Lady Sapiens: Breaking Stereotypes about Prehistoric Women

In texts and films about people who lived in prehistoric times, they are often referred to as ‘prehistoric man,’ ‘cavemen,’ etc., which seems to ignore the role of women. And previous assumptions about the lives of those people were that men hunted and women stayed home tending the fire and taking care of children. Through reading I’ve done over the last few years, I’ve come to learn that women played a more active role in all aspects of the life of prehistoric hunter-gatherers.

Lady Sapiens: Breaking Stereotypes about Prehistoric Women, by Thomas Cirotteau, Jennifer Kerner, and Éric Pincas (2021), presents the evidence that proves what these more active roles were. I’m very interested in this aspect of archaeology, and this book fits the category of History for the 2024 Nonfiction Readers’ Challenge (hosted by https://bookdout.wordpress.com/2024-nonfiction-reader-challenge-host/).

At the beginning of the book are four pages of timelines and drawings titled "Key Dates and Evidence Relevant to the Project." The seven chapters are divided into different aspects of prehistoric women’s life and society, such as their crafts and skills, family life, clothing and decoration, etc. The first two chapters present information about various archaeological finds of female skeletons and evidence of their work, including recent fossil testing that indicated various skeletons that were previously assumed to be male were actually female. There is a Selected Bibliography at the end, but most of the references are French-language sources, since the book was originally written in French. It was translated into English by Philippa Hurd.

The inspiration for the book (and for the documentary of the same name produced by two of the authors) is stated in the Preface by Prof. Sophie A. de Beaune, the scientific advisor for the documentary:

“Between the traditional image of a woman crushed beneath the male yoke and the equally exaggerated vision of a huntress as man’s equal, we were missing a more nuanced, rigorous portrait that drew on archaeological sources while taking into account ethnographic approaches. It was with this in mind that I tried to draw up a list of all the archaeological evidence, whether direct or indirect, that tells us about the position of women in prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies. These sources can be the human bones themselves, as well as the objects that were buried in tombs alongside the dead, the prints accidentally left in the clay of the caves, the hands pressed into the walls, leaving the mark of a presence, material remains of skilled work, etc.”

There are hand-drawn illustrations of these archeological finds, but I wish there were photos of these finds instead. A map would also be useful, to indicate where these objects were found. However, the information presented is extremely thorough and the descriptions are clear and detailed. Much of the book reads like a novel, and the scientific evidence is presented in an understandable way. It assumes the reader has some background knowledge of prehistoric life, but is not too academic.

Although the book’s purpose is to focus on the role of women in prehistory, much of the information is about what prehistoric people did or made, but not necessarily women. And later chapters make too many assumptions that what today’s ‘traditional societies’ do is therefore what was done in prehistoric times. But aside from this, Lady Sapiens nevertheless has very interesting historical information about early Modern Humans.

The conclusion includes the claim that prehistoric females were “essential to their clan’s survival,” which I never doubted. For readers who have not known this or would like to know more, this is definitely a book to read.