Back to the Prehistoric  "Goddess"

Although recognized as highly hypothetical  and based on very
controversial interpretation of the prehistoric archaeological records,
the concept of the Prehistoric Mother-Goddess  (Catalhouyuk - Vinca
diachronic model) has started again to occupy some social space thanks
to the Internet self-propaganda  of Jeri Studebaker (external link)  and
her book "Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future"
(external link). The same author wrote a Web-review of the book of
"Foundations of Culture: Knowledge - Construction, Belief Systems and
Worldview in Their Dynamic Interplay" (external link)  by Harald
Haarmann beginning with the phrase: "This is a highly academic and
extremely interesting book" (external link). In addition, to the same
author  pipeline relates the Joan Marler's Catalog "The Danube Script"
(Institute of Archaeomythology, Sebastopol, CA) (2008) that publishes
articles for the Photo-exhibit in Sibiu (May 2008) and the included in
the exhibit photos.
     
We can make three main points facing this new "Goddess" (or
Gimbutas) wave in order to follow a critical view on Past:
     1. There are no written records on Prehistory of Eurasia in which
we can learn about the "Prehistoric Goddess". The concept is a result of
a scholar-imaginary based on the popular prehistoric figurines
especially in the Balkans.
     2. The prehistoric figurines of the Balkans are a subject of
systematic and in depth research by many scholars with wide
experience in archaeology and anthropology of the Balkans. To the
extend of my knowledge this was Marija Gimbutas only who proposed
such Goddess without strong followers in the academic field of
research.
      3. The recent state of research of prehistoric figurines is well
analyzed with serious new author's contribution by Douglass Bailey in
"Prehistoric Figurines" (2005) (amazon.com or kindle.com 2007)