“Knocking Down Straw Dolls: A Critique of Cynthia Eller’s The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won’t Give Women a Future”

“We know of many societies that did not confine, seclude, veil, or bind female bodies, nor amputate or deform parts of those bodies. We know, as well, that there have been cultures that accorded women public leadership roles and a range of arts and professions, as well as freedom of movement, speech, and rights to make personal decisions. Many have embraced female personifications of the Divine, neither subordinating them to a masculine god, nor debarring masculine deities…

It is worth looking at the history of this idea more closely. Earlier writers had already begun to address the issue of female power as they encountered Indigenous societies in colonial contexts. Their accounts present a tangle of European projections based on everything from Greek Amazon traditions to Christian colonizers’ claims that Indigenous peoples worshipped devils. They also record their culture shock at encountering senior priestesses (as in the Philippines and Siberia) and female chieftains (as in Virginia and Delaware)…

Ideas about an era of goddess veneration became widespread in the early 1960s, when James Mellaart excavated Çatal Höyük. Although Eller is reticent about it, it seems clear that another wave of “matriarchal” theory swept through in the mid-20th century, this time in the field of archaeology. It appears to have been fueled by the realization, as a result of many 20th century digs, that neolithic iconography was predominantly female…

But by the late 60s, a reaction had set in against interpreting female images as goddesses (or as having any sacral power, for example as ancestor figures). The “New Archaeology” turned away from cultural analysis to an emphasis on scientific process and technology. The trend was simply to ignore the female figurines, although they were often classified in passing as “fertility idols,” “dancing girls,” “pretty ladies,” and “concubines.” Most were squirreled away in obscure journals as tiny, poorly reproduced black-and-white shots, while warriors got full-page color treatment in The Dawn of Man-type coffee table books. There was more than a reluctance to call them goddesses; details were typically omitted about the sites where they were discovered, and in what contexts, even about dates. Most readers did not notice this blank amidst the extensive analysis of weapons and tools: how is it possible to evaluate information that’s withheld?…

until recently archaeologists paid scant attention to evidence about gender. They made assumptions about the kind of grave goods that should go with males or females, sexing burials by grave goods rather than by skeleton analysis. Often, even usually, they failed to record relevant data.”

I have no idea how to interpret the validity of any of these arguments, this is definitely not my field, but I feel like I learned a lot. Ancient cultures are so fascinating, thinking about all the ways of being human that have existed and looking at how we came to today’s cultures.

I’ve been following the “suppressed histories” page on facebook and it’s been a great decision.