I agree on all points , i was unaware of the five different metrics ,
very nice art btw ,
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Thank you. I donāt expect to see that kind of detail in the game, but outside of the game it is certainly a component of humanity.
As for the pics, I had them commissioned lol
I only wish I could draw
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Interestingly, I honestly, never thought about it. Would the question, be whether our ancestors were aware of this? Could only happen through comparisons, so āin relation toā. This would require a certain norm, presumably adopted by a majority.
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We see other cultures who are aware of these facts and integrated them well into their society, such as many Polynesian cultures. That does not confirm prehistoric Society did the same in Europe, but it provides an example showing thatās such integration I has occurred.
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Yes, in this we agreed.
Sorry, Mistake of me, I meant this fact:
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Hello all,
Iām brand new to the site (was just Invited) but Iām glad that the first thing I saw/read was this. Over all, I think the article is very interesting,.and I think it raises a interesting idea of allow gender norms to be developed and possibly subverted depending on the events within the game. But not only gender norms. There is this Quest (for those who donāt know Quests are stories where the author writes a portion then the readers vote on what to do next and the story goes on from there) on Sufficient Velocity called Paths of Civilization - in it readers follow the story of a civilization, a People, from the Neolithic age. In it a woman came up who had a wife, was made ākingā, and since millennium have passed since then is currently in the pantheon as a gender fluid god (who is both male and female).
This relates to the line āthat the gender specificity of roles varied by peoples and culturesā I think that when you start from the beginning with a small tribe of hunters and gatherers you not only grow them up into a city over the years, but a whole civilization. And due to that there is much room to play around with how that civilization is structured.
So yeah, thatās my contribution to the thread. As for the Quest I mentioned I definitely recommend checking it out! It has some really clear and obvious overlaps.
Till then!
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Wonderful!
As a prehistoric writer who has two females (married) as protagonists, I find the idea of Paths of Civilization rather interesting! I will certainly check that out! (Thanks for the Link!)
The same only gender tropes get old after a while and I am glad to see some variety!!!
Which makes this game not historically accurate to the human development. As unfair as it is, stereotypes and role assignments donāt come from nowhere.
Men are biologically developed to be strong and resilient, because they are biologically created to be warriors, defenders and hunters. Men have higher bone density to hit harder and also be more resistant to physical damage, they have higher muscle mass also to hit harder and pick up heavy objects, for example prey the hunt down for their tribe. The list goes on.
Women on the other hand are biologically developed to be the carers, the feeders, the managers of the tribes. Long legs allow to flee from enemies faster to protect the food and children of the tribe. The fascination of men over big butts are no coincidence, big butts allow to breed children much more successfully, which allows the human population to grown faster. Female mind structure allows them to be great managers, because they need to multitask: take care of children, gather food, etc.
Gender dimorphism assigned roles for different genders for a reason- to protect the mankind by organising it on a biological level. Yes, nowadays these assignmenst are archaeic, but in case of the Stone Age to Medieval it is a viable concept.
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Culture plays a big part in gender roles and norms. The way any single civilization treats task assignments can have a impact on itās developing culture. So, in the game. if from the very get go you have women be hunters/warriors but men be caretakers/gatherers than that will be reflected in your civilizationās culture - either explicitly through built-in features of the game or implicitly through roleplaying. Of course, tasks can also have no set gender attributed to it, but be on a case-by-case basis based on the āNPCā traits.
Also, your making some broad generalizations/essentializations here, things like āmen are biologically developed to be strong and resilientā and āwomen are biologically developed to be the carers, the feeders and the managers of the tribeā or that āthe female mind structure allows them to be great managersā. I only have one thing to say to all of that - says who? None of that would be apparent or firmly established to a Neolithic tribe. Again, our civilization, our culture, is freely developing over the course of the game.
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Yep! This works naturally on both sides, does not it?
Especially in fragile societies means ārightā - it has worked.
In our comfortable society we can bend this in all directions, it will not question our survival. Then more other topics.
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The problem with generalizations is that they are, General. Women hunt, have been warriors ( they just found Viking Warrior woman), and even though leader of tribes (e.g. Picts).
Sexual dimorphism is apparent within humans, as are gender-based roles, seen throughout most of human society. But given the diversity of gender roles and the presence of those exceeding gender roles, as well as the differences within cultures leading to both the presence of patriarchal and matriarchal societies, I think it would be remiss to exclude both the evolution of a culture to have different gender norms as well as to exclude the occasional individual surpassing those norms.
Otherwise, how could we explain the diverse gender norms we find around the world, regardless of whether they tend to have similarities or general tendencies that grow from sexual dimorphism?
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I find it unlikely that gender-based task specialization, outside of extreme circumstances, had a major Impact upon the survivability of a society to a point where a society might use this as a basis for said role.
If we were to conclude that societies chose the best path for survival, we would have to ask ourselves why our ancestors chose to live in agrarian lifestyle in the Neolithic while mortality rates increased, rather than remaining in the less Advanced Mesolithic or mortality rates decreased.
Also, Iām not sure that I believe the notion that most Neolithic societies hung on some knife edge of starvation versus existence. If we look at Native American cultures, we see that most of them weāre getting along just fine ( before they were destroyed buy European cultures). Early reports from people coming to America suggest the Native Americans had a bounty of food and put the full game. Only the maladapted Europeans I had troubles was starvation.
Native American cultures, theyāre not exactly parallel to Neolithic, had similar Technologies. It just seems odd to think of the Neolithic is being so close to the edge of life and death that sending a woman out to hunt would carry such a risk to the tribe of feast or famine.
Additionally, thereās always this notion the hunting involves a bunch of men diving upon some humongous animal which is dangerous Iām very large. Hunting can involve fishing, small game and fowl, setting traps and then checking them, all things women are perfectly good at. Not only do we see Amazon River tribe women performing many of these tasks, but it was also described by the explorers who came to the new world.
A Neolithic woman spearing catfish in a river
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It seems similar in Central Europe over a long period (ca.3500 BC) - say recent investigations of excavations
A very good question, right. 
Think it has something to do with the over hunting (?) and simultaneous increase in population
The population increase was probably a response to the advent of farming, not the other way around. Farming gives you more stability at a cost of nutrition and the occasional mass failed crop.
What I was getting at was the reasons I reject the common argument that women are not as suited for hunting and (importantly) the society need not risk itself on this (implying their existence was often in question). For this argument to apply, Neolithic people would need to be constantly in feast/famine situations.
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Remind me that weāve thought about it before. The most important argument was that a woman was far more valuable than a man for the survival and growth of a clan. Therefore a more harmless roll distribution. There were exceptions, however, at all times.
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Lions are stronger than lionessesā¦ but lionesses are the ones hunting and taking all the risks.
This case by itself breaks that generalisation even in the Nature.
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Very true. In the case of lions, sexual dimorphism is quite apparent, but sexual competition provides an evolutionary pressure resulting in the tendency of males not to hunt together. Female lions do not have this problem and are therefore better Suited for hunting, regardless of their smaller stature.
While itās probably true that males comprise the majority of large game hunting, that doesnāt mean the majority of hunting is large game.
Women can be witnessed in many Amazon tribes hunting small game, fish and fowl. Because the smaller game is numerous and easy to process, this may have accounted for a significant percentage of the actual hunting. We may never know from observing Neolithic sites, but an observation of contemporary tribal societies indicates women do a significant amount of small game hunting, fowl hunting and fishing.
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Again, thatās not my point. The point is that biology created us to be more suitable for certain roles, in this case men-warriors, women-caretakers. Im not denying that culture also plays a part in such developments, but you just canāt argue that men are physically more fitting for the role of warriors. In history there were very few examples of actual successful cultures from Stone Age to Classical Age, which saw women as more fitting to be warriors. Like, the only ones I can remember are Amazonians and in some cases some viking clans had women-warriors. I donāt aggree with making rules out of exceptions.
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I canāt speak for others, but Iām not making the argument that sexual dimorphism isnāt apparent in humans. I am also making no argument that men do not comprise the vast majority of military and even large game hunting throughout history. These have not been my arguments nor will they be, as to make such an argument would be contrary to evidence.
What we do see are biologically suited roles which may be culturally normative, but not species normative. You make this case clearly when pointing out the steppes cultures, as well as many other cultures who either had a few or even many female combatants.
Contemporary tribal cultures are often found to have women Hunters as well as men, though the specific types of game they target may be limited due to sexual dimorphism.
The exception would be to force all males and females into explicit binary rolls when this does not matchup with the history and observation of our species, which has gender trends but not hard and fast exclusivity.
To make the simulation accurate, I would recommend having men perform the majority of direct military action, while providing for some women to aid in ad hoc defense. Perhaps an occasional female warrior ( observed many times in tribal cultures, such as Native Americans and Polynesians) maybe one out of a thousand.
For hunting, I think it would be in error not to have women take part in at least half or more of small game hunting, to include fish and fowl. For larger game, I would suggest men performing the majority of said task, with perhaps an exception now and then.
Considering that women comprise both half of the human race and a fair percentage of gamers, it seems to me that spending the time to provide a non-static and richer depiction behooves any developer and does proper service to half the human race. On a side note, this would extend to males as well. Every now and then, you would find a male performing classically feminine tasks. And while Iāve stated before that I have zero expectations of transgender representation, that would be an interesting thing to see as well (also historically scene among Native American tribes and Polynesian people, as well AZ India)
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