Lock up your Daughters: Sex and Violence in Neolithic Europe

Originally posted by LadyofGlass
reply to post by KilgoreTrout

 

People often confuse matriarchal with egalitarian. Even many of the "matriarch" examples are just examples of egalitarian societies. I haven't seen any hardcore evidence of a true matriarch ever existing, where men were the equivalent of slaves as women were/are in true patriarchal societies.

Either way this is an interesting post topic so thanks for sharing.

You are right. I would suspect that it is because women do not dominate. That is typically a male trait (always exceptions in any case).

Perhaps a "hardcore" matriarchal society would actually tend to manifest as a more egalitarian environment? Thus, perhaps we have seen it and just didn't recognize it as "hardcore matriarchal".

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
You are right. I would suspect that it is because women do not dominate. That is typically a male trait (always exceptions in any case).

Perhaps a "hardcore" matriarchal society would actually tend to manifest as a more egalitarian environment? Thus, perhaps we have seen it and just didn't recognize it as "hardcore matriarchal".

Hmmm...that is interesting actually, thought wise, and thinking of myself, I can be very dominant, but only under certain circumstances, I am great in a crisis for example, and will take charge, but as a rule, I prefer not to have the responsibility, because responsibility is detracting from all the relatively minor, but contributory things that I do. I would much rather be doing and facilitating, than involved in the actual decision making, although, as a lone parent, I have little choice in that, but that's the point, perhaps women are more inclined to rise to the challenge as a necessity, rather than in the self-assertive, striving for total dominion way.

Not sure, but interesting idea

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


That's definitely the trend. It's near impossible to say how much is biology and how much is environment because we have no examples of non-violent child rearing on a large scale. People underestimate the power of different types of child rearing on the long term aggression of adults. Men in societies are raised far differently than women in terms of emotional expression and also in the levels of aggression that are expected in relation to their programmed role in society. This large scale cycle of abuse probably started back when it was necessary for men to get food etc. but as technology and population grows it causes more problems in terms of worldwide safety (wars, genocide, mass rape). It is interesting to note countries where children are raised in a less violent manner the men also tend to not follow aggressive trends and the societies are overall more egalitarian.

reply to post by LadyofGlass


I read the following article earlier this week, which covers that very issue.

homepage.smc.edu...

It raises a number of interesting points, particularly in regard to how the level of aggression can be reflective between the genders. This may be somewhat important in that, in the West, we have only just begun to move against defining gender identity from birth after a prolonged period of doing so. What the effects, positive or otherwise are, time will tell, but I suspect that it may be a step in the right direction.

I suppose though, that we also have to understand that stress has an important role in shaping our behaviour, and that living densely, in larger groups is one of the primary stresses in modern life and one that affects our decision making processes. Environmental, and other external stimuli stressors, have been the triggers of major behavioural changes and adaptations in our evolution, in the evolution of all life on this planet. To get this far has been one adaptation after another in often highly hostile conditions, reacting violently and aggressively, including in terms of reproductive behaviour, is just one manifestation of that. We have these brains though, and we have the reason to overcome our hair triggers, as such, there is no justification for rape etc, on that basis, and yet, it is still justified on that basis. In the case of the situation outlined in the OP, it is as much about engaging our brains in deviousness, outwitting our opponents and developing strategy in order to gain the upper hand, for one form of gain or another. Perhaps that is the adaption that we gained from that period of our development, planning, strategy and execution, it can be seen particularly in the palaeolithic, but at that time, cooperatively, rather than competitively.

Interesting contribution, thanks for bringing it to the table.

Originally posted by punkinworks10
Hi Kilgore,
The real trasition in central/eastern Europe was the arrival a rigid stratified society, with the arrival of the pastoralists from the steppes. Before their arriaval society in Europe was very egalitarian, with decidedly communal model, with no signs of a "ruling" class. But after the arrival of the pastoralists, a ruling elite class makes it's appearance, and the polishedd stone axe was the symbol of the ruling class, and authority.
I have read an interesting take on the idea, the new group of people brought with them new ideas, the wheel, a standardized product, axes new animals and plants and they were decidedly more warlike, than the previous people .
They superimposed their rule on the new villiages they encountered, if their was no resistance then the transition was smooth, but if there was resistance then the violence was extreme, with all the men being killed, and the women being made slaves.
Oh and that artist's rendition of an early herdsman is one of the most rediculous things I've ever seen, really a loincloth, textile manufacturing has deep roots in Europe, spindle whorls have been found that are as old as the nd of the last ice age. I would expect thtat the person depicted would be mostly fully clothed, for protection against the sun, wind and biting bugs.

I'm sorry punkinworks, I missed this post earlier...yes, I have read that by the middle to late Neolithic the fellers were wearing trouser-like affairs and jerkins, and as you correctly point out, spinning and weaving were very much part of the Neolithic Package...but red man is very picturesque for the 'sexy' angle, and I think that that is the point, marketing an image.

I do though think that there is some evidence of social stratification in the larger Neolithic settlements where storage is centralised, which indicates that trade interactions are conducted by selected individuals who have control over the use of the surplus, but I think it is more of a 'chiefdom'. I therefore agree with you that more complex stratification arrives with over-lordship, and that is a signaller for the Bronze Age.

reply to post by KilgoreTrout




I agree that external factors impact how we behave and that certainly has a lot to do with it. I hadn't read that article but it's very interesting and is another study indicating the high impact of nurture in overall development. In regard to societies and how they play into all this it is easy to see that on a large scale many cultures are just complex systems of slaves and owners. The trickle down effect of it all means that people will try to move themselves farther up the pole by subjugating whoever is weaker than they are. So for societies where for instance, men are taught that they are to hit their wives for perceived ills, the women then hit the children and the children witness the men hitting their wives. In contrast those households where as you said gender identity isn't force fed down the children's throats children they learn by example by their caretakers who don't partake in such abuses with them and each other. For both male and female children the long term effects on how they will view the world and other people of either gender will be vastly different. I think a shift like that is inevitable if we don't blow ourselves up first.

I got into reading about this when I came upon articles debating whether spanking is harmful to societies as a whole. I would always hear the argument "well I turned out fine, so spanking is good" and really fought the urge to question "did you really turn out fine?". When you look at the world as a whole and try to explain many of the widespread problems including as I said, war, rape, genocide, etc...you can easily point fingers and say "it's men's fault" or "it's Muslim's fault", but when you dig a little deeper you find that the problem is violent programming and acceptance of abuse. We are programmed to be abused by governments, by parents, by each other, by this, by that, instead of taught to respect one another on an individual basis. I think as you begin to strip away all these boxes and try to raise children to be less aggressive and more emotional, you'll see less stereotypical male violent behavior.

I am probably rambling at this point, but it all comes down to the idea that if people are going to survive in the future we need to focus on how children are raised in relation to how they grow up instead of fairy-tale roles designed to keep us in these proverbial boxes we're born into. I think as that happens both men and women will be respected more and instead of shifting toward a matriarch we will move toward a more egalitarian world where what you're born with doesn't trump the personal choices you make as an adult. In meantime I hope more information like the one presented in the article comes up because it's always good to look at other cultures in trying to understand our own and our future.

reply to post by KilgoreTrout

No its pretty much true, in fact no truer words have been likely said. And in the whole of history is and society is merely a setup a way of doing things with the goal of escaping the grasp of random chance. It is off course ultimately a failure but people will continue to try, and all peoples be they from the paleolithic or whatever have there sense of time and place, and when usually when something changes in the overall world, they tend to die off. Kind of like how salmon have there own sense of time and place to cross the ocean and head to the same spawning spots, for pretty much as long as there have been salmon. Yet also every year like clockwork many of them end up on dinner plates all over the world by anybody from local pastime fishermen to animals to big conglomerate fishing companies. A time and place for both salmon and humans, would you call that a symbiotic relationship between salmon and man? Nah its and like every other animal that has ever existed there true nature, all the creatures under the sun are merely opportunists.

There is a lot of mirroring between salmon spawning habits and human mating habits.
Alaskan Salmon

You seem to always want to always try to nail in the fact that women and our society has been this male dominated matriarchy, when it never was then, or now. For every strive women have gone through I can point an equal if not larger one men have gone through, then or now. The majority of females who subscribe to that mind frame just use it as a means to an end, though there is truth to it, for them its purely a control mechanism its a tunnel vision way of seeing everything which is oh so very convenient. And yes the bee culture is very real, even in the place you live that island across the pond is very much so full of the bee symbology, from the queen on down and then back around.

Oh and the Neanderthals were doing just fine up to a time like every other animal on the face of this planet, they however were lacking one important skill which would of allowed them to thrive and become the dominant species on the planet today. That is when there environment drastically changed, they never quite never got the hand of eating snow and tree bark to sustain themselves.

But they survived in there own way, and time moves on like always. Same can be said of everything and everybody else. Things merely change. What once worked can and and will likely one day be completely useless, or even have the opposite effect. I could say more about it. But why bother.

reply to post by LadyofGlass


I don't disagree with you one bit, and I too take umbrage with the 'it didn't do me any harm' philosophy of parenting and it often seems to me that you gain the most wisdom from those who suffered the worst abuse. Their success or survival was in spite of, not because of corporal punishment.

All I would like to add to what you said, is that when raising emotional individuals that we ensure that we teach them to externalise those emotional responses, and I don't mean that we should be overly expressive of our emotions, that is part of the problem. We need to ensure that instilling a sense empathy for others is the primary emotional tool in our parenting arsenal as the antedote to the 'century of self' that we recently passed through. I watched the film Evan Almighty the other night, and, rhetorically, 'God' asks Evan how to change you change the world...one random act of kindness at a time. There is a great truth in that. It's the hard slog though, but it begins with raising our children to be brave, bold and caring, not beating them, but not wrapping them in cotton wool and allowing them to feel the world revolves around them either.

Great points, one and all, no rambling noticed by me. Thanks.