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The two women decided to examine the topic further after being dissatisfied with a number of papers that had come out that just assumed that cavemen and women had clear gendered division of labor where the males hunted and the females gathered things. The researchers were unhappy with that being the default notion when so much evidence indicated this was not the case.
They further found that while men had an advantage in activities requiring speed and power, such as sprinting and throwing, women had an advantage over males in activities requiring endurance, like running. In the past, hunting required both sets of actions. “You live in such a small society. You have to be really, really flexible,” she said. “Everyone has to be able to pick up any role at any time. It just seems like the obvious thing, but people weren't taking it that way.”
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