Gender inequality has been around since the beginning of modern history. Women have long been thought of as the weaker sex, and have often been the subject of abuse as well as restrictions on their daily lives.

A very recent study published in late 2019 shows just how early this gender inequality may have begun—before written history even began. Marta Cintas-Peña and Leonardo García Sanjuán, both archeologists from the University of Seville in Spain, decided to look at neolithic data to try and determine just when gender inequality began, and the information they found was striking.

They found evidence that men were favored over women and children for burials. For every woman that was given a burial, 1.5 men had one. There simply aren't that many more men than women in nature, which suggests that men were favored for burial over women.

They also found that men were grossly over-represented in cave art, and men and women were buried differently with men getting arrowheads and women getting ceramics.

This information is important, because if researchers can pinpoint a start date for when gender inequality began, that's a good sign that gender inequality is not biological. If it's a learned behavior, however long that learning has been entrenched, it can be unlearned.

The origin of inequality is also important for another reason—if we know what causes inequality, we have another tool in our arsenal in how to repair it. More research is needed however to get the full value of this data. 

Not all researchers are convinced that the data provided by these archaeologists represents gender inequality, or that other avenues such as anthropology may be more appropriate areas for studying the source of gender inequality. In the mean time, this is a real and interesting step, if somewhat inconclusive.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/society/gender-inequality-arose-8000-years-ago