Fighting, hunting are all the same thing focused on the same qualities so that’s why I suggested a point at which, when females are not burdened with child rearing, can do these things
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Well, sort of. Hunting is often not anywhere near as dangerous as fighting. When people speak of hunting, ideas of large animals and many hunters bravely fighting to bring down the large animal come to mind. In reality, a large percentage of animals caught and killed for hunting would be rather small. Fish, rabbits, birds and other such creatures are quite safe to hunt and comprise a large percentage of the animals killed in tribal Society, at least in recorded contemporary examples. I posted a few months ago something about Amazon tribes where it was discussed that women made up well over half of the hunting within the tribe.
Now when it comes to Warfare, there seems to be enough evidence from the Neolithic collapse of the Y DNA variations to show that men were likely the primary combatants. There isn’t a lot of evidence showing battle injuries among Neolithic people. As a possible supposition, perhaps people killed in combat in the Neolithic we’re simply discarded, their bones not surviving until modern times. More carefully inhumed corpses did survive. This is somewhat supported by several Mass Graves found showing injuries to both men and women, preserved because of the mass grave. I’m not suggesting men and women both fought, just that both of them were preserved because of the grave) can assume that many examples occurred where the deceased were simply left as they fell.
I would say the likelihood of a woman warrior would be very low, though not nonexistent. This would also be partially informed by the culture, which may develop social mores against women in Warfare for some of the same reasons that you have mentioned, although perhaps religiously-motivated as well. I would go on to say that a woman would certainly take up arms against enemies in the defense of her tribe if it did not seem that any other outcome but death was the alternative or to save her children. That would make the women perhaps impromptu Defenders, though I don’t think active defense would be there initial motivation, more of a last resort.
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True. What we need to consider is, what type of weaponry is available. Melee combat is predominantly strength based (and skill obviously 
) in which case an average man is 1,5 times stronger, than the average woman. In a 1 vs 1 this means, women will almost always lose against a man. But. If we take projectile weapons, strength becomes less a deciding factor. Although more strength means bigger range and/or penetrating power (this will become important with armor of any kind). Nevertheless, if you already have bows, than I see no real reason, why women could not go hunting or even participate in combat. Especially in a fight-or-die situation.
Realistically, I would think, that in a raid against another tribe, you would not send any women since their reproductive value is to great to risk it. But if you are attacked by another tribe and you are threatened by annihilation, every hand on the wall, so to speak, increases your chance of survival in the short term. Historically there were several examples, that defenders were joined by the women, as a last resort. On the other hand, every dead woman decreases the chance of survival of your tribe in the long term so your you have a vested interest not to let the situation come to this point.
Another important factor in combat is experience. Skill can counteract (to a certain extent) a difference in strength. So if you are a risk taker, you could try to send a bunch of women on low risk raids to let them gain valuable experience and create your amazon elite unit of your dreams . Just keep in mind: numbers can counteract any kind of difference in strength or skill. If your tribe breeds like rabbits, any elite unit can be overwhelmed by numbers. Which leads us back to the reproductive value of women. Risk them in combat (or dangerous hunting) and your population might stagnate or even implode. While the neighboring tribe triples in numbers and soon you will have a horde at your gates.
Ultimately, I say it should be up to the player, which rout to take. But reality reigns supreme.
I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of reducing women to reproductive value only. When you’re not a man, it sort of stands out when you read it.
Women have been documented throughout history in Warfare, from the steppe Warriors from the European plains all the way to the Picts. These Warriors who are often described as being brave, daring and quite fearsome on the battlefield. In fact I have several books just filled with examples.
I agree with you for sure on the strength issues. There are plenty of weapons women could use just fine, such as a bow. In a pinch, a woman might simply grab her spindle and bop a unwitting raider over the head. One hit from a stone whorl of a spindle, and the raider would be done lol
Neolithic weaponry involves the bow, spear, various forms of war club, and probably more domestic tools, such as a fishing spear, adze, axe and of course knives and daggers.
I agree that women would probably be most likely found in the form of combat whilst defending their Village. I don’t really see large groups of women going on raids, though I find it quite possible one might involve themselves in such activities every now and then. There are many stories of this happening among Native Americans and other groups around the world, so it would be really odd that it never happened during the Neolithic.
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I tried to get into making arrowheads, but it made me so tired I always just ended up knapping instead. (Not my joke, but I couldn’t resist). 
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It is actually pretty easy to do. I have made a few arrows before, but I usually use store bought for my archery lol
i beleve women where very much protectet by the tribe during this era i see women pick up spears was a thing but indeed very rare. i would like to see a tribe dying if important roll would disapear.
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Think in Neolithic humans more like animals that want to survive, think in wolfs, someone think that the female vulpes will not kill for food, hunt, defend, atack…
The ancient humans live and die for sure like wolpacks, with inner organization and rules (each tribe diferent) but with the instinc to survive and every individual is a valid one, a warrior mother, a warrior father…
Neolithic people built Villages of wood, mud and stone. They created looms to weave cloth, complex ceramics, made cheese, and some of their villages held many thousands of inhabitants.
I am not sure comparing them to wolves is accurate. Their social structure was probably rather complex in the later periods.
I was talking about the genre thing.
“Think” is like #wolf in the way that the she-wolfs are exactly equal important for the wolfpack. In fact the wolfs have a complex social estructure, that includes to take care of the elder wolfs.
In a wolf-pack each wolf counts, for sure in the ancient tribes was the same.
Oh, my apologies. You were making an analogy. I misunderstood.
Continuing the discussion from Gender Roles - Female Warriors/Defenders:
I agree. The mechanics of the game must be exactly that of the debate of this topic that they are debating. WOMEN can participate in all activities. Really rented activities they are in higher number in others in smaller. THE REPRODUCTIVE VALUE OF THE WOMAN IS INCALCULTABLE TO THE SOCIETY. They may observe that women in the past or present in general were spared from dangerous activities; hunting, war for example. But women were given freedoms to agriculture, religion, manufacture like weaving, etc. This is in safer territory. But yes women should have the freedom to play in any functions but their avatars have a lower physical power, but have more manual and other skills. It’s not about prejudice, it’s about simulating reality. Of course societies should be represented as they were; Roman society, Greek women had less power, WAR was out of place. But Celts, Bretons, it seems to me more liberal for women to go to the battlefield. These details are important. It will allow the female player to decide whether her avatar will be from a more patriarchal or matriarchal or egalitarian society. And understand egalitarian means having women participate in lower rates as archeology seems to confirm, although 30% as I have just read, is a very expressive number in military terms. Much bigger than today.
I think you got the definition right. Being necessary statistics and defining which group of societies women have been more active in military matters and replicate these rates for systems of random generation. In the future multiplayer, the thing would be different, each player or player chooses the career that wants. Although I think it is important to keep women in the most prohibitive positions in battles, for they did exist, right. But the girl will then be able to choose other, more militaristic societies. It would make the game perfect and realistic.
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Continuing the discussion from Gender Roles - Female Warriors/Defenders:
@Grigor - I thought about your post on the theme about “gender and women warriors.”
I agree . I think the solution are to adjust sliders to women’s freedom or female power.
Being:
90% to 100% - radical feminism. Men excluded from almost everything.
51 to 89% - feminism supremacism. (Matriarchy)
50% - egalitarianism. Everything has 50% of men and women.
11% - 49% Male supremacism. (Patriarchate)
0% - 10% - Male radicalism. Women excluded from almost everything.
As for what it reads on the topic, it seems that the EURASIA steppe societies were the ones that most had warrior women at a rate of up to 30% of army warriors if so the adjustment in patriarchy contemplates, simply adjusting the proration you want . Each society could have defined values for each attribute of sliders: economy, politics, etc. Being this slider of “female power” fit within Politics or population. Simple.
Slider games that use the attribute “female power”.
In my opinion as a contributor, Grigor, found the perfect solution to the issue.
Thank you.
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Well, it still remains a fact of life. On the other hand, this also means, that men have LOW reproductive value. They are expendable. But so what?
Nevertheless, my point with this was, that choice should be free… But there should also be a price to be payed. If you want women to fight, you can. Just let´s not forget what the costs are. Especially, that we are talking about the neolithic. All the weapons you´ve listed on your picture, men (in general) are superior with, compared with women (in general). That would translate to higher casualty rates in the ranks of fighting women. Although, this is mostly important in relation to the size of the population. If you have a dozen amazons fighting in your ranks, but your population has 10-20 times that much women in total, than it probably wouldn´t be detrimental if you lost all of them in a fight. On the other hand, if they are half of your female population…
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On a second thought, I imagine there could be a situation where a majority of women would take up arms. As I see it, the male dominant societies probably come from the fact, that, from the point of view of the community, males were a low value asset from a reproductive aspect, while women were a high value asset. Logically, this would lead to the more and more sheltering of women from danger (basically banning them in the end from any kind of dangerous activity). But what would happen, if for some reason a high percentage of the male population would be wiped out (warfare, disease, etc)? I think, it would be logical, that the society would shift to female dominance even to the extent of banning men from dangerous activities. And since societies can become rigid, this could become the norm even after the population stabilizes. And BAM! Amazon society!
Implemented into the game, this would mean, that as we set tasks for the population the AI would have a negative selection preference on men for certain jobs (actually this could be done as a general rule in which case the society will naturally shift, depending on the circumstances, from male dominated (high female casualty) to egalitarian (app. equal casualty) to female dominated (high male casualty) and vice versa ). Unless the individual job selection is done manually by the player.
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I’m going to leave this conversation alone as it has now departed from Neolithic societies and the ability of women to hunt, take up defense of their village, and maybe on rare occasions even become agents of armed conflict.
I do agree that there should be benefits and weaknesses to any strategy with many variables in creating different types of societies, though I think it’s not a good idea to ascribe value to sexes or genders simply based on either physical strength or reproductive value. While those are definitely important characteristics, they are not always the primary characteristics nor do they take into account cultural and religious pressures, which can completely warp a simple biological dichotomy.
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Yes i agree.
Well, it looks like the scientific community has reevaluated the famous Viking Woman Warrior burial and affirmed that it was indeed a viking woman warrior.
On a side note, I doubt most male burials undergo this much (sexist) scrutiny.
It is turning out that woman were indeed warriors on occasion, but simply hidden from history by men and time.
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Hi guys, this may be out of scope of this project, however, what about making a mechanic of choosing your tribe’s policies and customs? In this way, you could just offer the player a choice of who can do what in the sense, that if you choose egalitarian society, everybody can do, what they want, if matriarchal, employments can be egalitarian again, except for example leadership or religious positions, etc.
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This was discussed at length and I recall it garnering wide approval has the proper way to proceed, though I don’t know if the devs agreed.
Likely, wide varieties of societies existed for many different reasons, both cultural and environmental. Having the ability to change your society’s stances on various issues sounds like a great way to build the game \o/