have been influenced by the outside.
Or, perhaps the atlatl tool used by WMP6 and her contemporaries had a less steep learning curve than the technologies that succeeded it, making it possible to achieve proficiency in childhood before girls reached sexual maturity and had to devote their time to childcare and rearing.
By contrast, mastering the bow and arrow requires ongoing practice well into the teenage years.
Haas said he hoped his paper might spark further research to find out whether there were female hunters at the time in other parts of the world.