The statement is misleading as a general description of early humanity. Men often specialized in hunting and women in gathering in documented foraging societies, but these roles were not universally exclusive. We cannot establish one arrangement for all of the earliest humans.
A 2020 archaeological study described a roughly 9,000-year-old female burial in Peru with projectile points and animal-processing tools, interpreted as evidence of a female big-game hunter. Separately, Yale's Human Relations Area Files summarizes common divisions of labor while recognizing variation, including men sharing gathering tasks.
Burial objects provide indirect evidence of a person's activities, and a Peruvian burial does not establish how the first humans organized work. Recent hunter-gatherers are also not unchanged examples of prehistoric life. The evidence challenges a rigid universal split without showing that men and women hunted equally everywhere.
A common division of labor should not be mistaken for a universal rule covering all early humans.
Randall Haas and colleagues
Researchers interpreted a roughly 9,000-year-old female burial at Wilamaya Patjxa, Peru, with hunting and animal-processing tools as a hunter burial, challenging an exclusive male-hunter model.
Based on: Science Advances / American Association for the Advancement of Science
Human Relations Area Files at Yale University
The synthesis describes common male hunting and female gathering patterns, but also variation and shared gathering. It cautions against directly projecting recent societies into the distant past.
Based on: Human Relations Area Files at Yale University
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