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A widespread belief claims that in certain earlier periods of human existence, women enjoyed equal standing to men, or even dominated, resulting in happier and less violent societies. Then, male-dominated systems arose, ushering in ages of strife and oppression.

The Roots of the Gender System Debate

The idea of matriarchy and male-led societies as polar opposites—following a decisive transition between them—was seeded in the 1800s through Marxist thought, influencing anthropological studies despite limited evidence. From there, it permeated into public awareness.

Social scientists, by contrast, tended to be more sceptical. They observed great variation in sex roles across human societies, both modern and past ones, and some suspected that such variety had been the norm in prehistory as well. Confirming this was difficult, partly because identifying biological sex—not to mention social gender—was often hard in old skeletons. Then about 20 years ago, everything shifted.

The Breakthrough in Genetic Analysis

This so-called genomics era—the ability to recover DNA from ancient bones and study it—meant that suddenly it was feasible to determine the sex of long-dead people and to examine their family connections. The chemical makeup of their bones and teeth—specifically, the ratio of elemental variants present there—revealed whether they had resided in various places and undergone shifts in nutrition. The picture coming to light due to these new tools shows that variety in sex roles was very much the rule in prehistory, and that there was no clear watershed when one system gave way to its opposite.

Hypotheses on the Emergence of Patriarchal Systems

The Marxist idea, in fact credited to Marx’s collaborator, proposed that humans were equal until farming expanded from the Middle East about ten millennia back. With the settled way of life and accumulation of wealth that agriculture brought came the necessity to defend that wealth and to establish laws for its succession. As populations expanded, men took over the elites that developed to manage these matters, partly because they were better at warfare, and wealth passed to the male line. Male kin were also more likely to stay put, with their wives relocating to live with them. Women’s subordination was often a byproduct of these changes.

An alternative view, put forward by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas in the 1960s, was that woman-centred societies dominated for longer in Europe—until 5,000 years ago—when they were overthrown by incoming, patriarchal migrants from the plains.

Evidence of Matrilineal Societies

Female-line descent (where wealth passes down the female line) and matrilocality (where women stay together) frequently co-occur, and both are associated with higher women’s standing and influence. In 2017, U.S. scientists reported that for more than three centuries during the 10th century, an elite mother-line group lived in Chaco Canyon, in what is now the southwestern U.S.. Later, this June, Asian experts identified a matrilineal farming community that thrived for nearly as long in China’s east, more than three millennia prior. These findings join others, implying that female-descended societies have been present on every populated landmasses, at least from the advent of agriculture on.

Power and Agency in Prehistoric Societies

But, even if they possess higher standing, females in mother-line societies don’t necessarily hold decision-making power. This typically remains the domain of men—specifically of maternal uncles rather than their spouses. And because ancient DNA and isotopes don’t reveal a great deal about women’s autonomy, sex-based hierarchies in ancient times continue to be a matter of discussion. In fact, such research has forced researchers to ask themselves what they understand by authority. If the wife of a male ruler influenced his entourage through support and informal networks, and his own policies by advice, did she hold less influence than him?

Archaeologists know of several examples of pairs ruling jointly in the metal age—the period following those migrants arrived in Europe—and later written accounts attest to elite women influencing policies in such ways, across the globe. Perhaps they acted similarly in earlier times. Females exerting soft power in male-dominated societies may even have predated Homo sapiens. In his 2022 book about sex and gender, Different, primatologist a noted scientist described how an dominant female chimp, Mama, chose a successor to the alpha male—who outranked her—with a kiss.

Elements Shaping Gender Relations

Lately something else has become clear. Although the theorist was likely generally right in associating wealth with patrilinearity, additional elements shaped gender relations, too—such as how a community makes a living. In February, Chinese and British researchers reported that traditionally female-line villages in Tibet have grown more gender-neutral over the past several decades, as they moved from an agricultural economy to a trade-focused one. Struggle also plays its part. While matrilocal and male-resident societies are just as prone to conflict, says anthropologist a Yale expert, within-group disputes—rather than war against an outside group—pushes societies towards patrilocality, because warring clans choose to have their male offspring nearby.

Females as Warriors and Authorities

At the same time, evidence is accumulating that women fought, hunted and served as shamans in the ancient world. Not a single position or position has been barred to them always, everywhere. And even if female decision-makers may have been rare, they were not nonexistent. Recent genetic analyses from Trinity College Dublin show that there were no fewer than instances of female-line descent throughout the British Isles, when Celtic tribes dominated the land in the iron age. Alongside archaeological evidence for women fighters and Roman descriptions of women leaders, it appears as if Celtic women could wield hard as well as indirect authority.

Contemporary Matrilineal Societies

Mother-line societies still exist nowadays—a Chinese group are an example, as are the a Native American tribe of Arizona, descendants of those ancient lineages. These communities are declining, as national governments assert their patriarchal influence, but they act as reminders that certain vanished societies tilted more towards sex parity than many of our present-day ones, and that all societies have the potential to evolve.