Cave people starving to death because they strictly follow gender roles…
Or dying of exposure because they won’t live anywhere but in a cave
Some ladies are built “more warrior-like”.
And what about those women who cannot bear kids? Surely they’ll go for some other role than being a mother.
While the idea of genders roles as strict as xtian history indicate. Is basically silly in a real world survival enviroment.
Im not sure being able to have children would be fully comprehendwd pre medicine.
I mean even early 1900s couples blamed god not their body if children did not arrive.
I assume hunter gathering communities would see all women below a rougth age range as potential mothers.
However that may have effected their role in society is likely less known. Many think elder women and men were used to care for children while younger members of the community protected the tribe or hunted\gathered.
couples blamed god
AFAIK, God, singular, is a relatively recent and complex convention. Yes, you’re making a point by showing that even procreation was seen with different eyes, but prehistoric time spans do not compare to modern history, I assume. Comparing bio-cultural evolution to historical evolution as it likely is with monotheism might generate weird results.
True of monotheism. But animalistic religions is believed have been one of the first. And very early at about 300k old. That is basically assuming a sentience to natural events. So if is fairly likely they blamed an inability to procreat on some unhappy element in thier world.
I think there’s both. Intersex people of varying degrees would’ve definitely been easy to see as sterile. I’m talking AFAB people who never have menarche for example. There’s also just people who don’t fuck men. In some tribes that would likely be responded to with rape, but in others it would probably be treated as an individual quirk or something.
That said what we also know is that even among pastoral societies motherhood didn’t necessarily stop a woman from a more dangerous way of contributing to the community. Scythians had women who were both mothers and warriors for instance, and it’s entirely possible that that was found in hunter gatherer societies
