Civilization #4: The Paradise Lost of Marija Gimbutas

Early humans from 200,000 years ago practiced mother goddess worship, evidenced by cave paintings, sites like Gobekli Tepe, and widespread goddess figurines. Old European cultures particularly emphasized this belief system through abundant artistic representations.

Marija Gimbutas argued that peaceful, egalitarian Old European societies transformed into patriarchal, warlike cultures through Indo-European Yamnaya invasions. This shift affected gender relations, property rights, and social organization across Eurasia.

Linguists studying English, German, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit discovered these languages share common ancestry. Through decades of rigorous research, they reconstructed Proto-Indo-European, a lost ancestral language spoken thousands of years ago.

The Yamnaya people developed lactose tolerance through biological evolution. DNA evidence from skeletal remains shows this population underwent genetic changes allowing adults to digest milk, unlike most human populations historically.

The Yamnaya people inhabited the Pontic-Caspian steppes around 3500-2500 BCE. They are identified as the likely speakers of Proto-Indo-European based on archaeological, linguistic, and genetic evidence.

The Yamnaya people accomplished horse domestication through thousands of years of selective breeding. Archaeological evidence shows skeletal changes in Yamnaya remains consistent with regular horseback riding.

Marija Gimbutas proposed the Kurgan Hypothesis explaining how Yamnaya steppe peoples spread Indo-European languages across Eurasia. Recent DNA evidence confirms her theory about population movements from the Pontic-Caspian steppes.

Anthropologist Marija Gimbutas coined the term “Old Europe” to describe Neolithic agricultural societies inhabiting Europe from roughly 7000-3500 BCE, before Indo-European migrations. These communities developed sophisticated cultures distinct from later Indo-European societies.