This chapter describes the development of radical/cultural feminist ideas in the U.S. and the rise of the Goddess movement, focusing on the importance that the movement placed on narratives of prehistory. It positions Gimbutas' works on Old Europe at the cultural moment of women's liberation in the U.S., and shows the effect that they had on feminist audiences in the 1970s and the 1980s. The ch…
The chapter traces Gimbutas’ engagement with gender as a research topic, proposing that her work on European prehistory should be seen as written from a feminist point of view. It explains her contributions to rewriting prehistory from a women-centered perspective, her reinterpretations of female symbolism in early figurative art, and her implicit critique of the androcentric narratives of th…