Elizabeth Cashdan (Department of Anthropology, The University of Utah)
Abstract. Skill at spatial tasks would seem to be of obvious practical benefit to everyone, yet in some spatial domains the difference between men and women is large and robust. This has encouraged speculation about the selection pressures favoring spatial abilities, with many scientists arguing that male and female cognitive strengths are a response to the demands of hunting and gathering, respectively. Yet there has been virtually no attempt to study spatial cognition in mobile foragers who hunt and gather for a living.
I report preliminary data on spatial cognition from two groups of hunter-gatherers, the Hadza of Tanzania and the Twa of Namibia. In both groups, males excel at Euclidean (geometric) spatial tasks (with one interesting exception) even though both women and men are highly mobile in these groups. However the widely-accepted "gathering hypothesis" for superior female object location memory is not supported in either group. The data suggest new ideas about the real cognitive challenges of hunting and gathering, and the value of age and experience in meeting them.