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In school we learned that men built and ruled the world, and that's the way it always was. Of course, it is no coincidence that for decades, textbooks in the United States were written by a small group of white men from the Texas Board of Education. Times have changed, however. Now that scientific and archeological fields include respected women in their ranks, new revelations about the history of "mankind" show that women were much more than chattel and mere vessels of reproduction. Women's hands have shaped civilization as far back as six million years ago, when the earliest humans began to walk upright. Some scientists now believe it was women who first stood up, so they could more easily carry food and their children. Worldwide legends cite women as the first domesticators of fire, just as women buried seeds in the ground, becoming the original botanists. From their plants and herbs, these women created healing treatments and pioneered in medicine. Needing something to hold their plentiful bounty, it is thought that women crafted pottery for this purpose, in addition to creating textiles and the earliest tools for digging. Even the invention of writing and the original alphabet have feminine roots, notes Merlin Stone in his book, When God Was a Woman (1978). Cultures that appear to have been matriarchal, wherein lineage is traced by the mother's heritage, were some of the most advanced societies of the ancient world, known as superior examples of peace, prosperity, equality and creativity. It wasn't until around 3,000 B.C.—when men began to use metals to create weaponry, thereby birthing an age of war and dominance— that history took a fateful turn for women. Ancient Matriarchal Societies It is no coincidence that the first found figurative object, created around 30,000 B.C., is a depiction of a female form. While some scholars debate the specific meaning of numerous ancient feminine artifacts, archeologists generally confirm they represent a celebration of femininity: specifically, menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth as well as the seasonal migration of animals and the cycles of time on Mother Earth. ese cycles of life defined the first 100,000 years of Homo sapiens' existence. e Gate of Horn (1948) by Gertrude Rachel Levy, a pivotal book on Stone Age religion, affirms that the first "God" was in fact a Goddess. From the Upper Paleolithic to the Middle Neolithic— around 30,000 year— the only image of a God-like deity found painted on rock, carved in stone, or sculpted in clay, is depicted as a female. Not only was the feminine revered spiritually, many scholars now believe early human culture was guided and sustained by an inner circle of women where human society evolved. And yet, these ancient civilizations with women inventors, producers, scientists, physicians, lawgivers, visionary shamans and artists have been hidden and ignored by Western male historians who believe that relevant history began only about 5,000 years ago with the dawn of patriarchy. A pervasive misconception of matriarchal societies implies that in cultures where women had positions of influence and power, females dominated men. Yet material evidence shows these advanced matriarchal societies to be egalitarian in nature, with a balance or partnership between the sexes rather than a dominance of female over male. Archeological sites display no hierarchical structures in housing or burials, supporting the hypothesis that there was no stratification between the sexes. While feminine ideals were worshiped and women attained positions of authority, they were not elevated at the expense of men, totally contradictory to the spirit of patriarchal systems. Such an incomplete view of humanity has shaped the perception of our ancient history as a violent world of struggle and warrior domination, which is simply not accurate. Archeologists have unearthed sites across Europe, the Middle East and Asia where prosperous partnership societies lived in peace and abundance. e locations for these townships were chosen for their picturesque views and farming advantages rather than any defensive strategy. e evidence for this lies not only in the fact that fortifications are missing, but also in the absence of all references to warfare and weaponry in their art and architecture. Unfortunately, a lack of defensive skills made them easy prey for warring barbarians who eventually decimated their culture. Southeastern Europe represents perhaps the greatest example of advanced matriarchal ancient civilization in the Neolithic period. Renowned Lithuanian-American archeologist Marija Gimbutas, known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe" in her book, e Civilization of the Goddess (1991), states: "In the 5th and 4th millennia B.C., Old Europeans had towns with a considerable concentration of population, temples several stories high, a sacred script, spacious houses of four or five rooms, professional ceramicists, weavers, copper and gold metallurgists, and other artisans producing a range of sophisticated goods. A flourishing network of trade routes existed that circulated items such as obsidian, Venus of Willendorf, created around 28,000 B.C. 46 | GRAVITAS MAGAZINE GravitasMag.com

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