The hypothesis of female cosmetic coalitions (FCC) represents a controversial attempt to explain the evolutionary emergence of art, ritual and symbolic culture in Homo sapiens.Power, C. 2009. "Sexual selection models for the emergence of symbolic communication: why they should be reversed". In R. Botha and C. Knight (eds), The Cradle of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 257-280.Knight, C. 1991. Blood Relations. Menstruation and the origins of culture. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. The hypothesis was first proposed by evolutionary anthropologists Chris Knight and Camilla Power together with archaeologist Ian Watts. It has since been tested, critiqued, confirmed and/or extended by scientists studying the emergence of human symbolic culture, especially symbolic ritual and art. Prominent figures among them are Cedric Boeckx, specialist in the cross-cultural study of indigenous myths,Boeckx, C., 2023. What made us “hunter-gatherers of words”, Frontiers in Neuroscience, 17, p.1080861. Deon Liebenberg,Liebenberg, D., 2021. Primordial androgyny and gender politics. Hunter Gatherer Research, 7(1-2), pp.75-105. Cape Town rock art specialists Emily-Jane Vowles and John Parkington,Vowles EJ, Parkington J. A cave with agency: Ochre, blood and women at Keurbos 4. Southern African Field Archaeology. 2025 Sep 10;20, and middle Stone Age archaeologist Rimtautas Dapschauskas and his team.Dapschauskas, R., Göden, M.B., Sommer, C. and Kandel, A.W., 2022. The emergence of habitual ochre use in Africa and its significance for the development of ritual behavior during the Middle Stone Age. Journal of World Prehistory, 35(3), pp.233-319.
Supporters of this hypothesis contest the prevailing assumption that the earliest art was painted or engraved on external surfaces such as cave walls or rock faces. They argue instead that art is much older than previously thought and that the canvas was initially the human body. The earliest art, according to FCC, consisted of predominantly blood-red designs produced on the body for purposes of cosmetic display, the aim being to signal the inviolability or 'sacredness' of the human body.
Female cosmetic coalitions as a conceptual approach links Darwin's theory of evolution by natural and sexual selection, research into sexual signalling by wild-living monkeys and apes, the fossil record of encephalization in human evolution, recent archaeological discoveries of red-ochre pigments dating back to the speciation in Africa of Homo sapiens around 250,000 years ago, and modern hunter-gatherer ethnography.Power, C. 2004. "Women in prehistoric art". In G. Berghaus (ed.), New Perspectives in Prehistoric Art. Westport, CT & London: Praeger, pp. 75-104.Power, C. and L. C. Aiello 1997. "Female proto-symbolic strategies". In L. D. Hager (ed.), Women in Human Evolution. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 153-171.Power, C. 1999. "Beauty magic: the origins of art". In R. Dunbar, C. Knight and C. Power (eds), The Evolution of Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 92-112.
These topics were first connected in several publications attempting to explain why Homo sapiens became prevalent, instead of the equally large-brained, previously successful Neanderthals.Knight, C., C. Power and I. Watts (1995). The human symbolic revolution: A Darwinian account. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 5(1), 75-114. In 2016, the journal Current Anthropology published an article describing exhaustive archaeological testing of the FCC hypothesis, including robust debate between specialists."Early Evidence for Brilliant Ritualized Display: Specularite Use in the Northern Cape (South Africa) between ~500 and ~300 Ka"
Details of the FCC model
Reproductive synchrony
In primates, reproductive synchrony usually takes the form of conception and birth seasonality.Brockman, D. K. and C. P. Van Schaik, 2005. Seasonality and reproductive function. In D. K. Brockman and C. P. van Schaik (eds), Seasonality in Primates. Studies of living and extinct human and non-human primates. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 269-305. The regulatory 'clock', in this case, is the sun's position in relation to the tilt of the earth. In nocturnal or partly nocturnal primates—for example, owl monkeys— the periodicity of the moon may also come into play.Nash, L. T. 2007. Moonlight and behavior in nocturnal and cathemeral primates, especially Lepilemur leucopus: Illuminating possible anti-predator efforts. In S.L. Gursky and K.A.I. Nekaris (eds), Primate Anti-Predator Strategies. New York: Springer, pp. 173-205. Synchrony in general is for primates an important variable determining the extent of 'paternity skew'—defined as the extent to which fertile matings can be monopolised by a fraction of the population of males. The greater the precision of female reproductive synchrony—the greater the number of ovulating females who must be guarded simultaneously—the harder it is for any dominant male to succeed in monopolising a harem all to himself. This is simply because, by attending to any one fertile female, the male unavoidably leaves the others at liberty to mate with his rivals. The outcome is to distribute paternity more widely across the total male population, reducing paternity skew (figures a, b).
Concealed ovulation, synchrony and evolution Reproductive synchrony can never be perfect. On the other hand, theoretical models predict that group-living species will tend to synchronise wherever females can benefit by maximising the number of males offered chances of paternity, minimising reproductive skew. The same models predict that female primates, including evolving humans, will tend to synchronise wherever fitness benefits can be gained by securing access to multiple males. Conversely, group-living females who need to restrict paternity to a single dominant harem-holder should assist him by avoiding synchrony.Turke, P. W. 1988. Concealed ovulation, menstrual synchrony and paternal investment. In E. Filsinger (ed.), Biosocial Perspectives on the Family. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, pp. 119-136.
In the human case, according to FCC, evolving females with increasingly heavy childcare burdens would have done best by resisting attempts at harem-holding by locally dominant males. No human female needs a partner who will get her pregnant only to disappear, abandoning her in favour of his next sexual partner.Power, C. and L. C. Aiello 1997. Female proto-symbolic strategies. In L. D. Hager (ed.), Women in Human Evolution. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 153-171. To any local group of females, the more such philandering can be successfully resisted—and the greater the proportion of previously excluded males who can be included in the breeding system and persuaded to invest effort—the better. By evolving concealed ovulation and continuous receptivity, females force males into longer periods of consortship if they are to have a good chance of achieving impregnation (figures c,d). Reproductive synchrony—whether seasonal, lunar or a combination of the two—is a key strategy for reproductive levelling, reducing paternity skew and involving more males in investment in offspring. Greater reproductive synchrony owing to seasonality during glacial cycles may have differentiated Neanderthal reproductive strategies from those of Homo sapiens ancestors.
Costs of increasing brain-size
In this model, the factor driving female strategies is the high cost to females of increasingly large-brained offspring, requiring increased investment from males. As females of Homo heidelbergensis, the ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans, came under increasing selection pressure for larger brain size within the past half million years, they needed more energy in support. This meant greater productivity by males as hunters. However, in the Darwinian world of primate sexual competition, males may be more interested in finding new fertile females than in helping bring provisions for pregnant or nursing mothers and their infants. Women, unlike chimpanzees, have evolved concealed ovulation, in this way hiding whether they are fertile or not. But it is less easy to hide menstrual blood. Menstruation marks out imminently fertile females from those who are already pregnant or nursing. The primate-style roving male might selfishly exploit such information to pick out his next fertile target at the expense of his previous babies and their mother. According to FCC, there are good reasons why women tend to resist the idea of males picking and choosing between them on the basis of intimate details concerning their fertility status.
Menstruation, synchrony and cosmetics
FCC proponents argue that menstruation became a damaging social problem owing to its tendency to spark violent disputes between both females and males. Menstruation has no such impact among chimpanzees because in their case ovulation, rendered externally visible as sexual swellings, is what males are most interested in. But once external signs of ovulation had been phased out in the human lineage, according to FCC, menstruation would have become salient as the one remaining external promise of fertility. Potentially, dominant males could enhance their fitness by exploiting such information, repeatedly targeting newly cycling females at the expense of pregnant or nursing mothers (figure e).
Threatened with loss of male provisioning support, grandmothers and child-burdened mothers needed to take action. According to FCC, older and more experienced females enhanced their Darwinian fitness by initiating newly cycling females into their kin-based coalitions (figures f, g). Red ochre pigments allowed women to take conscious control over their menstrual signals, resisting any dominant male strategy of picking and choosing between them on biological grounds.Knight, C. 1996. Menstruation. In A. Barnard & J. Spencer (eds), Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology. London & New York: Routledge, pp. 363-4.Power, C. 1999. Beauty magic: the origins of art. In R. Dunbar, C. Knight and C. Power (eds), The Evolution of Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 92-112. Because precise, sustained menstrual synchrony is difficult to achieve, painting up with blood-red pigments was the next best thing, enabling the benefits of artificial, ritually constructed synchrony.
Effect on male strategies
To explore a male strategic point of view, proponents of FCC make a simple model of alternative strategies. Female A uses cosmetics as part of her ritual coalition whenever one of them menstruates; Female B and all her female neighbors use no cosmetics. Male A is prepared to work/invest to gain access; Male B tries a philanderer strategy, moving to the next cycling fertile female, neglecting the previous partner once she is pregnant. Very quickly, Male A will end up working/doing bride-service for Female A's coalition, since he has no competition from Male B. Male A gains regular fitness as a result. Male B will pair up with Female B, but is then liable to abandon her if he finds a new cycling female. She then has little support during pregnancy/breastfeeding. The question will be whether Male B gains sufficient fitness via a roving strategy of picking up cycling, non-cosmetic females. If Male A is not able to compete with Male B in terms of dominance, he is better off choosing the cosmetic females. Because Female B and her non-cosmetic female neighbors get the attentions, but no reliable investment, from Male B, they discourage any investment from the likes of Male A. Once costs of encephalization begin to bite and cooperative strategies are needed to support offspring, how many females will be choosing philanderers in preference to investors? Those females are not likely to be ancestors of large-brained hominins like ourselves or the Neanderthals.
Reverse dominance, sacredness and taboo