Milena Rampoldi, ProMosaik, 8/12/2021
Joan Marler is the Founder andExecutive 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not only archaeology and comparative mythology, but a range of other disciplines including anthropology, linguistics, historical documents, and comparative religion as well as knowledge of the visual arts and the non-material aspects of culture.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.
