Editing Middle Paleolithic (section)

==Social stratification==
Evidence from archeology and comparative ethnography indicates that Middle Paleolithic people lived in small, egalitarian [[band society|band societies]] similar to those of Upper Paleolithic societies and some modern hunter-gatherers such as the [[ǃKung people|ǃKung]] and [[Mbuti people]]s.<ref name="Miller2006"/><ref>{{cite book|last=Boehm|first=Christopher|title=Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ljxS8gUlgqgC&pg=PA197|year=2009|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-02844-9}}, p. 198</ref> Both Neanderthal and modern human societies took care of the elderly members of their societies during the Middle Paleolithic.<ref name="Hillary Mayell"/> [[Christopher Boehm]] (1999) has hypothesized that egalitarianism may have arisen in Middle Paleolithic societies because of a need to distribute resources such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food supply.<ref name=Bohem>{{cite book|last=Boehm|first=Christopher|title=Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ljxS8gUlgqgC&pg=PA197|year=2009|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-02844-9}}, p. 192</ref>

It has usually been assumed that women gathered plants and firewood and men hunted and scavenged dead animals through the Paleolithic.<ref name="Stefan Lovgren">{{cite web |url= http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-humans.html |title= Sex-Based Roles Gave Modern Humans an Edge, Study Says |work= National Geographic News |author= Stefan Lovgren |access-date= 2008-02-03 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180715123143/https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061207-sex-humans.html |archive-date= 2018-07-15 |url-status= dead }}</ref> However,  Steven L. Kuhn and Mary Stiner from the University of Arizona suggest that this sex-based division of labor did not exist prior to the [[Upper Paleolithic]]. The sexual division of labor may have evolved after 45,000 years ago to allow humans to acquire food and other resources more efficiently.<ref name="Stefan Lovgren"/>