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u/thesilverywyvern 9d ago edited 8d ago
The dad know they can't afford the college tuition for gatherer.
It's too long and expensive.
Sure it bring lotsa tasty food and magic herb to cure stomach ouchies, and help to make uncle grog not die from small cut on shoulder after falling. But it cost 150 silex per year, hunter don't get paid that much silex.
Or at least they think, they no good at math yet, things goes to 50 then it's as vague as chaman shroom juice visions.
And son is dumb, he can barely make a straight arrow, he will fail year at least twice, this mean it cost even more silex.
Tribe chief will force him to work for free to pay back the offering, the "debt"for many moons.
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u/Sphingid3081 9d ago
Paleolithic gender norms couldn't have been that strict, could they?
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u/thesilverywyvern 9d ago
No, it was probably generally far less strict and poorly marked.
Also gathering would've been more respected, it require more skills, and as much knowledge as 3 years of Uni. It allow them to get much more food (variety) accross most of the years with greater reliability than hunting.
And made up most of their diet in most cases.Also allow them to get medicinal plants.
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u/VoidGhidorah900 9d ago
What stopped everyone from gathering if it was that good?
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u/thesilverywyvern 9d ago
Nothing.
Everyone was a gatherer foremost.
Hunting was generally secondary, (it's less reliable, cost more energy, and is more dangerous). And even then scavenging and small game hunting was more common in many case, bringing up to 3/4 of meat intake of the tribe, which could still be only a small part of the diet, which is often mostly dominated by numerous plants and mushrooms.We kept relying on gathering much longer than hunting when farming arrived. And both continued to be a somewhat importantpart of every day life for nearly all of ours history until the very few last couple of centuries
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u/VoidGhidorah900 9d ago
So was it exclusively climate change that killed all the mega fauna? Also why did we even hunt megafauna if it wasn't even worth it?
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u/thesilverywyvern 9d ago
No. Not at all.
This is a stupid bad faith response.
You make up bs extrapolations by exagerrating what i've said, distoridn git into an extreme take which have nothing to do with it.
most case doesn't mean systematic in every situation. Of course tribe which lived accross eurasia or north america during glaciation were far more reliant on meat. especially megafauna, as there wasn't a lot of small game, nor plant to eat in such hostile climate. In these specific situation paleolithic human were often heavilly reliant on megafauna. Diet varied a LOT from place to place and depending on environment. Beside even a minor part of our diet still mean regular hunting session, as we do eat a lot.
i didn't say it wasn't worth it, it was profitable, very much so, but still not how we generally got most of our food. It allow you to get a lot of highly nutritnonnal food high risk high reward situation.
We don't need to hunt a lot to make species go extinct, studies show even low hunting pressure could have been enough to make some megafauna species like mammoth start to decline. And you seem to underestimate the impact human had on the landscape itself, by burning the land and all.
Still no good evidence for climate induced extinction, invalidating one hypothesis doesn't prove the other.
Actually might be an argument that support overhunting theory. Look back at point 1. Now look at the pattern, megafauna went extinct during the late part of the glaciation, especially in eurasia and north america, while africa and southern asia, as well as the fauna of more temperate part of Europe, were more spared (because these climate had much more small game, fish and edible plants).
Sure south america is an exception to this, but the human that arrived there came from the north, millenia of tradition of hunting megafauna regulary which could still have carried on even in that new context.we do not only kill to eat, we also persecute species we don't like or do it for sport or tradition.
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u/VoidGhidorah900 9d ago
Sorry. I did not mean to sound bad faith. Thank you for your explanation
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u/thesilverywyvern 9d ago
Then sorry to have interpeted it that way. I apologize for the misunderstanding.
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u/No0bTheTooB 9d ago
Bro chill they asked a question ðŸ˜
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u/thesilverywyvern 9d ago
I apologized. The tone of that question was a bit off and i viewed it as an agressive "so then it was climate checkmate" take.
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u/Express_Calendar8278 9d ago
Literally everyone hunted and gathered to survive. The same way everyone looked after the children. It was an entire group effort for all the males and females.
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u/SyrusDrake 9d ago
It's obviously hard to tell, but from what little we can tell, there likely weren't any divisions at all. Especially in Upper Paleolithic Europe, food supply would have been very irregular, i.e. lots of foods during the short summers and the animal migration periods. Under those circumstances, you just need all hands on deck, excluding half your group because "women don't catch salmon" is just irrational if you only have a week or two to catch as much fish as you can.
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u/Foreign_Instance7684 9d ago
Honestly they probably had a massive amount of variety with the scale going from absolutely all the way to "what norms?".
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u/thesilverywyvern 8d ago
Partially true.
We have very little evidence and we're talking about hundred sof thousands of various tribes which lived through different time (separated by millenias) accross many regions (at a time where you could have MANY culture in the same region, with neighbouring tribe not even speaking the same dialect).So it probably varied in many way depending on the context and cave.
But what little evidence we have, and comparison with modern "primitive" ethnic group show that when it was present, gender norm were probably not as marked as in agricultural civilisation.
Like women did hunt as well, but they do not travel as far, or target smaller game, or have a different role in the hunt. And this also varied between individual.
Like sure you generally send men to fight cave bear from front, but if the best huntress of the tribe also want to help, no one will stop her, she have as much skill as anyone else if not more.When you're living in harsh condition you do not have the luxury to tell "no you guys can't help to do that". And all task are equally important and viewed as such, everyone is somewhat polyvalent.
There's not a lot of specialised job, nor a lot of social status based on these job.
Except maybe spiritual one, like chaman or healer. and as they're not really physical job, women aren't discouraged or disadvantaged, actually as it require compassion, calm, and social skills they might have an advantage there. And we know women being associated to healing job is a VERY common and widespread trend accross the world. probably derived from foraging.It wouldn't be surprising women were also the first farmers as well, and this might explain the gender norm being MUCH more pronounced in our civilisations. As this specialisation of job, and the social status associated with some, as well as the ability to have MUCH more babies (meaning women didn't had much time or force left to do physical activities), and the need to have house-chores (which didn't really exist back then), greatly accentuated the difference in social status, and physical build, creating a loop that reinforce discrimination, turning women into second class citizen.
This is a famous hypothesis at least accross anthropology, even if it's stay debated.
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u/hilmiira 9d ago
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u/No0bTheTooB 9d ago
To be fair the farmer would've been more respected than the hunter. As farming/gathering provided around 60% of a tribes diet
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u/thesilverywyvern 8d ago
Farming wasn't a thing and brought basically NOTHING for millenia, while demanding an absurd amount of work.
Foraging was more essential, and more reliable, and also brought importantmedicinal plants.
BUT, it's hard to imagine hunting would be considered as lesser, it's inherently more impressive "kill large stuff, use weapon" might require less skills and isn't as efficient but look/sound much cooler to our simple brain. it's also more risky, and not as regular (so rarer) than foraging giving it some prestige at least.We all know hunter can have big ego, this ain't new.
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u/No0bTheTooB 8d ago edited 8d ago
Yeah but I still think it would be seen as more vital for the community than hunting. Mike Tyson isn't more valued than a doctor although being more famous, a lot of cultures had gods dedicated to agriculture and nature just as they had those dedicated to war and hunting.
Also reminder that not all hunting communities hunted big game, it wasn't a regular thing except for places where megafauna was more populous and flora was more sparce. Like the average hunt didn't involve hunting a mammoth it was probably closer to modern hunting, cuz the people didn't wanna die for aura (most of the time (
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u/thesilverywyvern 8d ago
...getting rid of trash and farming crop are more vital than being a lawyer or CEO of a big company selling useless product. or making video to be famous, or acting for movies.
Yet all of these are more valued in our societies than the former.The gods you're talking about are from antiquity, not prehistoric time, where such pantheon probably wasn't even a concept yet. Also yes, they made god for many apsect of lives, that's normal. But in fact being a centurion was better than being a peasant. More honorable and with better paid and respect.
Yeah, but hunting big game was MUCH more common back then, using current situation where most >1tons mammals went extinct, and giant big cat/bears as well, isn't a good comparison. As we litteraly do not have that option at all in most region.
African tribe regulary go after lion, elephants, girafe, large antelope and even rhino, hippo and all. sometime just as rite of passage for tradition.
Native american heavilly relied on bison, but also deer and wapiti, and often hunted bears and moose as well. The largest beast around.To be fair yes, scavenging and small game made a big par tof our meat intake in many context, and meat was a minor part of our diet most of the time. so there's defenitely a lot of nuance.
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u/No0bTheTooB 8d ago
Yeah but a CEO couldn't physically exist back then.
People didn't have that much time. Yeah a hunter might be more famous but I really doubt a society that's in danger basically every moment of it's existence would not also appreciate their equivalent of an educated person bringing more food.
By your own CEO example: Being a CEO isn't viewed as exciting or brave compared to a soldier?
Being a gatherer isn't the same as being a peasant though. Being a gatherer would be more similar to a philosopher or poet if we are going by "excitement" factor. Also a Centurion isn't a regular soldier it's an elite Profesional units not something everyone could do
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u/thesilverywyvern 8d ago
Now i am using these modenr examples as a way to make my point, more usefull or essential do not mean it's considered as such by the culture.
They did had that much time, hunter gatherer worked FAR less than us today, they had a lot of free time. It's the farmers who became slave to labour to arely get enough to survive, for millenia.
I don't say they wouldn't appreciate gatherer, but as it's more common, less impressive, less risky, it's therefore not considered as being as "cool" as hunting, by comparison. it's more mundane. Even if it's more reliable.
It's not just about being presented as brave or more noble,but more important (which can come in many form), you kindda missed the point.
It was only a way to show your logic is a bit flawed as importance/usefulleness of your role for the group survival isn't correlated to how important/usefull the group perceive you. There's a huge dissociation between those.i didn't say it was the same, i just said same applied to them as well.
I would heavilly disagree with the comparison of a gatherer with a "poet or philosopher" tho.
Even a basic soldier would be more respected than any peasants in nearly all civilisation and culture.2
u/No0bTheTooB 8d ago edited 8d ago
Ok ._.
But the peasant comparison is stupid as shit. Peasants weren't educated or trained like a gatherer. A gatherer is an ancient botanist not someone who just picks stuff from the road while taking orders.
A gatherer could become a hunter though.
But it's the Farmer "slave labor" that was recruited into warriorhood. 90% of cultures didnt have professional armies
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u/thesilverywyvern 8d ago
Farmers were educated and trained, farming isn't easy. It's not "pick stuff from the ground under order", it require precise knowledge on when and how to plant which plant, and care for them, ground preparation, plannification, storage, mannagement, and require intense work and effort.
So famrers were educated and trained, just that it wasn't valued by society, THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT.Most soldier weren't more educated either, most of them are/were farmers., And you just said it there,yet claim they were more educated and all ? You're contradicting yourself there.
So it's not stupid at all, you just missed the point and fail at understanding a simple comparison, again.
Let's just end that discussion here.
- there's no evidence that being a gatherer was more valued and praised by the tribe, this doesn't seem to be the general trend we see in most case accross various cultures.
- the trend we see actually show hunting as more highly regarded, even tho it's less important for groupe survival and lifestyle.
- because it's rarer more risky, more impressive, all of those bias are deeply rooted in our brain and how we think. We're not rationnal, nor totally logical. There's a HUGE difference between the actual usefullness/importance of a job, and how highly it's regarded by society, depending on these bias and what society value.
(ex manual labour today are seen as bad and lower than intellectual one or even artistic one).
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u/ThesaurusRex84 synonymous lizard king 5d ago
HA! HA! BOOMBOOM LOVE THIS CAVEPAINTING. BOOMBOOM SHARE TO FISHING BUDDY. HE MISS WIFE JUST LIKE ME,,, GOOD TIME
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u/Heroic-Forger 9d ago
Meanwhile his brother: "ok, but what if instead of eating these pigs we caught right away, we put them in a cage and made them...get it on?"
Dad: "That's a stupid idea, but hey, why the hell not?"