Into to the history of matriarchy
Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 2:15 pm
While there are antecedents in Anatolia, archaeologist M. Gimbutas shows a far wider sample of artiacts of matriarchic cultures in Chalcolithic Slavic Europe from 4000-8000 BCE.
Along with the introduction of agriculture to the riverine flood plains from the Danube to the Dneiper, there was a flowering in several other arts like fabric & pottery, and the invention of arsenic bronze & writing.
About 6000 years ago, the alpha male Kurgan warriors introduced the first domestic horses from Ukraine to the Cucuteni, who lived along the Danube delta and Western Black Sea coast. And- disappeared. No kurgans were built for another thousand years.
JP Mallory inadvertantly mentions one reason why on pg 199 of his "In Search of the Indo-Europeans". He notes that the Kurgans were (perhaps the first?) 2 meter tall 100kg warriors that domesticate the first horses, which he says were only 54" at the withers. Put a mighty warrior on a pony like that, and his weight will run it into the ground within a mile.
No doubt the Vinca put the ponies to work dragging chalcocite out of the Transylvanian mines. But for sure, as Mallory noted, the horses were also introduced to what he calls the "gracile" Cucuteni. Their women weighed only about 50kg. A woman on such a horse would immediately discover that she can ride faster and further than any alpha male warrior could run, and that no way could he catch her on horseback. Hence the Amazons.
As EW Barber, in "The Mummies of Urumchi noted", men would have gotten their balls crushed riding such horses in the eras before saddles, much less the stirrup. And even just walking or trotting all day would have given men the same kind of testicular problems olympic bike riders have. Horses have evolved a lot since then, getting flatter backs rather than the rather sharp backbone like a deer or goat, that would give any man pause.
But- it appears that the horses also brought in Anthrax. The whole region of Chalcolithic culture was gradually abandoned for hundreds of years. But, by then, the Cucuteni already had developed the plank hulled sailboats, so we see their pottery in the Cycladic isles (isolated from Anthrax) and see them evolved into the more obviously matriarchic Minoans.
However, the Vinca, Petresti, and others took the horses onto the steppes to become the Amazons. And as Barber noted, they just kept moving East as long as the grass held out. All the way to what is now Tien Shen province in China 4000 years ago.... to become known as the Tocharians.
Who were literate, so we have their texts, of which I have one copy, 'The Maitreyasamiti-Nataka texts in Tocharian A.(from Amazon.com appropriately enough!) an in it, we see a conversation between the *living* Buddah and the Gautimid *Queen* of Kucha. And among the subjects under discussion is the growing phenomena of what we call mysogeny.
We also have innumerable letters, which I expect women of today would understand, of women in Niya (or whatever town) writing to the women running offices in Kucha, about the inventory being shipped in the caravans run by their men, as well as arranging for their men to get laid when they get to town. The 'wives' apparently didnt want their boys to pick up anything from just any whore when they got there.
Of course, they practiced birth control, and had very stable populations, which you can see in the matriarchic communities all the way back to Hungary. Which proved to be their downfall, when hordes of Mongols showed up and wiped them out. Except for some few who escaped into Tibet, and again we have, as we do with the Mosuo of China, anthropology reports of women who own all the property, have multiple husbands, and take on co-wives as their entrepreneurial activities expand.
Because of herbal birth control, matriarchies never became vast populations, but it is unwarrented dismissibility to say they never existed when we have some few examples of it still extant in obscure remote areas. And it begs the question of how it exists there now if it was not introduced.
The Tibetan matriarchies are Buddhist, but it is *not* Indian Buddhism. the font they use is derived from the Brahmi Sanskrit of the Tocharians. And in the Tocharians, we see their blonde & red hair and beards as well as blue used to depict eyes. The wool they wear has European DNA, is woven in the standard twill, which the Chinese never used, and as Barber shows us in 'The Mummies of Urumchi" is even woven in classic *Tartan.*
Matriarchies exist now, and we can trace their cultural heritage all the way back to Slavic Europe 6000 years ago. Douglas Adams does the same with the Tocharian language, tracing it back to the Proto-Indo-European. Granted that they were not common, and preferred to avoid areas subject to lots of conflict... where most of History gets written.
Along with the introduction of agriculture to the riverine flood plains from the Danube to the Dneiper, there was a flowering in several other arts like fabric & pottery, and the invention of arsenic bronze & writing.
About 6000 years ago, the alpha male Kurgan warriors introduced the first domestic horses from Ukraine to the Cucuteni, who lived along the Danube delta and Western Black Sea coast. And- disappeared. No kurgans were built for another thousand years.
JP Mallory inadvertantly mentions one reason why on pg 199 of his "In Search of the Indo-Europeans". He notes that the Kurgans were (perhaps the first?) 2 meter tall 100kg warriors that domesticate the first horses, which he says were only 54" at the withers. Put a mighty warrior on a pony like that, and his weight will run it into the ground within a mile.
No doubt the Vinca put the ponies to work dragging chalcocite out of the Transylvanian mines. But for sure, as Mallory noted, the horses were also introduced to what he calls the "gracile" Cucuteni. Their women weighed only about 50kg. A woman on such a horse would immediately discover that she can ride faster and further than any alpha male warrior could run, and that no way could he catch her on horseback. Hence the Amazons.
As EW Barber, in "The Mummies of Urumchi noted", men would have gotten their balls crushed riding such horses in the eras before saddles, much less the stirrup. And even just walking or trotting all day would have given men the same kind of testicular problems olympic bike riders have. Horses have evolved a lot since then, getting flatter backs rather than the rather sharp backbone like a deer or goat, that would give any man pause.
But- it appears that the horses also brought in Anthrax. The whole region of Chalcolithic culture was gradually abandoned for hundreds of years. But, by then, the Cucuteni already had developed the plank hulled sailboats, so we see their pottery in the Cycladic isles (isolated from Anthrax) and see them evolved into the more obviously matriarchic Minoans.
However, the Vinca, Petresti, and others took the horses onto the steppes to become the Amazons. And as Barber noted, they just kept moving East as long as the grass held out. All the way to what is now Tien Shen province in China 4000 years ago.... to become known as the Tocharians.
Who were literate, so we have their texts, of which I have one copy, 'The Maitreyasamiti-Nataka texts in Tocharian A.(from Amazon.com appropriately enough!) an in it, we see a conversation between the *living* Buddah and the Gautimid *Queen* of Kucha. And among the subjects under discussion is the growing phenomena of what we call mysogeny.
We also have innumerable letters, which I expect women of today would understand, of women in Niya (or whatever town) writing to the women running offices in Kucha, about the inventory being shipped in the caravans run by their men, as well as arranging for their men to get laid when they get to town. The 'wives' apparently didnt want their boys to pick up anything from just any whore when they got there.
Of course, they practiced birth control, and had very stable populations, which you can see in the matriarchic communities all the way back to Hungary. Which proved to be their downfall, when hordes of Mongols showed up and wiped them out. Except for some few who escaped into Tibet, and again we have, as we do with the Mosuo of China, anthropology reports of women who own all the property, have multiple husbands, and take on co-wives as their entrepreneurial activities expand.
Because of herbal birth control, matriarchies never became vast populations, but it is unwarrented dismissibility to say they never existed when we have some few examples of it still extant in obscure remote areas. And it begs the question of how it exists there now if it was not introduced.
The Tibetan matriarchies are Buddhist, but it is *not* Indian Buddhism. the font they use is derived from the Brahmi Sanskrit of the Tocharians. And in the Tocharians, we see their blonde & red hair and beards as well as blue used to depict eyes. The wool they wear has European DNA, is woven in the standard twill, which the Chinese never used, and as Barber shows us in 'The Mummies of Urumchi" is even woven in classic *Tartan.*
Matriarchies exist now, and we can trace their cultural heritage all the way back to Slavic Europe 6000 years ago. Douglas Adams does the same with the Tocharian language, tracing it back to the Proto-Indo-European. Granted that they were not common, and preferred to avoid areas subject to lots of conflict... where most of History gets written.