Thanks mate!
It’s my understanding that most modern historians believe that most early human societies were matriarchal and that the patriarchal cultural we see as the norm today did not come into existance until a bit later. Part of this had to do with different values being placed on those activities we see gendered. With combative prowess and physical might not being placed as highly be neolithic tribes as they would be by later societies. One book about this is “The Chalice and The Blade” but I’m sure their are other more recent works as well.
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That is interesting considering Australian Aboriginal culture which was unaffected by outside contact/influences for tens of thousands of years before European settlement was extremely patriarchal. There are numerous eye witness accounts of aboriginal women being viciously beaten by their men folk (in some cases with tree branches and rocks) for even minor transgressions.
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I think it is hard to guess what type of societie was dominante at that age. Moreover the time frame is huge (tens of thousands of years) the model could have change back and forth several time. I guess at that time women were more precious (due to high mortality rate) but it do not mean that it was a matriarchal culture. The main clue for the archeolgist are the tombs and not all societies buried their dead and not all tombs were preserved or found so it is not a perfect measure.
As always I think it is not black and white : at that time there were a wider range of socities (less communication between them) with a wide range of hierachy (from strong matriarchal to strong patriarchal). With time some model take over the others and now there is only a handfull of them remaining.
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Look I’m not an expert on anything. In all honesty it’s better not to argue to much on a gender subject because if we start to nit pic the game it’ll never be what it could be. Have a discussion more on how the people pass traits down from generation to generation and even hone those skills each and every generation. Or even when you mix skill from two different families that they could make a new skill that only appears when breed that way.
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Indeed it is a very sensitive topic as previous messages show (It had been moderate severals time so maybe it is not visible anymore). Concerning skills and traits there is already a topic on that (the name do not specify it precisely so you could have miss it) : Population Growth? Slavery/Assimilation/Children
Please, do not put emphasis on male/female roles. Nor on wether one looks white and the other looks black etc. I paid to play a game (hopefully)…
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I think the best way to go here is that there are no ‘gender roles’ at the start of each tribe/society. There were so many tribal kinds of tribes and all of them had different rules and traditions. And we can all agree that a big part of the culture each society is defined by those very rules and traditions. From a game perspective I also think it’s alot of more fun if the ‘player/god’ of the tribe is able to choose which way the tribe is going. It would be interesting to adjust male/female ratios or institute matriarchal or patriarchal law ( or none ) as the tribe progresses. All of these choices can have major impact on the growth of your people.
Personally I think that the ‘functions’ of both men and women were born out of practicality. If a female was better at shooting a bow, then she would have been suited to hunting for instance. The environment and chance also had an impact on the path of the tribe. If alot of females are born into the tribe there obviously would have been a different tribal structure then if there’d be more men. ( as a percentage can be seen as expendable the’d be given more roles in dangerous occupations like defense or hunting ) It’s only when tribes gain more structure with extensive tribal law or religion that roles were being solidified for the sake of either tradition or efficiency or both and practicality lost importance ( due to different survival conditions? ).
While we debate all these things. We must also never forget the irrationality of humans. Sometimes they just did things because they think they are right. A religious theory or gender/race hating tradition could suddenly become popular for some reason and change the whole tribal structure for no real reason. Or a leader could die from illness or be murdered and be replaced by a mad despot. I’d be amazed if these things did not happen in Neolithic times too.
Still i’d like to think most things happen with reason and that in order to survive Neolithic humans just adapted themselves if they needed to. If there was hunger, more tribesmen and women were put to work instead of rearing/birthing children. No reason for women to stay behind and do nothing. Survival is brutal and a great equalizer.
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A recent study showed that women are better at the longer distance than men. So having women to chase down an animal would be in favour of them .
Then again ancient societies weren’t exactly known for gender equality. Like, at all.
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Leave reality out of it. you’re gonna get blamed if you go either way. so make it an option. done. 
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Really weird that people would think that neolithic tribes would be risking women in some pseudo egalitarian idea that they’d just do what they’re good at. Women are responsible for taking care of children, the future of the tribe, so having them go out to hunt when they’d either be pregnant or taking care of children is pretty ridiculous. You only need a few men to repopulate a tribe, but if you only have a few women you’re people are doomed.
Children often die while they’re very young without the medical care we have these days, and that would mean women would pretty much need to always be having children and trying to keep them alive, rather than running around hunting.
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Have you read any of the research from the Catalhoyuk project? (Worth a read) They have so far detected significant evidence for Catalhoyuk being an egalitarian society. Few dietary differences were found, among other evidence.
There is also an odd coordination among people with the belief that hinting requires the hunter to be strong or experience risk. Hunting small game, such as rabbits, is hardly dangerous. Sexual dimorphasism results in some effective task specialization, but this isn’t backup up as a rule, by evidence.
In short, an effective egalitarianism is probably the best strategy to balance accuracy with unknown variables.
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Wouldn’t it be interesting if as a tribe you could choose how your society functioned whether it be gender specific or other traits. Would mean that if optional you could even have a tribe of amazonian women
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I’m all for that!
I find it very likely that many different configurations existed. While the sexual dimorphic traits of humans probably influenced all societies in certain, uniform, ways, I reject the notion that all Neolithic Society function a particular way. This would be contrary to our current world.
The suggestion of user configurability or a purely egalitarian model would likely result in the greatest degree of accuracy.
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I don’t know what would be accurate or not, though depending on the geographical location of the tribe there is going to be arrays of different cultures attributed to tribes.
Putting that as a game mechanic however would be splendid especially for late game-play which allot of city building strategy games lack.
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I agree.
Let the user define this or be egalitarian. These seem like the only two realistic options.
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I don’t know about that, in the end it’s their game, it’s their choice. Besides most people play games for escapism not realism 
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Very true. One reason many on the forum have posted so many posts of realistic details is due to the developers suggesting that they wanted a very realistic simulation.
Personally, I hope they go as realistic as possible.
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I hope I am staying on topic. I just want to point out that during various points in history women have been far more involved in survival of a group. Women worked the fields, were soldiers etc. It is only recent history women’s role changed.
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