The Neolithic great goddess: a study in modern tradition
Modern belief in the veneration of a single Great Goddess in the European Neolithic is often accompanied by the notion that those cultures of ‘Old Europe’ were woman-centred in society as well as religion. What is the long history which precedes these contemporary notions? What is the complex history of their political development? A chain runs from Classical times to Marija Gimbutas (Meskell 1995) and our own day.
The Dawn of European Civilisation
ADVANCE in our knowledge of the various stages of prehistoric culture in Europe has never been uniform. This was necessarily the case in the earlier days of archaeological investigation, when the material was drawn to a large extent from chance discovery. Even now systematic exploration can be pursued only to a relatively limited degree, and fortune may at any moment bring to light evidence which will affect fundan mentally our conceptions of the course of events in any given area at some particular point of time. It is, however, a remarkable, but not necessarily a surprising, fact that our knowledge of the neolithic and succeeding phases of the prehistoric period, but especially the neolithic, should so long have lagged behind that of the palaeolithic stage. It is not surprising, if only because the high antiquity of palaeolithic man and the mystery of his phylogeny have appealed strongly to the imagina? tion, and this has tended to stimulate and systematise research. Greater attention, it is true, is now paid tb the period immediately following the palaeolithic and the break in continuity, which it was once imperative to recognise, has been filled by the culture of trie epipalaeolithic or mesolithic age. But in the neolithic age itself and in the later periods, although there is rio lack of material, frequently the conditions of discovery in surface finds or in isolated hoards and caches havie precluded the study of the material in its more precise chronological relations, which is necessary for the full understanding of the lines of development and the trenid of events.The Dawn of European Civilisation.By V. Gordon Childe. (The History of Civilisation Series.) Pp. xvi + 328. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd.; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925.) 16s. net.
Urban Identities and Catastrophe: Izmir and Salonica at the End of the Ottoman Empire*
Two huge fires dramatically influenced the urban development of Salonica and Izmir, in 1917 and in 1922, respectively. These catastrophes occurred after the Ottoman Empire fell, and Salonica and Izmir had shifted into new national contexts. The fires mainly destroyed the districts that were transformed during the late‐Ottoman period. These districts became the cosmopolitan façades of modern Izmir and Salonica. The post‐fires' tabula rasa provided an opportunity for Greek and Turkish politicians and European planners to change the urban identity of both cities. Moreover, the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 transformed their multicultural societies also. Reconstruction plans had been thought to de‐Ottomanize and remove the previous idea of the towns and their multiplicity, interpreting new cultural and nationalist feeling. Here, I emphasize how modernity was interpreted before and after the fires, and point out contradictions between ideological aspects of planning and how the first urban districts were built during the 1920s.