【推荐1】Men hunted. Women gathered. That has long been the common view of our prehistoric ancestors. But the discovery of a woman buried 9000 years ago in the Andes Mountains with weapons and hunting tools, and an analysis of other burial sites in the Americas challenges this widely accepted division of labor in hunter-gatherer society.

“Labor practices among recent hunter-gatherer societies are highly gendered, which might lead some to believe that sexist inequalities in things like pay or rank are somehow 'natural' , ”said lead study author Randy Haas, an assistant professor of anthropology (人类学) at University of California, Davis, in a news release. "But it's now clear that sexual division of labor was fundamentally different-likely more equal and reasonable-in our species deep hunter-gatherer past."

The burial site was discovered in 2018 during excavations (发掘) at a high-altitude site called Wilamaya Patjxa in what is now Peru. The woman, thought to be between 17 and 19 years old when she died, was buried with items that suggested she hunted big-game animals.

Although some scholars have suggested a role for women in ancient hunting, others have dismissed this idea even when hunting tools were uncovered in female burials. To examine whether this woman found at this site was an outlier, the researchers examined 429 skeletons (骷髅) at 107 burials sites in North and South America around 8000 to 14000 years ago. Of those, 27 individuals were buried with hunting tools—11 were female and 15 were male. The sample was sufficient to "support the conclusion that female participation in early big-game hunting was likely not unusual".

The findings add to doubts about man — the hunter assumption that informed much thinking about early humans since the mid-20th century. “They suggest hunting was very much a community-based activity, needing the participation of all able-bodied individuals to drive large animals”, the paper said. The weapon of choice at that time had low accuracy, encouraging broad participation, and using it was a skill learned from childhood.

【推荐2】In early twentieth-century France, a new form of entertainment was becoming a hit— motion picture. People crowded into theatres for short, silent, black-and-white films that showed everyday happenings, such as a train pulling into a station. These pictures were dimly projected onto white sheets. Usually, there was no sound. Sometimes, men at pianos played music to match the scenes.

Moving images in theatres are no longer new, but back at the beginning of the art form, surprises lurked around every corner. During the first showings of basic silent movies, some people in the audience screamed in fear, reacting to what they saw as if it were happening in real life. Moviegoers were known to leap out of the way of trains on the screen. At that time, few people understood what motion pictures were, so audience members could easily be fooled.

Today, people crowd into theatres for the latest 3D movies. Even older movies, such as the popular Star Wars series, are being re-released in 3D. Moviemakers are excited about the ability to involve the audience more directly in the story or film. In addition, theatres spend tens of thousands of dollars on high-quality audio systems so that everything from the safest whispers to the largest explosions sounds clear and realistic.

What will movies be like 100 years from now? Will audiences be able to smell scents in the films, taste the food that characters are eating, or even becoming part of the stories themselves? Only time will tell.