Europe and the Mediterranean

Against the background of his knowledge of the cultural history of the ancient eastern Mediterranean region, Evans, also a pioneer in archaeology, generally concluded that a female deity had occupied the highest place in Cretan religion, as was also the case for goddesses in Anatolia, Palestine, and Syria. Evans was the first to document Minoan culture as women-centered and demonstrated its continuing power around the eastern Mediterranean, albeit still assuming a central royal figure of the “Minos.”

Marshack pointed out the central position of women in early cultures since the Palaeolithic era and examined different aspects.

In this work (“The World of Megaliths”), Mohen presented the extraordinary abundance of different forms of European megalithic cultures in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, but without addressing the social or religious significance.

In this comprehensive work, the archaeologist Gimbutas presented the different Neolithic cultural regions of Old Europe, documenting in particular the rich urban cultures of southeastern Europe, which were little known until then. She described the social order as mother-centered or “matristic” and the religious order as sacral, characterized by goddesses and priestesses. She therefore opened up a new perspective in archaeology for a general mother-centered epoch prior to the emergence of patriarchy, earning her fierce criticism from her peers.

Marler's collection of scientific papers from various socio-cultural disciplines supported Gimbuta's theory of cultural development in Old Europe.

Marler analyzed the criticism of Gimbutas and rejected it in principle, using the example of the pamphlet by Cynthia Eller: Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory.

Glassman explored the origin and evolution of the egalitarian patterns of different types of society, such as tribes, city-states, and nations. But the term “democracy” can only be applied to all of these to a limited extent, since egalitarian patterns do not resemble the later democratic patterns. He partly included the situation of women, but without recognizing cultures shaped by women as particular social systems. Nevertheless, the work contains interesting perspectives that undermine the glorification of the classic victorious powers.

Goettner-Abendroth rewrote the cultural history of West Asia and Europe from a matriarchal perspective. She provided new interpretations of archaeological sites and depicted egalitarian, matriarchal societies, based on archaeological evidence and by comparison with living societies of this type, with their economic, social, political and cultural patterns. She gave detailed, archaeologically-based explanations for the emergence of patriarchy in West Asia and Europe, occurring in different ways in the various cultural regions.

Based on her archaeological work on the Dimini site (eastern Greece), where she did not discover a ruling “elite,” Souvatzi criticized the widespread belief that higher complexity immediately relates to hierarchical organization. She showed that economic differentiation and specialization cannot be equated with social differentiation, inequality, and political centralization.

In these articles on female symbolism, archaeologist Schlichtherle published his extremely interesting find of a Neolithic mural painting from a pile dwelling on Lake Constance: the “mothers' wall.” He rightly described the figures depicted as female ancestors, primal mothers from the beginning of the clans organized along the maternal line. The equal size of the figures from this house for worshipping ancestors demonstrates an egalitarian, mother-centered society. Schlichtherle also pointed out other fragments with similar symbolism which are widespread in southern Germany.

Using the example of the social organization of Myrtos, Warren showed that Crete's Bronze Age society was egalitarian, given that the large buildings were clan houses and the elaborate burial structures represented communal tombs.

Strasser pointed out that no large storerooms could be found in the so-called “royal palaces” where tributes would have been hoarded; those storerooms were rather small. Even the exquisite, artistic ceramic crafts, assumed to be “export bestsellers” that had enriched the “elite” in Knossos, were by no means centralized, but produced by female artists in southern Crete and could be found all over the island.

Hamilakis confirmed that other material goods of Minoan Crete were also in circulation, as goods from sea trade were also found in general distribution. That meant there were no elites keeping and hoarding exotic luxury goods.

Schoep argued that, in the Minoan culture, there was no “palace state” and no political centers could be discerned. Architecture, settlement patterns and administration in the so-called “hinterland” of the palaces indicate that there was a lot of regional independence and autonomy. Nor were the Cretan “colonies” on the Aegean islands military bases, but rather commercial settlements.

Despite her excellent criticism of the constellation of power assumed by the centralism hypothesis, Schoep brought “parties” into her interpretation as groups that competed with each other, thereby suggesting that “complex power relations” existed.

Using the example of the “Quartier Nu,” a block of buildings in Malia / Crete, which reveals that living units were closely connected, with a single kitchen and a central place for ritual, Driessen und Fiasse proved it was the residence of a matrilocal clan. For it has been repeatedly shown that matrilocal societies have much larger buildings than patrilocal ones, namely clan houses instead of family houses.

In this important study, Cichon, based on recent literature on Crete and using the modern definition of “matriarchy,” examined the Minoan culture for its matriarchal traits, mapping it out in terms of its economy, social order, politics and culture, showing in detail that, until the Bronze Age, Crete was an egalitarian matriarchal society based on consensus rather than power relations.

Bonfante analyzed the grave paintings of the Etruscan civilization which show that women were entirely free to appear in public and prove their high position in society. He therefore concluded that there was an egalitarian relationship and partnership between the two sexes.

Koch fundamentally doubted that Etruscans had a hierarchical society of “elites” and “dependents.” She showed that the priests and priestesses, officials, architects and engineers were highly respected, as well as the male specialists in blacksmithing and the equally respected female specialists in producing ceramics and textiles.

Using a wealth of material from mythology and ethnology, Frazer determined a basic pattern of archaic religions: the worldwide pattern of the goddess and her sacred king, ritually expressed in seasonal celebrations. However, his highly influential work suffers from being one-sided, as Frazer only dealt with the male side of this pattern.

Harrison's discussion of Mediterranean religion suggested pre-existing cultures based on goddess worship. She was the first to suggest that Geek culture was not monolithic, but contained a wealth of patterns from pre-existing matriarchal cultures, which could be discovered by analyzing Greek mythology.

Graves examined Greek mythology based on the sources, stripping their later patriarchal layers to reveal older matriarchal layers which he openly referred to as such. His interpretation of mythology from a socio-political perspective succeeded in discovering not only the original matriarchal worldview, but also in showing how these cultures were destroyed by later patriarchal Hellenes. His work strongly influenced research into goddess worship and the feminist movement on culture in the mid-20 th century.

In this work (At the Beginning of Culture. The Language of Signs of Early Humans), the prehistorian and cave explorer, Koenig devoted herself to decoding Ice Age symbolic systems found in both the residential and ritual caves of Central Europe, interpreting the worldview of Palaeolithic people in ways that jettisoned the image of the Ice-Age with “Man the Hunter” as the sole creator of prehistoric culture.

Following Ranke-Graves and James, Goettner-Abendroth presented matriarchal mythology from India throughout West Asia and the Mediterranean to Europe and developed a special method by systematizing its matriarchal patterns and analyzing their transformation in early patriarchal periods. She showed that these patterns continued in later times in the context of European fairy tales and of medieval literature.

Lithuanian-American archaeologist Gimbutas has carried out five important excavations in south-eastern Europe, yielding numerous Neolithic figurines, and she has examined thousands of these which had previously not been understood and had been slumbering unnoticed in museums and storerooms. She decoded their symbolism and described the religious worldview of the Neolithic people. She established a connection to the later goddess worship in Europe and called her method “Archaeomythology.”

Dexter continued Gimbutas' work posthumously, taking up the archaeomythological method to make further connections of Neolithic symbolism to later goddess cults.

The Finno-Ugric scholar Kaarina Kailo examined matriarchal traces in the Finnish medieval epic, “Kalevala.”

Kailo sought out evidence of matriarchy in the Finnish “Helka Festival.”

Herself Sami, the anthropologist and social critic Kuokkanen used the example of the reindeer economy of her culture to present ideas of the gift economies, central to all matriarchies.

Van der Meer continued the research into Neolithic figurines and created a typology of poses and positions, including their changes during patriarchal times.

With this book, Dames started his groundbraking studies on two important megalithic sites in South England. He presented a new interpretation for “Silbury Hill,” suggesting it was deliberately constructed in the shape of a reclining goddess.

Soon afterwards, Dames published a new interpretation of the monumental stone circles of Avebury Henge, which he saw as structures for the worship of the Great Goddess. He demonstrated the spiritual range of not only Neolithic technology, but also Neolithic religiousness. With the help of folk customs and folk narratives in southern England, he also reconstructed some of the content of the Avebury religious system.

mythology” to describe his methodological combination of archaeology, mythology and folklore. He examined some Swiss landscapes by finding ancient traces on cult stones, old churches, and astronomical lines, and interpreted these within the context of the matriarchal epoch.

In this work (“Landscapes of the Goddess”), Derungs, similar to Dames, also interpreted the Swiss landscape of Lenzburg as a reclining goddess. He thus showed that matriarchal cultures had a tradition of re/forming the landscape symbolically in order to worship a divine ancestress or landscape goddess within it.

Independently of the previous research, the archaeologist Souvatzi described how Neolithic people transformed the landscape into a social one. She showed how, for generations, the burial structures remained in the same place, documenting as “homes of their ancestors” the connectedness of people with the landscape, which for them contained the history of their clans and granted them a permanent identity. However, the symbolic-religious characteristics of the landscape were not mentioned by her.

Based on modern Matriarchal Studies and on her guided study trips to archaeological sites, Goettner-Abendroth developed matriarchal landscape mythology, which she used to explain, in specific locations, the social order and religion of Neolithic cultures in Central Europe. In these two books (“Matriarchal Landscape Mythology” and “Mountain Goddesses of the Alps”), she applied the same interdisciplinary method and published her research on landscapes in Germany and the Alpine countries.

In his paleo-linguistic work of 1962 (“ The Language of the Ice Age”), Fester demonstrated that, in most of the world's languages, the same root syllables and root words refer directly to the feminine and to motherhood. He discovered no comparable examples of root words indicating the masculine. This led him, in 1979, to his conclusion that language originated between mother and child and that the female was of greater importance for the social order during primeval epochs.

In this book (“The First Word. How Humans learned to speak”), and even earier, since 1970, the anthropologist Doris Jonas, together with her husband David A. Jonas, has published several books dedicated to the development of humanity, with Doris Jonas paying special attention to women. Despite good insights, the socio-biological approach is a fragile one.

Using early Indo-European words that describe the conditions of the steppe and a livestock economy, the linguist, Mallory, demonstrated that the homeland of the Indo-Europeans lay in the Eurasian steppes. The early Indo-European language was spoken in the period of 4,500-2,500.

Based on her archaeological analyses, Gimbutas described three waves of invasion by Indo-European mounted cattle-herding warriors from the Eurasian steppes, extending as far as Europe in wide-ranging raids. According to the author the collision of these patriarchal warrior groups with ancient farming cultures ended in a violent conquest and the destruction of the matriarchal epoch of Europe. Gimbutas named her hypothesis “Kurgan-Theory,” a term that was not generally accepted because of its inaccuracy.

The linguists Mallory and Adams pointed out that the early Indo-European vocabulary referred to a nomadic way of life and livestock breeding, but did not contain any words for agricultural activities. Words for agricultural activities were only added some time later to the Indo-European vocabulary, through acculturation with the earlier, agricultural peoples of Europe.

In this work (“ The World History of Languages”), Haarmann examined the linguistic abilities of the earliest humans, describing ways in which linguistic complexity developed. In emphasizing the development and spread of Indo-European languages, he showed they formed a later layer over the pre-Indo-European languages, thus corroborating Gimbutas's theory of Old Europe as being conquered by waves of Indo-European migration from a paleo-linguistic perspective.

Anthony's book is an outstanding work on the archaeology of the Eurasian steppes. He demonstrated that horses were first tamed and ridden in the Uralic cultures, and that the increase in status symbols, such as long flint daggers, stone axes and “horse-head scepters” found in the individual graves of men, indicated a male-dominated herding culture, which he identified with the Indo-Europeans. Later, a metal trade monopoly developed which was run by the chiefs, whose power grew enormously with the arrival of a new weapon: the chariot.

The DNA analyzed by Haak et al. and by Goldberg/Guenther/Rosenberg/ Jakobsson clarified this area considerably as they discovered two major waves of immigration to Europe: first, a massive wave of Neolithic immigration in the 7 th millennium with men and women who were not Indo-Europeans; and second, from 3,500, strong invasion of Indo-Europeans. In this second wave, only men arrived, and with new technologies: weapons and objects made of bronze. The results of the DNA-analyses definitely confirmed Gimbutas's migration theory.

In his extensive study, DeMeo introduced the factor of ecology, showing that disasters such as desertification and its social consequences can lead to patriarchalization. He proposed the thesis that hunger leads to violence and thus to patriarchy. His hypothesis was criticized as too simple, since patriarchal societies with warrior elites were not starvation societies but well-organized in order to prevail against other cultures. And his thesis would only apply to the Eurasian steppes, but not to the Sahara desert.

In her anthology, Biaggi presented a wide range of perspectives with more or less well-founded explanations for the rise of patriarchy, as well as a discussion of the intrinsic governing principles of this type of society.

In his publication (“The Mother Right of the Picts”), Zimmer succeeded in discovering the matriarchal social order of the Picts, although the Picts did not belong to the Celts but to the pre-Celtic indigenous population.

In his issue (“The Position of Woman among the Celts and the problem of ‘Celtic Mother Right' ”), Weisweiler presented the glorious phenomena, which have been told about the islanders' Celtic women, such as powerful queen mothers, reigning queens who led the army after their husbands' death, as well as influential female judges and priestesses. He showed, however, that these phenomena were confined to the British Isles and even restricted there, as rare exceptions, to the ruling class, while the status of ordinary woman was not ideal.

In his book (“ The Celtic Woman”), Markale emphasized Celtic mythology and customs, which contain many references to a pre-Celtic matriarchy. He placed the Celtic culture between matriarchy and patriarchy, although his definition of these terms remains unclear.

Mountain labeled the Celtic peoples as “matriarchal” by generalizing from various cultural elements in his five-volume encyclopedia. As in his work, today's discussion favors a matriarchal interpretation of the Celts, which is a problematic claim due to its unclear definition.

In her critical analysis of Four Branches of the Mabinogi (“When the Goddess became Celtic”), French-Wieser has excellently pointed out how the gradual degradation and humiliation of goddesses took place among the Celts and how the feminine divine was dismantled until it became an artificial figure created by a male magician.

Aron explored traces of matriarchy in Germanic hero-lore, making what was, for his time, the avant-garde claim that the “existence of the matriarchate” in Old Germania could “hardly be denied by anyone.” He speculated that matriarchy was “much more widespread” in Old Germania than Western scholarship had allowed. However, his unclear concepts mixed up matriarchal cultures and Indo-European warrior cultures.

In his work (“Women among the Germanic peoples”), Amstadt showed that upper class Germanic women could become priestesses presiding over religious communities, while ordinary women remained dependent and restricted according to Germanic clan law. In his analysis of Germanic mythology, showing that it contains an older, pre-Germanic, matriarchal layer, he relied on Goettner-Abendroth 1980 (see Mythology, Symbols and Religion).

Wolff was the first to write down the legends of the Dolomites, including the Fanes-Cycle, but he distorted this remarkable cycle through his own romanticized view which, moreover, is patriarchally biased by its clichés of gender roles.

French-Wieser fully detected the patriarchal ingredients of Wolff. She was the first to recognize the matriarchal content of the saga-cycle of the Fanes queendom in the Dolomites and its decline.

Kindl identified the matriarchal content of the legends about the Fanes queendom and its prominent heroines by using scholarly methods, and she showed that these legends contain a historical core referring to the early history of the Ladins.

In his book (“Grisons. The Magic Valleys. Primal Cults and Customs of Old Reatia”), the Raetoroman, Caminada, wrote down the customs and cults of his Swiss homeland, which contain further elements of the early history of the Raetians, o f particular importance being the Reatoroman Margareta song, in which the goddess of the Raetians still appears in later form.

The authors of this catalog (“Sardinia. Land of the Towers”) depicted the Bronze Age culture of the Sardinians through the thousands of round towers that cover the island. They included the earlier forms and the sacral use of these towers, as well as the sanctuary wells and megalithic tombs.

This collection of Sardinian myths and legends contains the very interesting legend of the origins of the Sardinians: “La leggenda di Norace” (in Sardinian: “Sa fabula de Noraxi”), which confirms the archaeologically detected link between the matriarchal original people and the megalithic Ligurians and provides evidence of matriarchal customs, for ex. marriage politics.

In his extensive work (“The Great Basque Encyclopedia”), Barandian presented all the oral traditions of the Basques including mythology, legends, and customs. They include, amongst many other things, very old archaic goddess conceptions, a strong belief in fairies and a lunar calendar, which was in place up to the 20 th century. From this he reconstructed the religion of the Old Basque culture.

Based on the language and traditions of the Basques, in his work (“Secret History of the Basque Country”), Lamy proved that their history dates back at least to Neolithic times, as their language is pre-Indo-European and unique in Europe and the vocabulary of their tools dates back to the Stone Age. He pointed out that the Mesolithic natives in Spain had already taken their own path in evolution and that it is not coincidental that the Basques live in the mountains on the border between France and Spain, where there are numerous Palaeolithic cave paintings.

The Basque Gratacos dedicated her research book (“Women of the Pyrenees”) to the present social order of the Basques, which has been matriarchal for millennia, as some patterns still suggest. She showed that the Basques have no paternal surname but the name of the house, which probably was the name of the maternal clan. Today, in each generation, the first-born is the sole heir or heiress of house and land, which discriminates against the younger both economically and politically. Consequently, it cannot be claimed that there is an egalitarian, matriarchal social order still today.