9000-Year-Old Burial of a Hunter-Gatherer Along With Hunting Toolkit Discovered in Peru, Archeologists Stunned to Find Out It Was a Woman

In 2018, researchers uncovered a 9,000-year-old burial of a hunter in the Andes Mountains of Peru. This discovery upended many of the commonly held perceptions regarding hunter-gatherer society in the ancient ages, Live Science reported. The unearthed remains were analyzed and it was concluded that they were of a woman.

Considering the items with which she was buried, the researchers believe she was a hunter. This put into question the assumption held by many experts that men were hunters while women gathered herbs and plants in that era. Findings regarding the 9,000-year-old burial has been published in Science Advances. 

Researchers were working on a different excavation in the Andes Mountains when they came across a site with several artifacts. They named the site Wilamaya Patjxa and were surprised to see hundreds of ancient stone tools scattered on its surface.

The team collaborated with the local Peruvian community and secured enough funding to dig through the site for more findings. In 2018, they found six human burials at the location, and the next year uncovered more. Two of the discovered burials had hunting tools, which indicated that the individuals were hunters.

The remains were brought out and examined. The tooth development of one of the hunters indicated that they were between the ages of 17 and 19 at the time of death. James Watson, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, and co-author of the study was the first to figure out that the teen-hunter was a woman. His initial speculation was based on the fact that this particular hunter's bones were smaller than other buried remains. A detailed analysis of the teen's teeth proteins confirmed Watson's hypothesis. The finding was surprising because the young hunter's burial was decorated with "rich artifact assemblage" which indicated that the woman was highly respected in the community. 

The items with which the remains were discovered have been called "big-game hunting kit" by researchers, The New York Times reported. Randy Haas, an archeologist at the University of California, and one of the authors claimed that this woman hunted animals like vicuña and deer along with her people. Haas and other team members further claim that this rare finding combined with additional research indicates that there was equal participation in the task of hunting amongst both genders in prehistoric society. 

Haas and his team looked through 429 burials in the Americas which dated back from 14,000 to 8,000 years. Amongst them, the sex of 27 individuals buried with hunting tools had been identified. The team cited that eleven of these were female and 16 were male. The study believes that such evidence implies that females were not only big game hunters in ancient society they were also on equal footing with men.

Researchers not involved with the study accept that the particular woman found in Peru was a hunter, but don't think there is enough data to support the broader claim. They point out that even in the excavated site in Peru, there was just one burial with a female hunter.

Robert L. Kelly, an anthropologist at the University of Wyoming, stated that two of the 27 burials identified as female by researchers of the study were of infants. He believes that just because a body was buried with hunting tools, does not mean they were hunters. "The interpretation of grave goods, as a cultural, symbolic act, is not simple or straightforward," he stated.

Researchers hope that this study helps people explore hunter-gatherer societies without gender bias, Live Science reported. "This study should help convince people that women participated in big-game hunts," said Kathleen Sterling, an associate professor of anthropology at Binghamton University in New York, who also was not part of the study.

She points out that experts are quick to accept that buried male individuals are hunters when they are found with tools, but the same assumption is not shown in the case of women. After this finding the professor believes that it has been established that women worked as hunters and further explorations should use this as a commonly held belief.