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races comprised almost entirely of females are a staple of many works of fantasy with the Greek amazons being the most well known.

enter image description here

What I want to know is What evolutionary pressures would lead to matriarchal hominids? Some characteristics of my amazons include:

  • are 6 feet in height
  • having neanderthal-level strength
  • females are 6.5% taller and 13.5% heavier than males
  • over two-thirds of the population is female
  • can interbreed with humans (optional)
icewar1908
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    "Over two-thirds of the population is female": that is not likely in a sexually reproducing species; see Fisher's principle. (And in all great apes males are bigger, heavier and stronger than females; reversing this would be quite interesting.) (P.S. The title asks for a matriarchal society, while the body of the question asks for phenotypical characteristics. The two are at best very weakly correlated; see our kissing cousins the bonobos for a matriarchal society with ordinary great ape phenotype.) – AlexP May 29 '20 at 17:39
  • @AlexP ok i just don't know what else to call it? – icewar1908 May 29 '20 at 17:49
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    If you are interested in a hominin species with females bigger than males, just ask for a hominin species with females bigger than males. If you are interested in a matriarchal human society, ask for a matriarchal human society. There have been and (arguably) there are matriarchal human societies with no change in human sexual dimorphism. – AlexP May 29 '20 at 17:52
  • Bonobos are already matriarchal, and there are some societies of humans in which females held most of the political power (in a lot of Native American societies women made political decisions and men only had a say on military matters). So it seems to be pretty random. It's been suggested the rarity of matriarchy is more a consequence of early Neolithic Eurasian social structure (and issues with determining paternity) than anything. – user2352714 May 29 '20 at 17:55
  • This obviously hasn't been up long enough to predict, but FYI, if you find you aren't getting useful answers, you might want to split this into two questions: how to get bigger females, and how to get more females. Also, I can think of cultural ways to achieve both, but I guess that's not what you're asking? – Matthew May 29 '20 at 17:59
  • why yes it does talk about women being larger than men mine are only larger by a couple of inches and it doesn't talk about women being more common than man or being able to interbreed with humans. – icewar1908 May 29 '20 at 19:28
  • Think about whether the image you post will add any information that a sentence or two would not. Remember that not everyone uses WB SE on a good broadband network. The image on this post does not seem to help anyone trying to answer it. – StephenG - Help Ukraine May 29 '20 at 19:43
  • @StephenG the image was simply meant to be used as a traditional example of an amazon warrior in most works of fiction – icewar1908 May 29 '20 at 19:46
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    as far as i know, bigger female help in safer birth, and can endure multiple births or birth more twin as a norm or common birth – Li Jun May 30 '20 at 04:16

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I'd say the easiest way is by an explanation of sexual selection akin to that of birds of prey, in which the females were originally as big and strong as males, but overtime, they started grouping together during mating periods and sexually selecting smaller and weaker males which were safer and less aggressive to mate with, while ganging up on and killing stronger males which tried to force their way with them. Overtime, this resulted in a society with slightly weaker and smaller males than females. Additionally, having a matriarchal society, we could have a cultural poligamic scenario in which only a certain number of males is kept at a time, with all other males born once the number is at its maximum being either killed or kept, should one of the members of the male group be already at death's door. This wouldn't be that hard to think, as we had a similar scenario in Sparta (with the selection term being deformities rather than sex).

Lastly, they could be a group in between the Neanderthals and the sapiens, likely successful "hybrids" which inherited the best of both groups, and thus, like the Neanderthals could, be completely capable of interbreeding with normal humans.

ProjectApex
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