Were women the first warriors?

[walker 0]

Hi all

I just came across this article

Quote[/b] ]Chimps Observed Making Their Own Weapons

By Rick Weiss

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, February 22, 2007; 2:48 PM

Chimpanzees living in the West African savannah have been observed fashioning deadly spears from sticks and using the hand-crafted tools to hunt small mammals -- the first routine production of deadly weapons ever observed in animals other than humans.

The multi-step spear-making practice, documented by researchers in Senegal who spent years gaining the chimpanzees' trust, adds credence to the idea that human forebears fashioned similar tools millions of years ago.

The landmark observation also supports the long-debated proposition that females -- the main makers and users of spears among the Senegalese chimps -- tend to be the innovators and creative problem solvers in primate culture.

Using their hands and teeth, the chimpanzees were repeatedly seen tearing the side branches off long straight sticks, peeling back the bark and sharpening one end, the researchers report in today's on-line issue of the journal Current Biology. Then, grasping the weapon in a "power grip," they jabbed into tree-branch hollows where bush babies -- small monkey-like mammals -- sleep during the day.

After stabbing their prey repeatedly, they removed the injured or dead animal and ate it.

"It was really alarming how forceful it was," said lead researcher Jill D. Pruetz of Iowa State University in Ames, adding that it reminded her of the murderous shower scene in the Alfred Hitchcock movie "Psycho." "It was kind of scary."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn....07.htmlFollow link for the full story

It raises some obvious questions as we know that in the past women were considered higher status than man. The mother earth cults were the earliest religions.

Did early women spit a few men on their spears to gain power?

Athena Greek Goddess of wisdom, strategy, and war would probably have approved of our hairy ancestors starting with the spear her favoured personal weapon.

Kind Regards Walker

[Tovarish 0]

Saw this at work, think it is very cool if true, maybe Planet of the Apes is coming .

However, I found it very fishy that no one had a camera during any of the 22 observations of this behaviour.

[Supah 0]

Hmm chimps with sharpened sticks vs. cluster bombs .... I am not that worried

[kavoven 4]

I read this article in a newspaper a few minuts ago, too and the only interesting part was the monkey with their sticks... I think the theory of "who invented the weapon first" is rather silly or even ridiculous...

[Guest Ti0n3r]

I'm amazed, to say the least... Never thought I would see this in my life time. Wow...

[martinovic 0]

Quote[/b] ]It raises some obvious questions as we know that in the past women were considered higher status than man. The mother earth cults were the earliest religions.

Care to elaborate? 'Cause what i know of history indicates that earliest civilizations were pretty male dominated.

[Tovarish 0]

Hmm chimps with sharpened sticks vs. cluster bombs .... I am not that worried

Monkey see, Monkey do

And yes, I do realize chimps are apes.

[ozanzac 0]

Purely awesome!

Who needs guard dogs when you could train a chimp to kill using weapons!

[Infam0us 10]

Nice post Tovarish, couldn't agree more

[walker 0]

Quote[/b] ]It raises some obvious questions as we know that in the past women were considered higher status than man. The mother earth cults were the earliest religions.

Care to elaborate? 'Cause what i know of history indicates that earliest civilizations were pretty male dominated.

Hi martinovic

The earliest known religious symbols are the mother earth statues such as the Venus of Willendorf of 22,000 to 24,000 years ago. At this time all divine images were female. It predates male deities by almost 20,000 years and is believed to have been the dominant religious form until the city farming cultures of the 4th century BC.

What gets deified tends to be what is dominant. The fact that it appears from the research that certain tool use tends to result from solutions to the need for high quality protein by females when they are restricted from hunting by child rearing has meant the logical development of their twig for grubs being increased to bigger sharp stick for small mammals.

It is then only a small step to using a stick as knife or spear to gain dominance in the troop. In Lion culture the male is dominant and tends to be fatter and bigger. The fact that the females in early paleolithic religion are depicted as fat is indicative they were able to ensure they got a good share of the food.

Kind regards walker

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Quote[/b] ]It raises some obvious questions as we know that in the past women were considered higher status than man. The mother earth cults were the earliest religions.

Care to elaborate? 'Cause what i know of history indicates that earliest civilizations were pretty male dominated.

Hi martinovic

The earliest known religious symbols are the mother earth statues such as the Venus of Willendorf of 22,000 to 24,000 years ago. At this time all divine images were female. It predates male deities by almost 20,000 years and is believed to have been the dominant religious form until the city farming cultures of the 4th century BC.

What gets deified tends to be what is dominant. The fact that it appears from the research that certain tool use tends to result from solutions to the need for high quality protein by females when they are restricted from hunting by child rearing has meant the logical development of their twig for grubs being increased to bigger sharp stick for small mammals.

It is then only a small step to using a stick as knife or spear to gain dominance in the troop. In Lion culture the male is dominant and tends to be fatter and bigger. The fact that the females in early paleolithic religion are depicted as fat is indicative they were able to ensure they got a good share of the food.

Kind regards walker

You are right in most what you write, except this very important aspect:

Quote[/b] ]What gets deified tends to be what is dominant.

As seen with these chimps, the reason why the female is the only ones using spears, is that the male is capable of finding food without it (strong enough). This of course leads us to believe that the female will be more dominant when it finally figures out how to use it against its own species.

But we also know that these primates learn by watching other do stuff (just like we do), and rest assured the bigger male will not allow the female to be dominant .

[Infidel 0]

Actually this is yet another instance of feminism blurs research.

Jill D. Pruetz and Adrienne Zihlman are, well, women.

Zihlman's homepage at,

http://anthro.ucsc.edu/lab/zihlman.html

lists her interests as "teaching and research interests in evolutionary theory, primate and human evolution, primate behavior and anatomy, and the role of women in hominid evolution, and the contribution of women in science".

It has repeatedly been the case that researchers try to give females a more active role in human history that is more in line with the feminist and women's rights views of today.

One isolated tribe of apes is not a clear indication you can generalize ape, let alone human, behavior by. After all, the chimpanzees here could have been influenced by humans, among other factors.

Infidel

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Actually this is yet another instance of feminism blurs research.

Jill D. Pruetz and Adrienne Zihlman are, well, women.

Zihlman's homepage at,

http://anthro.ucsc.edu/lab/zihlman.html

lists her interests as "teaching and research interests in evolutionary theory, primate and human evolution, primate behavior and anatomy, and the role of women in hominid evolution, and the contribution of women in science".

It has repeatedly been the case that researchers try to give females a more active role in human history that is more in line with the feminist and women's rights views of today.

One isolated tribe of apes is not a clear indication you can generalize ape, let alone human, behavior by. After all, the chimpanzees here could have been influenced by humans, among other factors.

Infidel

Not to mention that the male is still the dominant one in that particular group.

So if anything, this could make you speculate that the women were the insiration for males to use tools as weapons.