The Civic Platform - A Political Journal of Ideas and Analysis

Title Sex differences in spatial cognition among Hadza foragers: A reconsideration of the gathering hypothesis

Author/s 1. Elizabeth Cashdan, University of Utah, USA;
2. Frank Marlowe, Florida State University, USA;

Abstract Men and women differ in spatial abilities and navigational styles. One popular explanation holds that superior male spatial ability evolved in response to the navigational challenges of hunting mobile prey, whereas a female advantage in object location memory evolved in response to the needs of gathering stationary plants (“gathering hypothesis” ). We are evaluating these and related hypotheses among Hadza foragers by looking for functional relationships between cognitive abilities, performance at more naturalistic tasks that might require these abilities, and behavioral outcomes in various domains. Thus far we have found that a female advantage in object-location memory appeared only among young Hadza adults, while older women did poorly at this task. Yet these older women appear to excel at finding bushfoods, and younger women rely on their guidance. Among the Hadza, therefore, doing well on our object location memory task does not appear to be important in the navigational challenges of gathering. Older women reportedly excel because of their greater knowledge about temporal changes in the spatial distribution of plant resources. We do not yet have results bearing on the hunting hypothesis, but we have found that Hadza men do better than women at geometric spatial tasks, as has been found in other populations. We are analyzing our behavioral data on hunting and navigation to see whether foraging range size and hunting skill are associated with greater performance at geometrical spatial tasks, and whether there are any direct fitness benefits associated with these abilities.