Female‑Led Cosmogenesis vs. the Great Mother

TL;DR

• Claim: Paleolithic–Holocene evidence fits female-led cosmogenesis—many named women acting as creators, mediators of emergence, repairers of the sky, and founders of social order—better than a single universal Great Mother archetype. See the critique of monolithic goddess readings in archaeology Ucko (1962), Meskell (1995), Goodison & Morris (1998), Tringham & Conkey (1998).
• Iconography: The earliest secure human figurine is female (Hohle Fels, ≥35 ka) and many Gravettian pieces encode fiber dress and string technology; some fit self-representation by women—plural uses, not a unitary deity Conard (2009), Soffer, Adovasio & Hyland (2000), McDermott (1996).
• Myth structure: Cross-cultural corpora feature female agents—e.g., Hopi Spider Woman (emergence, instruction), Diné Changing Woman (clans, culture heroes), Yolngu Djanggawul Sisters (law, place-naming), Nüwa (repairs the sky)—who enact creation and social order Haeberlin (1916), Denetdale (2013), Berndt (1952), Leeming (2010).
• Phylogenetic/areal signal: Emergence-style cosmogonies cohere geographically and in motif-trees; they likely predate agriculture and track Late Pleistocene dispersals Berezkin (2010), d’Huy, Thuillard & Berezkin (2018), with macro-frameworks posited earlier Witzel (2012).
• Interpretive payoff: A plural, agent-focused model explains both the variability of Paleolithic “Venuses” and the diversity of mythic roles better than a single Great Mother abstraction.

What “female‑led cosmogenesis” means (operational definition)#

Female‑led cosmogenesis describes creation narratives in which one or more female agents (biographically named women, grandmothers, sisters, female-coded beings) cause, mediate, or repair key transitions that bring a livable world and a social order into being. Minimal diagnostics:

1. Causal agency: a female figure initiates or unlocks creation/emergence (e.g., guiding people through world‑apertures, shaping proto‑humans, authorizing transitions).
2. Institutionalization: she installs social order—clans, rules, ritual cycles, or centers.
3. Cosmic maintenance: she repairs or stabilizes a damaged cosmos (e.g., mending the sky).
4. Narrative centrality: the plot would fail or differ without her actions.

This is not a claim about universal matriarchy or a single goddess. It is a narrative grammar repeatedly attested across areas where emergence + migration packages are strong.¹

A working typology of roles (with examples)#

Why this model fits the Paleolithic record

Iconography and context, not a monolith#

• Earliest figurine: The Hohle Fels pendant (≥35 ka) is unambiguously female and worn—portable, handled, circulated—suggesting use beyond cult statuary Conard (2009).
• Aurignacian vulvar engravings: At Abri Castanet, engraved vulvar motifs occur in Early Aurignacian domestic horizons, anchoring birth/portal symbolism in everyday spaces White et al. (2012).
• Fiber & dress technologies: Incisions on Gravettian figurines indicate caps, bandeaux, string skirts—women’s technologies and status/age signaling, not a unitary Mother‑goddess icon Soffer, Adovasio & Hyland (2000).
• Self‑representation: Proportions/occlusions consistent with a woman’s vantage (looking down at her own body) argue for women as makers among makers McDermott (1996).
• Cave phenomenology: Structural and neurocognitive readings interpret caves as threshold/womb spaces, compatible with emergence metaphors—plausibility, not proof Leroi‑Gourhan (1965–68) summary; Lewis‑Williams (2002).

Implication: The archaeological corpus is plural and technical. It supports many female roles—makers, mediators, organizers—rather than one timeless Great Mother. For critiques of monolithic goddess readings, see Ucko (1962), Meskell (1995), Goodison & Morris (1998), Tringham & Conkey (1998).

The comparative-myth and phylogenetic case#

1. Areal distributions with structure: Global mapping shows emergence motifs concentrated in Africa–Indo-Pacific (including Australia) and much of the Americas, while Earth-Diver dominates Northern Eurasia–North America; the two are partly complementary—an alignment with known Pleistocene dispersals Berezkin (2010).

2. Phylogenetic clustering: Tree/network models over coded motifs recover deep partitions and reconstructable proto-plots; female agents commonly anchor cosmogonic sequences in these reconstructions d’Huy, Thuillard & Berezkin (2018). Methods are validated on independent corpora (e.g., Little Red Riding Hood) Tehrani (2013).

3. Macro-frameworks and time depth: Witzel’s “Laurasian” storyline (creation → world ages → heroes → end) is argued to have later Paleolithic roots (~40 ka); even if debated, it situates female agents within a long-lived narrative architecture Witzel (2012).

4. Temporal bounds: Presence of emergence-style narratives in Australia implies an upper bound at or after the earliest human occupation of Sahul (~65 ka), not because myths are that old in a straight line, but because shared structures likely travel with populations Clarkson et al. (2017).

Why a plural, agent‑focused model outperforms the Great Mother

Predictions vs. record#

Key historiographic caution#

The Great-Mother synthesis—Bachofen’s Mutterrecht and later Gimbutas’s Old Europe—imposes a single interpretive lens on heterogeneous objects and stories; subsequent archaeology recommends context first and plural meanings Bachofen 1861/1967, Gimbutas 1989/1991, Meskell 1995, Goodison & Morris 1998.

Brief case studies#

• Puebloan Southwest (Hopi): Emergence through sipapu (navel/opening) is explicitly tied to parturition, and women (Spider Woman; Huruing Wuhti) mediate ascent and social instruction; migrations then locate the center‑place Haeberlin (1916); Fewkes (1902); Voth (1905).
• Central Andes (Inca): Emergence at Pacariqtambo (cave “windows”) is followed by migrations under founding figures that include Mama Huaco; female agency is embedded in the charter myth of Cusco Sarmiento (1572/1907); Bauer (1991).
• Arnhem Land (Australia): The Djanggawul Sisters travel, name places, institute ceremonies—an explicit female‑led cosmogenesis that also encodes migration and law Berndt (1952).
• Sinosphere: Nüwa fashions humans and repairs the broken sky, a canonical case of cosmic maintenance by a female figure Leeming (2010).

FAQ#

Q1. Does “female-led cosmogenesis” imply a universal matriarchy? A. No. It is a narrative claim (about who acts in creation/ordering scenes), not a direct inference to political structure. The same corpora can include strong male agents elsewhere.

Q2. How old might these structures be? A. Conservatively Late Pleistocene for some families (e.g., emergence), inferred from areal and phylogenetic structure and bounded by Sahul settlement (~65 ka); precise dating remains model-dependent Berezkin 2010; d’Huy et al. 2018; Clarkson et al. 2017.

Q3. Are Paleolithic “Venuses” goddesses? A. Sometimes perhaps, but the default should be plural: ornaments, teaching pieces, identity/status markers, or self-images—given contexts, wear, and textile cues—rather than assuming a pan-Eurasian Great Mother Soffer et al. 2000; Ucko 1962.

Q4. What’s the best single counter-example to this model? A. Regions or periods where male creator gods dominate without salient female co-agents; these exist, but they do not erase the widespread female-agent pattern in emergence/migration corpora.

Footnotes#

Sources#

• Bachofen, J.J. Myth, Religion, and Mother Right. Princeton, 1967 (sel. from 1861).
• Bauer, Brian S. “Pacariqtambo and the Mythical Origins of the Inca.” Latin American Antiquity 2(1) (1991): 23–47.
• Berndt, R.M. Djanggawul. ANU Press, 1952.
• Berezkin, Yuri E. “The Dispersal of Modern Man and the Areal Patterns of Folklore-Mythological Motifs.” In New Perspectives on Myth (2010): 110–124.
• Clarkson, C., Jacobs, Z., Marwick, B., et al. “Human occupation of northern Australia by 65,000 years ago.” Nature 547 (2017): 306–310.
• Conard, N.J. “A female figurine from the basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels.” Nature 459 (2009): 248–252.
• Denetdale, J.N. “The Navajo Nation, Gender, and the Politics of Tradition.” Wicazo Sa Review 18(2) (2013): 9–39.
• d’Huy, J.; Thuillard, M.; Berezkin, Y.E. “A Large-Scale Study of World Myths.” Trames 22(4) (2018): 407–424.
• Fewkes, J. W. “Tusayan (Hopi) migration traditions.” BAE 19th Annual Report (1902): 573–633.
• Goodison, L., & Morris, C. (eds.). Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and the Evidence. Routledge, 1998. Review: BMCR.
• Haeberlin, H.K. “The Idea of Fertilization in the Culture of the Pueblo Indians.” Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association 3(1) (1916).
• Leeming, D.A. Creation Myths of the World (2nd ed.). ABC-CLIO, 2010. overview PDF.
• Leroi-Gourhan, A. Préhistoire de l’art occidental. 1965. (Structural reading; see summary in) Lewis-Williams, D. The Mind in the Cave. Thames & Hudson, 2002. overview.
• McDermott, L. “Self-Representation in Upper Paleolithic Female Figurines.” Current Anthropology 37(2) (1996): 227–275.
• Meskell, L. “Goddesses, Gimbutas and New Age archaeology.” Antiquity 69(262) (1995): 74–86.
• Sarmiento de Gamboa, P. History of the Incas (1572), Hakluyt Soc. ed. 1907, trans. C. Markham. PDF.
• Soffer, O.; Adovasio, J. M.; Hyland, D. C. “The ‘Venus’ Figurines: Textiles, Basketry, Gender, and Status in the Upper Paleolithic.” Current Anthropology 41(4) (2000): 511–537.
• Tehrani, J. “The Phylogeny of Little Red Riding Hood.” PLOS ONE 8(11) (2013): e78871.
• Tringham, R., & Conkey, M. “Rethinking Figurines…” In Ancient Goddesses (1998).
• Ucko, P.J. “The Interpretation of Prehistoric Anthropomorphic Figurines.” In Anthropomorphic Figurines (1962). chapter.
• White, R., Mensan, R., et al. “Context and dating of Aurignacian vulvar representations from Abri Castanet, France.” PNAS 109(22) (2012): 8450–8455.
• Witzel, E.J.M. The Origins of the World’s Mythologies. OUP, 2012. publisher page.