Essay Series 2.2: Women had prominent roles in some ancient societies, including being leaders, hunters, and warriors.

Most experts agree that the early modern humans emerged from Africa about 300,000 years ago. As far as we know, these early humans led a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.⁶⁷ Burial objects show that women and men were hunters during this time. Women also participated in cave art. Evidence for this includes women’s creation of 75 percent of hand paintings in certain prehistoric caves in Spain and France.⁶⁸

Permanent agriculture began about 12,000 years ago, and many societies became more sedentary. Women were able to have more children because they were no longer nomadic, and many experts assumed they focused on domestic labor.⁶⁹

Experts also presumed that men had the power in ancient societies because they were physically stronger and more aggressive than women. Men supposedly dominated women, and women supposedly remained tied to domesticity.⁷⁰ Evidence doesn’t support this as the norm across all ancient societies.

Powerful Women in Ancient Societies

One of the oldest cities yet discovered is Çatalhöyük in modern Türkiye, where human habitation started around 7400 BCE. Estimates are that the city had 3,500-8,000 inhabitants at its peak.^{71, 72} The archaeological evidence is that women and men shared their roles and life circumstances. The evidence relates to inhabitants’ diet, health, the way their bodies wore out, and burial objects.⁷³

In 2025, researchers reported on an analysis of genetic data from 131 individuals buried in 35 homes. They found that in Çatalhöyük, women remained with their homes, and their mates joined them. So, this city was matrilocal. Researchers also found that girl infants and children had five times more grave goods offered to them at burial than boys did.⁷⁴

In Çatalhöyük’s society, older women appear to have been important. For example, the city had numerous female figurines that appear to be goddesses. One is called the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük. She is a large, imposing woman who sits with her arms and hands resting on the two felines, possibly leopards. Some experts say she is giving birth. Others say she represents an older woman of power in that society.⁷⁵

Kingdoms began to appear by the end of the 4th millennium BCE in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The first monarchs were men and sometimes women who were mostly associated with their husbands or sons. Women’s roles in ancient kingdoms varied.⁷⁶

Ancient Mesopotamia had records of working women, and women had some freedoms. For example, wealthy women had economic, legal, and judicial power. They could own property, have businesses, and work as scribes. Mesopotamia had a queen named Kubaba, who appears on a list of kings. She was a former tavern keeper who reigned on her own.⁷⁷ At this time and place, it seems that a woman could advance on her merits.

Over time, Mesopotamian laws around marriage, divorce, and adultery became harsher for women, and mentions of working women gradually decreased in this society’s records. The attention that women later received in Mesopotamia revolved around their loyalty as wives, mothers, and citizens.⁷⁸

In ancient Egypt, women could make contracts, own property, work, adopt, inherit wealth, and run their own businesses. Women worked as scribes, doctors, midwives, musicians, and priestesses.⁷⁹

During the New Palace period (1700 - 1450 BCE) on Crete, almost all available evidence from the Minoan culture at that time points to a college of women priests who ruled society. The authority figures are women in boldly patterned skirts, and they hold symbols of power. Men also are seen bringing tribute and adopting poses of subservience before women. The culture’s art shows women who are larger than men, and the men appear in erotic ways. No women are depicted naked, but men are. The art’s focus is on players and the comforts of life.⁸⁰

Women Hunters and Warriors

Women have a long history of hunting and being warriors. Some anthropologists estimate that about half of prehistoric hunters were women.⁸¹ A woman’s burial goods 9,000 years ago in the Peruvian Andes indicate that she hunted big game.⁸² According to one 2023 study, which analyzed data from 63 foraging societies over the past 100 years, women from 79 percent of them hunted animals of all sizes. And women and men hunt together in many modern hunter-gatherer societies.⁸³

Over the last 50 years, researchers have discovered 300 sites containing the remains of women warriors.⁸⁴ These warriors’ bones have been found across the Eurasian steppes from Bulgaria to Mongolia,⁸⁵ and three armed women were buried in present-day Georgia about 3,000 years ago.⁸⁶

A Viking woman warrior’s burial story illustrates how women’s history can be erased. An archaeologist discovered a high-status Viking warrior’s burial site in 1878, and experts assumed the remains were those of a man. In the 1970s, a woman researcher pointed out that the warriors’ bones were characteristic of a woman. In 2017, researchers used DNA analysis to prove that the warrior in the grave in Birka, Sweden, was a woman. The woman researcher’s assertions were debated for more than 40 years until the DNA analysis proved she was correct.⁸⁷

Reflections

Early women and men likely worked together to raise children, provide for their families, and wage war. This was likely the case in the very first cities and societies, as we saw in Çatalhöyük. As civilizations became more complex, women continued to have important roles, as in Mesopotamia and Egypt. In some cases, strong women took on leadership roles in these societies. However, in at least one society, the Minoans, evidence indicates that women had the power, and men were subservient to them, even to the point of being sex objects. But women’s and men’s roles began to diverge, and men isolated and controlled women more as time passed.

The history of women’s leadership tells us several things. One is that women aren’t naturally domestic, and men aren’t naturally divorced from the domestic. Rather, humans have sorted women and men into different roles across societies and time. Importantly, women have taken on all the roles that are traditionally men’s. Women have been rulers, entrepreneurs, religious leaders, hunters, and warriors. Also, men in some societies have taken on more domestic roles or shared them with women.

Women and men are equally capable of taking on a variety of roles. Everyone needs the freedom to choose those that best fit their talents and interests, rather than being shunted off to traditional roles that may not suit them.

Unfortunately, growing up, I rarely learned about women’s leadership when studying history. This limited the focus of my studies, and my life’s ambitions likely because I had few, if any, role models.

What did you learn while growing up about women’s roles in various societies?