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.