![]() In the vast majority of the other cases, it is the men who have multiple wives, rather than the other way around. According to the Ethnographic Atlas, only 16 of the 178 recorded hunter-gatherer groups practised monogamy. There are cases, too, of women being abducted by men (usually individually rather than collectively), while polygamy is also widespread. This domination is often expressed in terms of sexual and matrimonial rights – examples of which can include the husband being able to lend out or disown his wife, whereas she has no equivalent rights. The French specialists responding to Lady Sapiens employed this as a way to examine the causes and mechanisms of male domination, as observed in the great majority of hunter-gatherer societies. ![]() Given the gaps in the archaeological evidence, it is useful to start a consideration of roles during the era by assessing what ethnographic parallels reveal about the kind of allocation of activities that can occur in hunter-gatherer societies. Although we wrote our book before becoming aware of Lady Sapiens, we believe that our approach provides a valuable way to think about this important subject. Such debate raises the question of just how much can reliably be said about life in the era. We do not know who made such objects, nor the intended recipients, but one Czech terracotta example has a child’s fingerprint on the back. This chalk figurine from Renacourt, France, dates back to c.23,000 years ago. However, they considered the views presented in Lady Sapiens to be biased where gender relations in the Palaeolithic are concerned. As they argued, at first sight one might think that any attempt to emancipate females in the past should be welcomed. Last year, no fewer than nine eminent French specialists – four male and five female, anthropologists and prehistorians – published a joint, virulent response to what they felt resembled a wishful-thinking approach to the past. As the authors put it, Upper Palaeolithic women were ‘generous, skilful and daring, but also had a privileged status they were respected, honoured, venerated.’ These findings swiftly proved controversial. The conclusions paint Upper Palaeolithic females as able to choose their partners, control their fecundity, take part – more or less – in the same activities as men, and exercise similar social influence. An English-language version of the book and documentary are set to arrive in September. The book aims to debunk such a simplistic division of roles by highlighting advances in the study of bones, graves, art, and ethnography. They argued – rightly – that researchers have long underestimated the role of prehistoric women in society: they had become imprisoned by clichés, and, in contrast to men who were believed to hunt, invent, create, and draw, a woman’s role was limited to domestic chores and educating children. It was the work of two journalists (Thomas Cirotteau, an author and film-maker, and Eric Pincas, a historian and author) and an archaeologist (Jennifer Kerner, who specialises in prehistoric funerary practices). The challenges that the available evidence present are well illustrated by the reception to a documentary called Lady Sapiens, which was broadcast on French TV in September 2021, and accompanied by a book of the same name. It is likely that this woman was responsible for the artistry. Face to face with a Palaeolithic artist? This reconstruction of a woman by Elisabeth Daynès is based on human remains found buried at Cap Blanc, in front of a sculpted frieze.
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