Published date: 1 April 2021 12:33 UTC | Last update: 1 min 59 sec ago
A crossroads for countless cultures since the agricultural revolution in around 10,000 BCE, Anatolia, an area of land that now falls within modern Turkey, has provided archaeologists with deep insight into how human societies developed at the dawn of civilisation.
One important feature that reoccurs across the ages is the fundamental role women played in society from the late Stone Age, around 12,000 years ago, into the Bronze Age, an era marked by social and economic complexity and the increased use of complex metal alloys, around 5,000 years ago.
There is evidence of mother goddess cults in Anatolia dating back 9,000 years, but iconographic patterns support the idea that the worship of female deities was widely practised across Asia Minor much earlier.