There is a stubborn and widely held idea that in some earlier phase of our species’ existence, women had equal status to men, or even ruled, and societies were happier and more peaceful for it. Then along came the patriarchy, and much bloodshed and oppression later, here we all are.
This notion of matriarchy and patriarchy as polar opposites – with a switch having been thrown between them – was seeded in the 19th century by Marxist theory, taking root in archaeology without much evidence. From there it spread to public consciousness.
Anthropologists tended to be more sceptical. They saw plenty of diversity in gender relations across human societies, both modern and historical, and some of them suspected that diversity was the rule in prehistory, too. It was difficult to prove, though, in part because biological sex – let alone gender – was often hard to determine in ancient remains. Then about 20 years ago, that changed.
The so-called ancient DNA revolution – the ability to extract DNA from ancient bones and analyse it – meant that suddenly it was possible to determine the sex of long-dead people, and to ask how they were related to each other. The chemical makeup of their bones and teeth – specifically, the ratio of isotopes or variants of certain elements found there – revealed if they had lived in different places and undergone dietary changes as a result. The picture emerging thanks to these new tools is that diversity in gender relations was very much the rule in prehistory, and that there was no watershed when one system gave way to its mirror image.
The Marxist idea, actually credited to Marx’s collaborator Friedrich Engels, was that humans were egalitarian until agriculture spread out of the Middle East about 10,000 years ago. With the more sedentary lifestyle and accumulation of wealth that farming brought came the need to defend that wealth and to fix rules for its inheritance. As populations grew, men monopolised the elites that formed to coordinate these things, in part because they were better at warfare, and wealth gravitated to the male line. Male kin were also more likely to stay put, with their female mates moving to live with them. Female oppression was often a byproduct of these changes.
An alternative theory, put forward by the Lithuanian archaeologist Marija Gimbutas in the 1960s, was that woman-centred societies dominated for longer in Europe – until 5,000 years ago – when they were toppled by incoming, patriarchal nomads from the steppe.
Matrilinearity (where wealth passes down the female line) and matrilocality (where female kin stay together) often go together, and both are associated with higher female status and influence. In 2017, American geneticists reported that for more than 300 years around the 10th century an elite matrilineal group inhabited Chaco Canyon, in what is now New Mexico. Then, this June, Chinese researchers reported a matrilineal farming community that thrived for nearly as long in eastern China, more than 3,000 years earlier. These findings join others, suggesting that matrilineal societies have existed on all inhabited continents, at least from the arrival of agriculture on.
But though they enjoy higher status, women in matrilineal societies don’t necessarily make decisions. That generally remains the preserve of men – just of women’s brothers rather than their husbands. And since ancient DNA and isotopes can’t tell you much about female agency, gender power relations in prehistory remain a matter of debate. In fact, this line of work has forced researchers to ask themselves what they mean by power. If the female consort of a male ruler influenced his entourage through patronage and back channels, and his own policies through counselling, was she any less powerful than him?
Archaeologists know of several examples of couples ruling jointly in the bronze age – the period after those nomads arrived in Europe – and later historical records attest to elite women shaping decisions in such ways, continents apart. Perhaps they did so in earlier times, too. Females exerting soft power in male-dominated societies may even have predated Homo sapiens. In his 2022 book about sex and gender, Different, primatologist Frans de Waal described how an alpha female chimp, Mama, anointed a successor to the alpha male – who outranked her – with a kiss.
In recent years something else has become clear. Although Engels may have been broadly right in associating wealth with patrilinearity, other factors shaped gender relations, too – such as how a society makes a living. In February, Chinese and British researchers reported that traditionally matrilineal villages in Tibet have become more gender-neutral over the last 70 years, as they moved from an agricultural economy to a market-oriented one. Conflict also plays its part. Although matrilocal and patrilocal societies are equally warlike, says anthropologist Carol Ember of Yale University, internal strife – as opposed to war against an external enemy – prods societies towards patrilocality, because warring clans prefer to keep their sons close.
Meanwhile, evidence is accumulating that women fought, hunted and acted as shamans in the distant past. No role or position has been barred to them always, everywhere. And though female decision-makers may have been rare, they haven’t been absent. New ancient DNA findings from Trinity College Dublin show that there were at least pockets of matrilinearity throughout Britain, when Celtic tribes dominated the island in the iron age. Combined with archaeological evidence for female warriors and Roman descriptions of female tribal chiefs, it looks as if Celtic women could wield hard as well as soft power.
Matrilineal societies still exist today – the Mosuo of China are an example, as are the Hopi of Arizona, descendants of those Chaco Canyon clans. Their numbers are dwindling, as national governments flex their patriarchal muscles, but they serve as reminders that some extinct societies tilted more towards gender equality than many of our modern ones, and that all societies have the capacity to change.
Further reading
Different: What Apes Can Teach Us About Gender by Frans de Waal (Granta, £10.99)
The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule by Angela Saini (4th Estate, £10.99)
Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon (Penguin, £12.99)
