London - Scientists may finally have confirmed what every woman from Raquel Welch to Wilma Flintstone has always suspected.
Even back in prehistoric times, the female of the species was very much the boss.
A study has found evidence of “alpha cavewomen” roaming the plains and calling the shots while the menfolk slobbed at home.
The discovery could put paid to the belief that cavemen were the aggressive, violent go-getters in the relationship between the sexes.
It also raises the intriguing possibility that Fred Flintstone, the eternally henpecked half of the cartoon partnership with Wilma, might actually have mirrored life on Earth all those centuries ago.
And that Raquel Welch, the doeskin-bikini-clad heroine of One Million Years BC, could have got her movie portrayal spot on.
Alpha cavewoman appears to have travelled far wider than her male counterpart, the research showed. She might even have been the one who went out clubbing, so to speak - reversing the popular conception that it was the bloke who bashed the girl on the head and dragged her home by the hair.
But something seems to have happened to the evolution of the species after those times between 1.7million and 2.4million years ago. A couple more millennia would have to pass before female independence re-emerged with the bra-burning liberation of the Swinging Sixties.
The findings, detailed in the journal Nature, were made by Oxford University researchers and an international team of scientists.
Using lasers and advanced technology, they analysed enamel from fossilised teeth found in cave systems a mile apart in South Africa. “Finding new ways to make old bones speak” was how one of the team described it.
The incisors and canines came from two species of cave-dwellers who walked on two legs. One of the species, Australopithecus africanus, could have been our direct ancestor.
The teeth were studied for traces of strontium, a mineral that works its way into teeth from the food we eat. Those traces were then compared with the mineral-providing plants and rocks in surrounding areas.
This revealed that almost all the men lived and died in the area where they grew up. But half the women were from outside.
Females were five times more likely than males to have travelled away from home.
Oxford professor Julia Lee-Thorp said the difference between males and females was “completely unexpected”.
However chimps, like early humans, also operate a policy of “female dispersal”. The males remain on home turf to bond and defend their territory, it is thought.
So were Wilma and her prehistoric sisterhood truly queens of the plains? As is often the case with such fascinating scientific breakthroughs, it’s a question of interpretation.
Males might prefer to think that the women had to walk so far because the chaps grew fed up with being bossed around - and kicked them out of the cave. - Daily Mail