One of the comments reads : Actually, we will probably never figure out, was it man or woman. but I thought this comment of the professor was an interesting eye opener. https://mastodonapp.uk/@MarkHoltom/112070436760917344
I mean the lunar cycle is roughly 29 days with the argument that it’s 28 if you don’t count the new moon.
I realize this is a neat thought idea but it I think best demonstrates how easy it is to jump to conclusions.
This is neat, but how is it a meme?
IIRC "Calendar" was one of the proposed solutions, but the bone actually had a lot more than 28 holes. It's one of the reasons it's purpose is considered unknown.
I always find this particular strain of antiintellectualism deeply ironic, because it claims to oppose women being forgotten, but the premise assumes the "scientists" are all male.
I don’t see it assuming scientists are all men. Women are just as capable of internalized misogyny and just as capable of being dense as men.
With the willendorf Venus, it wasn’t until a woman who had already had children worked with it, that they suspected it might be a pregnancy self portrait. There had been women already there, but none who knew what a pregnant person looks like from that perspective.
The crux with all of those "first calendars" (idk which one is meant here, but there are multiple who claim this) is that we don't even know if it's a calendar at all. I mean, if this professor's approach serves as an eve-opeher for some, we should retell it whenever possible, yet it doesn't reflect any of the questions we should ask ourselves when seeing 28 carvings in a bone. Assuming that htis can only be a calendar is just the hidden assumption that numbers 25 and up could not have played a role anywhere else, because ppl were to primitive for those numbers somehow.
Perhaps they tracked how many calves in herd they had, or how many horses they had or how many bows they needed to make or how many children there were in the village. Perhaps they wanted to go higher and track something completely different and only got to 28 before they abandoned their approach to whatever they were doing.
eve-opeher
LOL. I guess if it reads, it reads
Ah yes one of the memes of all time . Also true af.
Why wouldn't a male have figured out a lunar cycle and tried to track the moon? Not that the female explanation is lesser in any regard, but why exclude all possibilities?
As a man living with three menstruating women I learned very quickly how to count to 28 on three different cycles.
So they nailed it with the 28 day calendar and we are stuck with this one
13 months of 28 days with an extra holiday at years end, it works so much cleaner than what we use.
That's just what Big February wants you to think.
Yeah, but then how could we make the important months longer than the rest? That would really piss off Julius and Augustus.
Slightly more sensibly, 12 months is easier to synch to the seasons, and calendars are very important to agriculture. 3 months for each season is convenient.
Thirteen also can’t be divided evenly and is widely considered bad luck.
I always read this type of statement as man = species.
I know this particular thinking is falling out of fashion but it's not totally dead yet
Agreed, when speaking of the distant past, I always assume that by "man" they mean "mankind" aka human.... Not males.
In the grand scheme, I don't think it matters whether the thing was done by a male or female, the fact that it happened is the interesting thing about it.
I'm 100% positive that both men (males) and women contributed to these things, and it is impossible to know how much influence each sex had on any given thing, so I'm not sure why the sex of the ancient person who did it, matters.
This specific instance probably.
But the point is soo much of history ignores the female perspective (or the non-european perspective). Sometimes intentionally like all the female scientists that contribute to foundational studies and don't get their name on the published paper.
And this is really damaging; I have a family member that legitimately believes that european-descent men are the smartest throughout history (when I brought up the Islamic Golden Age as a counter example he accused it of being propaganda).
American schools are so bad at teaching diverse history. So many still struggle with the basic truths about Columbus and the Natives.
So I what you are saying that we should ban all DEI activity, ban a bunch of books, and regulate Women's bodily autonomy? /s
Everyone loves traditions!
I'm pretty sure that was the intent behind the original wording. The interpretation of this being the remnant of a female human makes sense to me, but as this is an anecdotal account of Sandi Toksvig's time in university, we really have no idea if this is a good example of the lack of a female perspective in anthropology or just a convenient strawman to make a point.
In any case, cool meme.
Same here. My native langauge is not gendered and I rarely associate “man” in academic spaces with “gender” category. I usually need more info to tilt to gender in discussions.
Thing is, statements like the one in the post are just as ignorant as the claimed "enemy".
You know what else takes 28 days? A moon cycle. We have absolutely no context, what this means. A period tracker bone is a perfectly valid hypothesis, but without any proof or context nothing more than this. It could have been used for moon phases, sheep counting, trade, or simply for testing stone knives.
look how much deeper blade three cut with a single stroke! Are you sure you want to go with brand 4?
