The Organization of Male and Female Labor in Foraging Societies: Implications for Early Paleoindian Archaeology

I use cross‐cultural ethnographic data to explore the relationship between male and female subsistence labor among hunter‐gatherer populations by examining data regarding resource procurement, time allocation, and task differentiation between the sexes relative to dependence on hunted foods. The findings indicate that female foragers generally perform a variety of nonsubsistence collection activities and preferentially procure high‐return...