W2: Ancient Roots: Matriarchy & the Status of Women in the Paleolithic & Neolithic Era

Women of Antiquity: Matrix Cultures & Out of African

Migration Theory

Why study women of antquity?

Current Events

Reading Assignments & Reading Groups

“Each time a girl opens a book and finds a womanless history, she learns she is worth less.” - Dr. Myra Pollack Sadker, a pioneer in the research of gender bias in America’s schools

Current Assignments

Free Write – Week 2

1) Gugliotta, G. (2008).The Great Human Migration. Smithsonian Magazine, pp 56-64.

2) Dashu, M. Icons of the Matrix. Suppressed History Archives.

References

Where is Blombos Cave?

What is this article about?

Why did early humans leave Africa 80,000 years ago to "colonize the world"?

Is the out of Africa theory controversial? Why?

• Recap Week 1
• Check in on current events that relate to the learning objectives of this course.

What did you see on the news, read or hear about this past week that relates to women, women’s ethnic heritage, women's bodies or reproductive rights, and/or women and the land?

Was there anything in the news that was specific to the lives of women?

Women in America continue to be underrepresented in many areas from politics to finance to the boardroom and more. There’s perhaps no field clamoring more to close the gender gap though than the STEM industries—industries where the lack of female role models is widely reported to be part of the problem. Girls’ schools are successfully graduating young women who are six times more likely to consider majoring in math, science, and technology and three times more likely to consider engineering careers compared to girls who attend coed schools. Yet, this is not enough. We need girls graduating from coed schools to feel equally empowered to help shift the paradigm. ( http://ncgsblog.org/2015/03/08/girls-must-see-it-to-be-it-beyond-womens-history-month/)

"Part of the trouble was, none of the major scientists was really doing much research in Africa-there was a lot to be investigated in France, after all; but in retrospect the neglect of Africa is a little weird, since we've known for a very long time that that's where the earliest humans evolved "( Hirst, 2016).

Film - Miss Representation (2011)

Hirst, K. (2016). Blombos cave: Anatomically modern humans of the middle paleolithic. About Education. Retrieved from

http://archaeology.about.com/cs/humanorigins/a/blombos.htm

Plumer, H. (2011). Gender in Mesoamerica: Interpreting gender roles in classic Maya society. Anthro Journal. Retreived from http://anthrojournal.com/issue/october-2011/article/gender-in-mesoamerica-interpreting-gender-roles-in-classic-maya-society

Wade, L. (2014). Caveman courtship and its mythology. Sociological Images. Retrieved from https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2014/08/08/caveman-courtship/

Solar Eclipse- New Moon in Leo

Chaco Canyon (Pueblo) - New Mexico

People depend on the movement of the sun, eclipses were seen all over the ancient world as disruption of the established order or animals swallowing fire ( Nat Geo, 2013).

Due Today - Free Write #4: Write your thoughts about the African Migration Theory. Why are we so concerned with the past anyway? What do you believe and what intereste you the most about the lecture today?

Due Next Week

Reading Assignment: Read the Introduction in Transformation Now!

Homework Assignment: Review the requirements for the midterm project. Begin to think about what you are interested in and who you would like to work with in a group. For the midterm assignment, students can choose their group members.

Write a 1 page or longer letter introducing yourself.

Who are you? What are you most excited to learn in this course? What should the instructor know about you and how you like to learn? Is this your first semester at NVC?

What are your research interests?

Turn in your Reflective Journal at the end of class and remember to include your definitions from Class #1.

People Gathering to view solar eclipse, Chaco Canyon

Why a total solar eclipse is such a big deal

1hr 25 mins

Ancient America The Secret Canyon Chaco In Nageezi, NM FULL Documentary

Ixchel, Mayan Earth and Moon Goddess

Goddess or Rabbit in the Moon

ROADMAP

Discussion

THINK PAIR SHARE

Transformative Change Project

(10 Points/50 Points Total/Total for all Assignments is 110)

Solidarity & Action

Free Write – Week 1 (in case you missed it)

“Maybe a matriarchy in human society would bring an everlasting PEACE in the world...Women are carried by LOVE, they have no religion nor ethnicity.” - Shkelqim Zilbeari

How do you feel about this quote? Do women and children thrive in matriarchal societies? Is it important to discuss matriarchy and patriarchy? How do you want your government and community to treat the citizens?

By Ifi Amadiume

**Pause for Audio **

Reinventing Africa:

Matriarchy, Religion & Culture

& My Ongoing Research -

Women in the Marketplace: The Matriarchal Agricultural Customs for Planting and Harvesting in West Africa.

Women unite all over the world against injustice,

violence against women and children.

We can have a collective voice and presence in the political arena, the economy and importantly, in our own homes.

Write your understanding or unique definition of these terms; nationality, ethnicity, ancestry, heritage, oppression, privilege, gender, race, class, sexuality.

What do these words mean and what is your experience with these terms? Is the concept of “race” a social construct?

Take this exercise home and put it in your Reflection Journal that you will be bringing to class every week.

PART 1

• Take a piece of paper and writing materials and find a space where you can work comfortably.
• Think about your life and the experiences that have shaped you
• Draw a road or path on the map, be creative
• Make additional roads so the intersections represent major decisions you have had to make throughout your life so far.
• Add a special symbol to indicate something unexpected that has happened in your life.
• Add other symbols to indicate important experiences, successes, losses along the path.
• Add a special symbol, for the people, places, etc that have contributed to your awareness/understanding/development of gender.

PART 2

• Place your map on the floor in the center of the room and stand behind your map. As you stand opposite your partner look at their roadmaps. Share what you see without asking questions. Your partner may or may not respond.

We will return to these maps throughout the semester so please keep them in your binder.

Luba Headrest

Creative Explosion

Modern Behaviors and Thought Processes

Humans communicate using symbols and develop tools to aid in the communication process, food security, and food storage systems.

Amadiume introduces the concepts of Mother Focused Spirituality

Amadiume deconstructs the work of well known African scholar Cheik Anta Diop

Gender and Development Approach

Core Strengths of Societies with Women at the Core

Reading Groups - begin Weds 8/23

Figure 1 above. Rock Art Recreations. 2. Lewis-Williams attempts to demonstrate that Paleolithic cave images, as well as those of the Bushman tribes, are spatial transformations of the entoptic form-constants (altered states of consciousness).

Body Studies - Margo DeMello

• Autonomy
• Spirituality
• Lineage
• Rites of Passage
• Women Centered Economy
• Land

Margo DeMello received her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from U.C. Davis in 1995, and currently teaches at Canisius College in the Anthrozoology Masters program.

She is the Program Director for Human-Animal Studies at Animals & Society Institute, and the President of House Rabbit Society. She also volunteers for Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary and Prairie Dog Pals.

In recent years, body studies has expanded rapidly, becoming an increasingly popular field of study within anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies. ... Body Studies (2013) is a comprehensive textbook on the social and cultural uses and meanings of the body, for use in undergraduate college courses. The text focuses on some of the following themes:

the measurement and classification of the human body

illness and healing

the racialized body

the gendered body

cultural perceptions of beauty

new bodily technologies.

Many archaeologists believed that while anatomically modern Homo sapiens evolved somewhere between 100,000-150,000 years ago, humans did not develop modern behaviors and thought processes until around 50,000-40,000 years ago.

Cheikh Anta Diop was a Senegalese historian, anthropologist, Egyptologist, physicist and politician. His work

• Places Egypt back into Africa.
• States that the human race descends from pre-colonial African culture.
• We are all multicultural, and are a variety of ethnicites, shapes and sizes.
• Challenged Western anthropological research and theories that were biased racial type analyses.
• Controversial text, (The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, was published in 1974.

Amadiume credits him for his understanding of African Matriarchy yet also criticizes his male approach.

• Diop does speak about economics but women were not directly credited with running the marketplace and the economy in his work which Amadiume does explicitly.

• Goal is to create alternative anti racist, counter imperialist epistemologies of self representation and self generated normative ideals.

• If we exclude mother-focused ideas/philosophy, we miss the dialectic of gender, and consequently fail to understand the system of checks and balances in these societies.

Colonial experience that introduced Western gender perceptions and practices affected the traditional involvement of African women in the development of their societies.

Led to women's marginalization and economic and political disempowerment.

Amadiume says that, “Even if women are made visible and they increase their economic production capacities, their labor and efforts would only be exploited if there is no change in the unequal structures of government.”

We need gender-partnership and power-sharing to move beyond the present gender impasse in order to find an alternative, inclusive and compassionate future.

We need gender-partnership and power-sharing to move beyond the present gender impasse in order to find an alternative, inclusive and compassionate future. - Ifi Amadiume

Reading Groups are student lead activities based on the reading assignment.

The Reading Group occurs at the beginning of each Wednesday class, for approximately 15 – 20 minutes. The activity designed by each group should meet the following criteria:

• All students complete the reading assignment before class. The Reading Groups alternate weekly. Students must pay close attention to the readings they are assigned (see course schedule).
• Reading Group will come up with an innovative method to engage their peers such as a quiz, writing assignment, discussion, game, art project, treasure hunt etc.
• Each reading group will find ways to focus on the HUMA 125 key factors in the reading. These factors are: the family, political and socio-economic systems, sense of place and community, cultura, beauty and adornment, and the natural environment.
• The Reading Group will be very clear on how they will grade the completion of the activity/assignment and submit grades to the instructor on the grade sheet, by the end of class.
• Students who miss the Weekly Reading Group due to tardiness or absence get 0 points for that week.
• Reading Group members can create additional rules each week, such as – 2 points for tardiness, + 2 points for page references, +3 points for additional texts, articles, resources relevant to the reading assignment. (Not Required).

Course Schedule

Images of Yemaya/Olokun

Ancient Female Figurines

Modern Dark Mother or Caricature?

The Black Madonna

Pause for a moment on this slide - AUDIO included.

Mammy is one of the most well known and enduring racial caricatures, an offensive stereotype of African American women. The mammy image appears on ashtrays, postcards, fishing lures, detergent, artistic prints, toys, candles, and kitchenware. Mammy became a popular icon for commercial goods, especially household items for baking and cleaning. Is she proof that the Dark Mother is still with us or an offensive misrepresentation?

Matriarchy

Black Madonna’s are descendants of pre-Christian Mother or earth goddesses (Moss, Benko). They express maternal and female archetypes, feminine power and show an ancient African lineage.

Values of the dark mother – justice with compassion, equality, and transformation – are alive in daily traditions and celebratory rituals all over the world.

Dark Mother figurines mirror the mother daughter relationship. The images and values are alive in our ancient memory.

Martin Bernal – Black Athena

Where there are African migration paths, there are menhirs and dolmens, black madonnas,  goddess icons and other types of figurative art with a pubic v or ochre applied to the figurine.

The Female Body

Ms. Mary Black - Mandisa Amber 2013

Grotesque or Beautiful?

In Reinventing Africa, Amadiume also looks at the research of Martin Bernal, a scholar of Archaeology, Modern History, and Language. I was very drawn to his work on the Amazon Warrior Women of Dahomey. His work debunks the myths of colonization that stem from racism and anti-semitism and states

• European nations were not superior or more civilized than African nations. Africans brought their intelligence, spirituality, sciences, culture and technology to other nations.
• Bernal's controversial research - European early history was not explicitly White and in fact European spirituality, language and culture was shaped by Africa, Asia, Latin America etc.

Womb - Ability to Grow Life

Breasts- Nourishing Life

"We need a name for the female icons; they are the primary human image in early archaeology. The term “female figurines,” while nakedly descriptive, is an inadequate designation for a cultural phenomenon that is so widespread, so central, in the iconography of archaic cultures". - Max Dashu

Image Credits: 1. Venus of Schelklingen, Germany 38,000-33,000. 2. Venus of Laussel, France 20,000 BCE. 3. Venus of Lespugue, France. 26,000-24,000 . 4. Venus of Wilendof, Austria 24,000-22,000 BCE. 5. Venus of Dolní VěstoniceCzech Republic.31,000-27,000 BCE.

Virgin de Guadelupe - Mexico and Caridad del Cobre - Cuba. Many countries have Black Madonnas that are the patron saints for their country.

Queen Candace - Mandisa Amber 2006

Neolithic Syria 'Mother Goddess' Figurine - 6,000 B.B.E.

Nana at Catal Huyuk, Turkey 6000 BC. chatalhuyakearthmother.jpg

Painting in Middle by Painter and Iconographer Mark Dukes.

Cybele was the mistress of wild nature (symbolized by her constant companion, the lion), a healer, the goddess of fertility & protectress in time of war. In 186 BCE the Roman Senate, recognizing a potential menace, suppressed the worship of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus, known to the Romans as Bacchus

Minoan Snake Goddess wearing bodice w/exposed breasts and apron skirt, (2900-1150 B.C.)

Sacred Vulva - Bringer of Life & Pleasure

The Dark Mother and the Research of Lucia Birnbaum

Yoni Puja , India

Bernal – Black Athena

Timeline of Humanity

The Kamakhya Temple; also Kamrup-Kamakhya is a Hindu temple dedicated to the mother goddess Kamakhya. It is one of the oldest of the 51 Shakti Pithas

Matristic Goddesses of Birth, Death and Regeneration

Murrieta, California

Oakland Fresh Produce Market

Bernal claims that during last 200 years scholars rewrote

history denying that Europeans had roots in Asia and Africa.

(Black Athena Debate Documentary pt 1)

The myth that was the foundation of colonization, generally was that European nations were superior, and more civilized and brought intelligence and order to other nations. Bernal states that this myth was result of racism and anti-semitism.

His work is controversial because he says that European early history was not explicitly White and that African and Asian cultures had a great affect on historically revered European spirituality, language and culture. (Greece, Rome, Spain, France etc.)

Bernal studied Archaeology, Modern History, Archaeology, and Language.

Bernal has been accused of being patronizing and Eurocentric because he did the “great thing for Blacks which was to give them a part in the European story.” – Richard Jenkyns

Ancient Marketplaces and Spirituality

Soil testing reveals evidence of a thriving marketplace in Chunchumil, Mexico since ancient times.

• Lucia is a Sicilian American Feminist Cultural Historian. The author of dark mother. african origins and godmothers ( 2001). Her research provides a feminist perspective to contemporary findings of geneticists and archaeologists.

• Lucia's work is unique because she is "unafraid to point out African origins of humanity and African origins of the dark mother," Luisah Teish - chief, poet, dancer, feminist scholar, teacher.

• Lucia's research maintains that the oldest veneration we know is of a dark mother of central and south Africa, whose signs on figurines are red ochre and the pubic V, were taken by african migrants after 50,000 BCE to caves and cliffs of all continents.

“I do know I have a revulsion against any person, nation, institution, that considers other people lower, inferior, dismissable -- or, killable.” - Lucia Birnbaum

In West Africa a woman’s power was based on her very important

and central economic role. (Amadiume 1997)

Marija Gimbutas was a Lithuanian-American archaeologist known for her research of the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe," a term she introduced. From Marija we get the term Archaeomythology. Though her research was done in Old Europe we can use her extensive research on the symbols found on these goddesses and compare them to sculptures and icons found in Africa, as long as we research what those symbols and goddesses meant to that African community.

“This was a matristic age during which women played key roles and the dominant values were the feminine ones of compassion, community and nurturence.” (The Huffington Post: Grace Lee Boggs: Living for Change: 'Healing Civilization')

"By attracting large numbers of people together on a regular basis, markets may have provided opportunities for social interaction and the exchange of ideas. And they may even imply a measure of centralized control over the economy by Maya rulers." National Geographic (2010).

Pause for a moment on this slide - AUDIO included.

Image Credits top left to right:

Ishango bone lunar calendar – 6,500/10,000 B.C.E. – border of Democratic Region of the Congo and Uganda.

Lebombo bone - Oldest counting tool from 35,000 B.C.E, “probably representing the days in a moon cycle”. It is a baboon fibula with 29 notches on it which was found in a cave in the mountains between South Africa and Swaziland.

Dancing Stones of Namoratunga – 300 B.C.E, Kenya. Stone tools known as bifacial points recovered from Blombos Cave, South Africa. They were made during the Middle Stone Age, about 75,000 years ago, by anatomically modern humans.

Engraved bar of red ochre - Blombos Cave. 70,000 B.C.E.

Black Madonna of Czestochowa and

Black Madonna of Monteserrat

**Pause for Audio**

• Open areas previously described as “ritual plazas” are now being considered as individual market stalls that were part of a large, thriving marketplace.
• We know this is possible because in India and Africa (and many other continents) there are open air markets in front of the temples where you can often purchase the spiritual goods needed to make an offering/puja.
• As a place for exchange the marketplace may also offer fresh produce, spices and other wares harvested or created by women. In turn this boosts the economy and women's status in that economy.
• Women control and redistribute the wealth in these societies.

Icons of the Matrix

1) Matrix (Mother) of time and space, which various cultures call Mother Nature, Priroda, Prakriti, Aluna, or Tao.

2) "Matrix also encompasses a sense of kinship systems based on “mother-right”: that are matrilineal,

matrilocal, and egalitarian. I call them “matrix cultures” to bypass the all-too-common assumption that “matriarchy” implies a mirror image of patriarchy’s relations of domination and subordination. "

3) Social - "a life-support network within the maternal kindreds, which are cooperative and communal, and circles of exchange that reach beyond it. These are core values in the mother-right cultures."

Paleolithic - 2.6 million to 10,000 years ago

Neolithic - 10,000 B.C.E. - 4,500/2000 B.C.E.

The Latin word matrix itself originally meant “womb,” from the same Indo-European root that gives mother, mutter, mater, meter, matr, mat’, mater, madre, and so on.

Estela. Manabí, Ecuador (http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/iconsmatrix_2014.pdf)

Temple of Hatshepsut in Egypt

Mandisa Wood, M.A., M.F.A.

Women's Ethnic Heritage .

August 29th, 2015

Mother Foundation

Paleolithic & Neolithic Africa

Migration Theories

Ancient Ancestors left behind evidence of their daily lives in their bones, art, and tools.

Paleo - old. Neo - New. Lithic - Stone

Sculpture from Ilé-Ifé̀, Nigera where terracotta and bronze works were popular between 600BCE and 1400AD.

• The Multiregional Migration Model argues that modern humans evolved directly from archaic hominids in various locations across the globe.
• This theory states that a combination of gene flow and natural selection would allow the spread and continuity of Homo-sapiens in the Old World. There is great debate that occurs between the scholars of both theories.

• The Out of Africa or African Replacement Hypothesis argues that every human being s are linked to a small group in East Africa, who dispersed into the wider world.
• OAM Theory suggests that all humans ultimately descended from one female: Mitochondrial Eve, said to have lived in Africa about 160kya.

When did gender roles begin?

The Marketplace Model

Matriarchy and the Marketplace

"Gender role refers to the differential participation of men and women in social economic, political, and religious institutions within a specific cultural setting. Gender identity refers to an individual’s own feeling of whether she or he is a woman or a man. Gender ideology refers to the meaning in a given social and cultural contexts, or male, female, sex, and reproduction (Plumer, 2011, para 3.)."

Pause for a moment on this slide - AUDIO included.

• 2 millenia ago in Africa, Archaeologists found with stable carbon isotope analysis, that the diets of men and women began to change at the same time humans began to farm and keep domesticated livestock. Men - marine based diet. Women - terrestrial diet.

• Political Roles – Women created early organizations, unions, voting systems, councils of elders, and systems for accountability within their community. Men and Women governed these boards equally and held court and positions of office. Women had value in their communities where their voice, representation, and involvement was fundamental to the survival of the community. (Queen Mothers)

• Spiritual Roles – women were chiefs, oracles, spirit mediums, knowers, seers and advisors with the ability to place and remove curses. In many indigenous African communities men were also chiefs and priests but had to access feminine form or energy to enter and receive blessings from the spirit world.

social & cultural constructs of gender

iconography

burial sites

skeletal remains

home

myth/folklore

Lilith

Nefertiti - Egypt

Marketplace in Brazil early 1900's.

• My work is to reclaim our ancient matriarchal roots of the marketplace, the seat of women’s power.
• To introduce the radical ideas of reciprocity and redistribution.
• To inspire women who have lost their voice, rights and control of their bodies and claim that they are tired of bias and servitude at home and in the workplace.
• To research and highlight the folkloric customs of dance and drumming while planting and harvesting as well as the rituals for the seasons and agriculture.
• To address the appropriation of the marketplace as an icon for global business and economics, capitalism, and over-consumption.

Neolithic grinding stone with a top stone from the Sahara Desert in Mali, Northwest Africa. The grinding stone has a diameter of 12 cm long. The top stone is made from a hard volcanic cobble and was used to pulverize ochre.

In my research Amadiume brought me great inspiration and I am so happy Vicki Noble brought the text Reinventing Africa to this Archaeomythology course. In my work as a food justivist activist in my own marketplace I discovered that the market is the foundation for the political voice and solidarity among women in countries around the world. (Pictured is Sudan, Indonesia, Turkey)

I embrace a matriarchal model of the marketplace that serves as the collective heart of the community and a place of spiritual and intellectual empowerment. I have managed my own organic market at an Elementary School in West Oakland for the past five years. This market brings fresh local produce and tools for cooking and connecting the community in what has been called a low- income, high crime food desert.

Image Credits: Paleolithic Rock Art on left from Gilf Kebir, Africa (where Egypt, Sudan, and Libya come together) 8,000 years ago. Right: Bones of Lucy, found in Ethiopia 3.2 million years old.

"In other words, the caveman-club-‘er-over-the-head-and-drag-her-by-the-hair narrative is pure mythology. The mythology, nonetheless, affirms the idea that men are naturally coercive and violent by suggesting that our most natural and socially-uncorrupted male selves will engage in this sort of behavior. Rape, that is (Wade, 2014)."

Queen Candace - Nubia

Durga - India