Was Man The Hunter?

The concept of "Man the Hunter" posits that men were the primary providers, supplying the majority of energy through hunting and fishing. However, from the 1950s onwards, this notion faced significant opposition from feminists, cultural anthropologists, journalists and others. They highlighted ethnographic and anthropological studies from the 19th and 20th centuries, which suggested that the diets of hunter-gatherer populations were varied and heavily reliant on gathered plant foods. These findings indicated that there was no universal diet, let alone one solely based on hunting in pre-agricultural societies. Consequently, the idea of "Man the Hunter" was largely and erroneously dismissed in favor of the belief that women, through gathering plant foods, contributed the majority of energy in most hunter-gatherer societies. Essentially, they were arguing that Paleolithic people were heavily depended on plant derived foods gathered by women but also that hunting played a lesser role and that hunting activities were not exclusively male-dominated. This perspective became firmly entrenched in academic circles and has been perpetuated as a prevailing dogma. However, as this video will illustrate, Paleolithic humans were primarily reliant on hunted meat that was primarily hunted by men, and thus the concept of “Man the Hunter” has validity.