Exam 1: Nature, Humanity, and History

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Students should be able to trace the early development of gender roles and societal norms as humans transitioned from very early human groups to the early agricultural civilizations. Very early human groups likely exhibited some primate traits, but long before the advent of modern Homo sapiens , the two-parent family would have been common. The need of human infants and children for much longer nurturing makes care by mothers, fathers, and other family members a biological imperative. The human reproductive cycle also became unique. In many other species sexual contact is biologically restricted to a special mating season of the year or to the fertile part of the female's menstrual cycle. Moreover, among other primates the choice of mate is usually not a matter for long deliberation. To a female baboon in heat any male will do, and to a male baboon any receptive female is a suitable sexual partner. In contrast, adult humans can mate at any time and are much choosier about their partners. Once they mate, frequent sexual contact promotes deep emotional ties and long-term bonding. An enduring bond between human parents made it much easier for vulnerable offspring to receive the care they needed during the long period of their childhood. Working together, mothers and fathers could nurture dependent children of different ages at the same time, unlike other large mammals, whose females must raise their offspring nearly to maturity before beginning another reproductive cycle. Spacing births close together also would have enabled humans to multiply more rapidly than other large mammals. Researchers studying present-day foragers infer that Ice Age women would have done most of the gathering and cooking (which they could do while caring for small children). Older women past childbearing age would have been the most knowledgeable and productive food gatherers. Men, with stronger arms, would have been more suited than women to hunting, particularly for large animals. Since the male hunters will only occasionally have succeeded in bringing down their prey, while the women gatherers provided the bulk of the band's daily diet, it is likely that women held a respected position in early human societies.