The Civilization of the Goddess by Marija Gimbutas

At the same time, in a monograph The Prehistory of Eastern Europe, she presented the so-called Kurgan hypothesis (the name refers to burial mounds), which she developed and improved until 1977. The outcome was her opus magnum Bronze Age Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe (1965), which earned her a reputation as a world-class specialist on Bronze Age Europe. She immediately found a job at Harvard, where she undertook in-depth research into prehistoric times of Eastern Europe. In 1946 she received a doctorate in archeology based on a dissertation “Prehistoric Burial Rites in Lithuania.” After a few years of work at the universities in Heidelberg and Munich, in 1950 she emigrated with her husband and two daughters to the USA (her third daughter was born there). In 1944, fleeing the Red Army together with her husband and young daughter, she reached Vienna, and then Tubingen, where she continued her studies in archeology, ethnography and history of religion.

Later she went on to study linguistics, archeology, ethnology and folklore in search of an answer to the ever present question: “What is my own culture?” She has gifts for the Goddess towels and woven materials are laid out for her, because she weaves the life, she is a spinner.” Still a secondary school student, fascinated by the folklore, beliefs and death rituals, she roamed the country collecting old traditional songs and stories. When a woman is giving birth she appears, and the grandmother is there organizing things. (…) The Goddess Laima was there, she could call at night and look through the windows. (…) I had quite a lot of direct connections to the Goddesses.

This is how she wrote about her childhood in a country where many pagan beliefs persisted: “I was exposed to many things which were almost prehistoric.

The Civilization of the Goddess by Marija Gimbutas