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One widespread notion claims that in certain earlier eras of human existence, women had equal status to men, or even ruled, resulting in happier and more peaceful societies. Subsequently, the patriarchy arose, bringing ages of strife and subjugation.

The Roots of the Gender System Debate

This idea of female-led societies and male-led societies as diametrically opposed—with a decisive switch between them—was seeded in the 1800s via Marxist theory, influencing anthropological studies with limited proof. From there, it spread into public awareness.

Social scientists, by contrast, tended to be less convinced. They documented significant diversity in gender relations among human societies, including modern and historical ones, and some suspected that this variety had been the norm in ancient times as well. Confirming this proved challenging, in part because identifying physical sex—let alone gender—frequently proved tricky in old skeletons. Then about two decades back, everything shifted.

A Revolution in Ancient DNA

This so-called ancient DNA revolution—the ability to recover DNA from ancient bones and analyse it—meant that suddenly it was feasible to identify the sex of long-dead individuals and to examine their family connections. The isotopic composition of their skeletal remains—particularly, the proportion of isotopes found there—indicated whether they had lived in various places and experienced dietary changes. The evidence emerging thanks to these advanced methods indicates that variety in gender relations was absolutely the norm in ancient eras, and that there was no definite turning point when a particular model yielded to its opposite.

Theories on the Rise of Male-Dominant Systems

The Marxist idea, in fact attributed to Marx’s collaborator, proposed that humans were equal before agriculture spread from the Near East approximately 10,000 years ago. Accompanying the settled way of life and building up of resources that agriculture brought came the need to protect that wealth and to set laws for its succession. As populations grew, men took over the elites that developed to coordinate these affairs, in part because they were more skilled at fighting, and wealth gravitated to the paternal lineage. Male kin were additionally more likely to stay put, with their wives moving to live with them. Female oppression was frequently a byproduct of these shifts.

An alternative view, put forward by researcher a Lithuanian scholar in the mid-20th century, was that female-oriented societies prevailed for longer in Europe—up to 5,000 years ago—after which they were toppled by arriving, patriarchal migrants from the steppe.

Findings of Female-Line Societies

Matrilinearity (where property passes down the female line) and matrilocality (where female kin stay together) often go together, and each are associated with higher female status and influence. In recent years, U.S. scientists discovered that for more than 300 years around the 10th century, an high-status matrilineal group lived in a canyon site, in what is now the southwestern U.S.. Later, in a recent study, Chinese researchers reported a female-line farming community that thrived for nearly as long in China’s east, over 3,000 years earlier. Such discoveries add to others, implying that female-descended societies have existed on all inhabited continents, at least from the advent of farming on.

Influence and Agency in Prehistoric Societies

But, though they enjoy higher standing, women in mother-line societies don’t necessarily make decisions. That generally stays the domain of men—specifically of maternal uncles instead of their husbands. And since old genetic material and chemical traces can’t tell you a great deal about female agency, gender power relations in prehistory remain a subject of debate. Indeed, this line of work has prompted scholars to ask themselves what they understand by power. If the wife of a king shaped his court through patronage and back channels, and his own policies through counselling, did she hold less influence than him?

Experts know of multiple examples of couples ruling jointly in the metal age—the era after those nomads came in Europe—and subsequent written accounts attest to elite women shaping policies in such ways, across the globe. Maybe they did so in earlier times. Females exerting soft power in patriarchal societies may even have existed before Homo sapiens. In his recent publication about gender roles, Different, ape expert Frans de Waal recounted how an alpha female chimp, a named individual, anointed a successor to the top male—who outranked her—with a kiss.

Factors Shaping Sex Roles

Lately another aspect has emerged. Although Engels may have been broadly correct in linking wealth with male-line inheritance, additional elements affected gender relations, as well—such as how a community sustains itself. In February, international researchers found that traditionally matrilineal villages in Tibet have grown more gender-neutral over the past several decades, as they transitioned from an farming-based system to a market-oriented one. Struggle also has a role. Although female-resident and patrilocal societies are equally warlike, notes anthropologist Carol Ember, within-group disputes—rather than war against an outside group—prods societies towards patrilocality, because fighting groups prefer to have their male offspring close.

Females as Warriors and Authorities

Meanwhile, evidence is mounting that women fought, hunted and served as shamans in the distant past. Not a single position or position has been barred to them always, everywhere. And even if female decision-makers may have been uncommon, they were not absent. New ancient DNA findings from an Irish university show that there were at least instances of female-line descent throughout Britain, when ancient groups dominated the island in the iron age. Alongside physical finds for female warriors and ancient accounts of women leaders, it looks as if ancient European women could exercise direct as well as soft power.

Modern Matrilineal Societies

Matrilineal societies still exist today—a Chinese group are an example, as are the a Native American tribe of Arizona, heirs of those ancient lineages. These communities are dwindling, as national governments flex their patriarchal muscles, but they serve as testaments that certain extinct societies leaned more towards sex parity than many of our modern ones, and that all societies have the capacity to evolve.