When the Goddess Lived with Marija Gimbutas, Ph.D.

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Before the establishment of violence-prone, male-dominated societies in Europe, there was a time of peace and artistry, when the world was regarded as sacred and men and women acted as partners. This is the theoretical foundation of the late Marija Gimbutas’s tremendous lifework as an archaeological pioneer of goddess cultures in Neolithic Europe and the implications for our time are profound and wide-ranging. Employing interdisciplinary methods of research she says "I reject the definition that society has to be hierarchical. Matriarchy is not patriarchy in a skirt." (hosted by Joan Marler)

Bio

Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994) was a Lithuanian archaeologist and anthropologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe” and for her Kurgan hypothesis, which located the Proto-Indo-European homeland in the Pontic Steppe. She served as Professor of European Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Curator of Old World Archaeology at what is now the Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

Books by Marija Gimbutas include:

• The Living Goddesses (editor Miriam Robbins Dexter) (University of California Press 1981)
• The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cult Images, (University of California Press 1982)
• The Language of the Goddess (coauthor Joseph Campbell) (Harper&Row 1989)

To learn more about the work of Marija Gimbutas go to www.opusarchives.org/marija-gimbutas-collection

Topics explored in this dialogue include:

• Why Gimbutas rejects traditional definitions of civilization as hierarchical and warlike
• The territories of “Old Europe” refer to Romania, Bulgaria, the Ukraine, parts of Austria and southern Poland
• What was the religion of social structure of “Old Europe”
•  What is the archeological evidence of the goddess religion and the Council of Women
• What is the evidence of a balanced structure in society where men and women are equal
• What were the burial practices and gender roles in ancient cultures
• How did the domestication of horses change the social structure of “Old Europe”
• What is the importance of neolithic pregnant goddesses and fertility images

Host: Joan Marler    Interview Date: 1/31/1992   Program Number: 2307