After analysing ancient dental records, Spanish researchers now report that neanderthal communities divided some of their tasks according to sex.
The study that analysed 99 incisors and canine teeth of 19 individuals revealed that the dental grooves present in the female fossils follow the same pattern which is different to that found in male individuals.
It showed that all Neanderthal individuals, regardless of age, had dental grooves.
"This is due to the custom of these societies to use the mouth as a third hand, as in some current populations, for tasks such as preparing the furs or chopping meat, for instance," said Antonio Rosas, researcher from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).
"What we have now discovered is that the grooves detected in the teeth of adult women are longer than those found in adult men. Therefore, we assume that the tasks performed were different," he added.
It is still unclear which activities corresponded to women and which ones to men.
However, the authors note that as in modern hunter-gatherer societies, women may have been responsible for the preparation of furs and the elaboration of garments.
The retouching of the edges of stone tools seems to have been a male task.
Recent studies have confirmed that Neanderthals were evolved species who took care of the sick persons, buried their deceased, ate seafood and even had different physical features than expected.
The study appeared in the Journal of Human Evolution.
