#latvia

"Some 6,000 years ago in the northern reaches of modern Latvia, a young woman died. Afterwards, a group of early humans buried her in an ancient, sacred place along a lakeshore. They carefully lowered her small teenage frame into the ground, gently placing a stone ax, 28 flint flakes, 15 blades, and a stone scraper beside her. Stained with ochre, the stone implements were part of her last rites. This young woman remained there thousands of years, until, when archaeologists discovered her along with more than 300 others in the 20th century. The site, known as Zvejnieki cemetery, is one of Europe’s largest Stone Age cemeteries.

Research conducted at Zvejnieki has often challenged longheld assumptions about gender roles in prehistoric Europe. For instance, the young woman interred in burial 211 described above is one of several women and children buried with stone axes at the site, upending the notion that axes only belonged to Stone Age men. Now, a new study published September 10 in the journal PLOS One again upends gender stereotypes, demonstrating that women and children were just as likely to be buried with stone tools as men. The woman in burial 211 alone was laid to rest with a staggering 45 different stone objects. 

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This flies in the face of a decades-old stereotype that Stone Age women didn’t use stone tools as frequently as men. The women were too busy cooking, crafting, and caring for the family to bother with the stone tools used by men in hunting and building. Or so the outdated story went.

“Our findings overturn the old stereotype of ‘Man the Hunter,’”  Little said in a statement. Historically, this stereotype “has been a dominant theme in Stone Age studies, and has even influenced, on occasion, how some infants have even been sexed, on the basis that they were given lithic tools.”

LATVIAN MIKU🇱🇻🇱🇻🇱🇻🇱🇻🍻🍞🌾