Elizabeth Fisher, Woman's Creation: Sexual Evolution and the Shaping of Society (Anchor/Doubleday), 1979:

Fisher begins with a look at the species before the dawn of agriculture (or more precisely horticulture) as homo sapiens apparently lived for eons, as nomadic hunter-gatherers. She takes a look at still-extant hunter-gatherer tribes and their social organization. Then she meticulously reexamines the relics of dawn age archeological settlements and traces the shifting imagery of woman and God(dess). It is her thesis that prior to becoming rudimentary farmers, we did not organize around patriarchal structures, did not subordinate women to men (or, for that matter, vice versa), and did worship God as a female Creator. Then, corresponding with settling down and, more especially, with the birth of agrarian and animal domestication/penning, we and our religious imagery became patriarchal. The early beginnings of this changeover, she concludes, occurred about 9000 years ago.