This looks like a very anthropologically informed article on a Western Cape painted cave site, full of female figures. These are interpreted as a women's ritual space (and time)
'we suggest Keurbos 4 was a place chosen by women for women in the context of ritual and didactic events'

https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/safa/article/view/3653/2446

Revisiting some excellent 👌 work on being a #Homoerectus female by my onetime pH.D supervisor, the brilliant #LeslieAiello

#palaeoanthropology #lifehistory #fossils #evolution #energetics

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajhb.70091?campaign=woletoc

Anyone who wants to know about the #archaeology and #anthropology of how we became human, follow my colleague @ochrewatts

He's a world expert on our earliest #symbolic record in the #African #MiddleStoneAge -- specifically the red #ochre pigment record -- and has encyclopedic knowledge of #huntergatherer #myth and #ritual practice with pigments

Here are a few of his key contributions

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416524000588

Major paper on kinship and burial practices at #Çatalhöyük

The study fused 'rich archaeological data with a paleogenomic dataset of 131 individuals buried in 35 houses...

'Comparing genetic ties within and between buildings, we found that the maternal lineage had a key role in connecting Çatalhöyük household members, as represented by burials within each building. We estimated that 70 to 100% of the time, female offspring remained connected to buildings, whereas adult male offspring may have moved away. We also discovered preferential treatment of female infant and child burials, with five times more grave goods offered to females than to males.'

'...Through time, the genetic composition of house burials became less homogeneous. In later periods, we found groups of neonates who were genetically unrelated but buried in the same house.'

#Neolithic #archaeology #palaeogenomics

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adr2915