Men in Packs

Prehistoric hominids traveling in packs suggested the Yamnaya to me, though those were much later - just last week by this time scale.  Men might travel in packs for lots of reasons, trade and hunting being two. But advance scouts out to attack others and take their women was a major one we don't talk about much.  The tribe didn't do that for you until late in human history.  The Genesis accounts seem horribly barbaric to us, of neighboring groups exchanging children - or more likely, just the brides - as a sign of cooperation. But that's actually pretty advanced in terms of human behavior.  Sending the young men out to get their own mates before they could be considered adults was common for millennia.

Lots of them died in the process, sure.  But they were usually the hot-blooded extra crazed young ones anyway, and it was good to send them out to do the bloody work. A couple of women each calmed the survivors down a bit, and you could send out the next age cohort. The men were trained and bonded together, which worked out great for the other pack activities, trade and hunting.

I think of this when I see the reels by young women complaining about patriarchy these days. A few thousand years ago, half the young women were captured and half the young men were killed. And that's not even including disease, injury, and famine. Kids, the wives and husbands available now are a pretty good deal, comparatively.