“Man the Hunter has dominated the study of human evolution for nearly half a century & pervaded popular culture. [But] it was the arrival of agriculture that led to rigid gendered roles & economic inequality. Hunting belonged to everyone.”
@Sheril Evolution created women’s bodies to birth and nurse children. As long as women weren’t in the process of being pregnant, nursing and caring for infants there is no reason to believe some of them hunted.
I think it’s right that agriculture created stricter gender roles because agricultural settlements were targets for raids and you needed a collective defense that wasn’t dependent on the age of any given child.
Also evolution created men stronger and faster on average.
The “division of labor” is birthing vs non-birthing.
“A prominent hypothesis contends” - a hypothesis isn’t a theory and doesn’t need any evidence. Greater “endurance” doesn’t imply anything about hunting, it could just imply that nomadic women who could walk great distances carrying things like babies or other heavy objects helped their offspring survive long enough to reproduce.
