MILENA RAMPOLDI“When women reject male dominance and will no longer tolerate it as normal behavior, society changes”: in the footsteps of Marija GimbutasInterview with Joan Marler, Institute of Archaeomythology

 Milena Rampoldi, ProMosaik, 8/12/2021

Joan Marler is the Founder and

Executive Director of the Institute of Archaeomythology.  She is the editor of The Civilization of the Goddess (1991) by Marija Gimbutas and From the Realm of the Ancestors: An Anthology in Honor of Marija Gimbutas (1997). She worked closely with Marija Gimbutas as her personal editor from 1987-1994 and lectures internationally on Prof. Gimbutas’ life and work. Joan Marler initiated courses in Archaeomythology at two graduate schools in San Francisco: New College of California and the California Institute of Integral Studies.  She taught modern, folk and ethnic dance for 28 years through Santa Rosa Junior College in northern California. From 1982-1996 she worked as an independent producer and radio journalist for KPFA FM, Berkeley, California. She answered our questions.

What are the most important objectives of the Institute of Archaeomythology?

The initial objective of the Institute is to encourage the development and sharing of an archaeomythological approach to cultural inquiry among international scholars and researchers from a variety of fields—as well as artists, poets, and writers—with an emphasis on the beliefs, rituals, symbolism, and social structure of ancient societies. The Lithuanian/American archaeologist Marija Gimbutas formulated archaeomythology as an interdisciplinary methodology during the 1980s in order to expand the interpretative parameters of her field. She incorporated, not only archaeology and comparative mythology, but a range of other disciplines including anthropology, linguistics, historical documents, and comparative religion as well as knowledge of the visual arts and the non-material aspects of culture. 

From the beginning of its organization, the Institute of Archaeomythology has organized international symposia and has published proceedings and monographs on archaeomythological themes.  Publications include the online, open-access Journal of Archaeomythology.  The Institute will be expanding its activities to include more interactive, online events in lieu of in-person symposia due to the current pandemic and need for ease of access among interested scholars.  Its first online international symposium (presented in collaboration with the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology, in the US) was presented July 16-18, 2021 in honor of Marija Gimbutas's Centennial year. See archaeomythology.org for information about obtaining recorded access to this international event through ASWM. A special Centennial anthology is scheduled for publication in 2022.

 What has the collaboration with Marija Gimbutas meant to you?

The experience of working closely with Marija Gimbutas as her personal editor during the last seven years of her life, traveling with her internationally and interacting with her and with her colleagues in Central and Eastern Europe was transformative for me.  The process of editing her articles for journals and encyclopedia, then working with her to prepare the text for the second volume of her magnum opus, The Civilization of the Goddess (1991), profoundly shifted my perspective on the history of human cultures.  I began to realize that the classical Greeks do not represent the earliest foundation of European civilization, regardless of what we've been taught.  If you imagine looking forward through time from the period of Old Europe (c. 6500-3500 BCE)—which Marija Gimbutas considered "a true civilization in the best meaning of the word"—the Greeks developed thousands of years later. It was illuminating for me to know that the non-Indo-European societies of Old Europe were peaceful, egalitarian, highly artistic, and sustainable throughout the Balkans and into Central Europe over three thousand years before they were transformed by warlike, patriarchal, male-dominant, Indo-European pastoralists from the North Pontic-Caspian steppes. Marija would have been very pleased to know that her Kurgan theory has been vindicated by ancient DNA evidence.

What does Old Europe mean to you personally as a woman?

The fact that the earliest farming societies of Old Europe were primarily peaceful and egalitarian challenges the widely held assumption that human societies have always been warlike and male dominant. The continual production of thousands of anthropomorphic sculptures in various media, which are mostly female (when gender is clearly defined), suggests the respected roles of women in these societies. Many female sculptures are painted or engraved with signs and symbols or wear what appear to be ritual costumes.  Male images are represented as well, but they are rare by comparison. Moreover, there is no evidence of warriors, weapons for warfare, or males representing elite dominance in visual imagery or in graves.  It is meaningful for me to imagine Old European society, not only as peaceful, but as collaborative, in which women and men worked together to co-create the sustainability and sophisticated cultural development that is evident over three thousand years.

I particularly resonate with Gimbutas's concept that Old Europeans venerated the Sacred Source of Life as female. She uses the term "Goddess" as a metaphor for "all life in Nature" that includes the cycles of birth, maturity, death, and the regeneration of life. This has profound significance for me as a woman to recognize that my body is sacred, and all beings are part of this sacred reality.

How did you respond to Cynthia Eller's book The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory (2000)?

The brief answer is that I was so disturbed by her book that I produced a lengthy critique entitled: "The Myth of Universal Patriarchy."

I found Eller's text highly problematic due to its attempt to debunk the view that there was ever a time when women were respected within non-patriarchal, non-warlike, egalitarian societies. In her book, Eller accuses women who hold this view of being 'feminist matriarchalists' -  a derogatory term. She admits that none of the women who champion this version of Western history call themselves 'feminist matriarchalists,' and none refer to the story they tell as 'the myth of matriarchy prehistory' (p. 12), yet Eller utilizes these terms throughout her book to cast suspicion on any woman who believes that human societies have not always supported male dominance in religious and social structure. It appears that in Eller's world, any woman who rejects the myth of universal patriarchy deserves to be scorned. This is exactly the posture that perpetuates systems of inequality. When women reject male dominance and will no longer tolerate it as normal behavior, society changes.

How can a new paradigm like this change our future and why?

Marija Gimbutas's description of Old European civilization can be seen as offering a new paradigm for our present and future. The peaceful, egalitarian societies of Old Europe were sustainable for three thousand years because the Old Europeans knew how to cultivate a resilient balance with the living world and with each other.

In The Civilization of the Goddess, Marija Gimbutas wrote, "I reject the assumption that civilization refers only to androcratic warrior societies. The generative basis of any civilization lies in its degree of artistic creation, aesthetic achievements, nonmaterial values, and freedom which make life meaningful and enjoyable for all its citizens, as well as a balance of powers between the sexes." She also wrote: “We must refocus our collective memory.  The necessity of this has never been greater as we discover that the path of ‘progress’ is extinguishing the very conditions of life on Earth.”

So the Old European paradigm can function as a wake-up call: to have any hope for a viable future, we must learn to live with love and respect for the Earth and for all of life.  After all, by continuing to destroy the Earth, we, too, are destroyed.