Understanding how gendered economic roles structure space use is critical to evolutionary models of foraging behaviour, social organization and cognition. Here, we examine hunter-gatherer spatial behaviour on a very large scale, using GPS devices worn by Hadza foragers to record 2,078 person-days of movement. Theory in movement ecology suggests that the density and mobility of targeted foods should predict spatial behaviour and that strong gender differences should arise in a hunter-gatherer context. As predicted, we find that men walked further per day, explored more land, followed more sinuous paths and were more likely to be alone. These data are consistent with the ecology of male- and female-targeted foods and suggest that male landscape use is more navigationally challenging in this hunter-gatherer context. Comparisons of Hadza space use with space use data available for non-human primates suggest that the sexual division of labour likely co-evolved with increased sex differences in spatial behaviour and landscape use.

了解性别经济角色如何构建空间使用对于觅食行为、社会组织和认知的进化模型至关重要。在这里，我们使用 Hadza 觅食者佩戴的 GPS 设备记录了 2,078 人日的移动，从而在非常大的范围内检查了狩猎采集者的空间行为。运动生态学理论表明，目标食物的密度和流动性应该可以预测空间行为，并且在狩猎采集背景下应该会出现强烈的性别差异。正如预测的那样，我们发现男性每天走得更远，探索的土地更多，走的路更曲折，而且更可能独处。这些数据与男性和女性目标食物的生态学一致，并表明男性景观使用在这种狩猎采集背景下更具导航挑战性。