Goddess Worship

[Zeke]

Well from my reading it seems Animism, and totieism were first...latter on ansestors came along and then finnally divine Gods.

 

Am I correct?

[Moonlapse]

I'll have to review some stuff, but I recall that the Natufians? buried ancestors in the plaster floors of houses and decorated skulls with plaster...

[Pantagathus]

I'll have to review some stuff, but I recall that the Natufians? buried ancestors in the plaster floors of houses and decorated skulls with plaster...

 

Yeah they decorated the skulls and made eyes out of shell and all kinds of neat stuff.

[Spurius]

I'd like to inject a small bit here about the OP...

I'll be speaking in general terms, but will try to refine my point as much as possible without lots of re-writes.

 

With the rise of agriculture and (more importantly) means of storage, divisions of labor became more pronounced in societies. As roles evolved, it became apparent that someone had to stay at home and do the dirty work of hulling seeds, salting meats, making usable salt, making flour, and whole bunch of other stuff. It devolved on the females more than the males to do this now necessary work. Perhaps since they were already spending more time domestically with child rearing and various old chores.

 

This was hard work, especially trying to process seed crops into other more useable forms. It also wasn't glamorous, so the leaders didn't do them. So to appear more like a leader, you didn't do those chores. Domestic tasks became looked down upon even as their necessity increased. With women bearing the brunt of the increasingly unpopular or undervalued tasks, is it really that much of a stretch to explain the slow loss of prestige that goddesses seemed to under go? The lower regard in a society for the work that an individual does leads to a lower regard for their lesser gods...

 

Or to put it another way, as the running of a household was percieved by society so too went the goddesses. In rough outlines and IMHO of course...