I'm looking at it from a is it possible POV.

I can't make my experience be exactly prehistoric any more than you can. But, I WAS one of those "crunchy" moms. I did not do a lot of things the "modern" way.

I nursed on demand, no bottles, no pacifier, until my child self weaned at just over 3 years. I used a front/back baby carrier because that's what I had. If I hadn't bought that, I would have had a sling, just fine.

You're not getting mastitis over a few hours. I'll point out again that is calories are that precious then tribes are more likely to share all calories and the evidence shows women hunted IN GROUPS and with older children. More than likely, that would mean you took your child with you and would leave your child with a caretaker only when you were close enough to game to take a shot. So you're not talking days or long hours, you're talking minutes. Then the animal has to be processed and divvied up to be carried back to home.

If you did leave your child back at camp, what you're doing is trading milk. Someone nurses your baby, you feed one of those older kids that's with you.

Self espressing is not hard and there's no reason to believe it would be wasted.

Nobody is breast feeding exclusively for 7 years. Prehistoric children started getting their teeth roughly the same time children today do. That would not be the case if they were breast feeding exclusively.

There are other biological mechanisms that work to suppress menses, you know. There's also evidence to support that women's periods were naturally further apart the. Than they are today due to our significant dietary change. It's not just the higher fat, we have a grain based diet we didn't have then.

The biggest part of strategic hunting is actually waiting. Quietly. Hidden. After having set yourself up to take a shot. As you very helpfully pointed out, babies didn't cry then like they do today. I believe that as well.

We come again to whether or not it's possible for a heavily pregnant or nursing woman to hunt. Ad it is. There is nothing you've yet put forth that would exclude women from hunting. Nothing about nursing and you haven't even attempted to mention anything exclusionary about hunting. We should also keep in mind that childcare was just more part of every day life back then, meaning it wasn't a separated vocation. We should also acknowledge that everyone's vocation back then was the business of living. You did what was needed to survive another day, another season.

What's always been unbelievable is that a woman.with skill bringing any kind of food I to the tribe is going to sit in her cave with children crying of hunger (attracting large predators) waiting for a man to bring home some warthog bacon just because she's a mother when she's perfectly capable of putting that baby in a sling, taking that ilder child by the hand, getting a group of other mother huntresses together and going down to the river near dusk and setting up to take a gazelle. Maybe they're successful and maybe they're not. They can always stop by the meadow around that old oak tree and try for some rabbits. They'll be out for their evening meal then too.