An archaeologist from Pennsylvania State University named Dean Snow analyzed the hand prints left on cave paintings and found that most of the artists (75%) once believed to be men were in fact female. For many years, the subject matter in the paintings led researchers to the conclusion that men were painting animals and hunting scenes since they were the ones out killing to feed the families. Snow's study used the findings of a biologist named John Manning who found that women usually have equal length ring and index fingers. After studying hundreds of stencils and weeding out the ones that were too faded to provide accurate measurements, the archaeologist found that 24 of the 32 hands in the sample were female according to Manning's research.
Like any study, this will be refuted and criticized once more people have a chance to read it in American Antiquity, but it is still a very interesting bit of research. Givers of life and original artists? Girls really do run the world.
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[via NationalGeographic]
