Judy Foster grew up on an isolated farm on the Murray River during the 1940s. She studied at RMIT Art School with courses in fashion, design and advertising. After teaching for several years at what is now the Monash Caulfield Campus in the 1960s, she set up a primary school art room during the 1970s, followed by qualifying as a Primary Art Teacher. In the 1980s she began writing books for primary school art teachers.

When her daughters attended university, so did Judy. At Monash she completed a Visual Arts Major, as well as courses in Koorie Studies, sociology and Women’s Studies. A chance encounter with the book Language of the Goddess by Marija Gimbutas in 1993 inspired her to begin researching the origin and meanings of visual symbolism. It took her on travels around Australia as well as to her ancestral home in Ireland in 1998. In her travels to Britain she visited Stonehenge and Avebury and in Ireland the Newgrange/Knowth Passage. In 1997, she had remet her former Tutor from the Koorie Studies course and they decided to begin work on this book.

Books

Invisible Women of Prehistory: Three million years of peace, six thousand years of war

A$42.95

Judy Foster

with Marlene Derlet

Invisible Women of Prehistory is a revolutionary book that challenges our preconceptions about the past.

We often think of history as a linear development in which we are steadily moving out of a violent and patriarchal past to a more equitable and peaceful future. While we have no shortage of wars – and the incidence of violence against women is alarmingly high – we are told that humans have never lived in such peaceful times. We continually hear that our predecessors were violent but also that patriarchy is inevitable and universal. But what if none of this were true? What if we were descended from peaceful societies in which women were respected and equal to men? Would this inspire us to seek new ways of organizing our lives and of interpreting the present?

Based on many years of research into ancient history and prehistory, Judy Foster and linguist Marlene Derlet take on the world. They argue that three million years of peace, a period when women’s status in society was much higher than it is now, preceded the last six thousand years of war during which men have come to hold power over women.

They challenge the academic resistance to these ideas and re-examine both the archaeological work of Marjia Gimbutas and recent research into the prehistories of Africa, East and South Asia, the Americas, Australia, South-East Asia and Oceania.

2013 | ISBN 9781876756918 | Paperback | 240 x 170 mm | 404 pp | LOW STOCK - ALSO AVAILABLE AS EBOOKS

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Ebooks

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Invisible Women of Prehistory: Three million years of peace, six thousand years of war (EPUB)

A$29.95

Judy Foster

with Marlene Derlet

Invisible Women of Prehistory is a revolutionary book that challenges our preconceptions about the past.

We often think of history as a linear development in which we are steadily moving out of a violent and patriarchal past to a more equitable and peaceful future. While we have no shortage of wars – and the incidence of violence against women is alarmingly high – we are told that humans have never lived in such peaceful times. We continually hear that our predecessors were violent but also that patriarchy is inevitable and universal. But what if none of this were true? What if we were descended from peaceful societies in which women were respected and equal to men? Would this inspire us to seek new ways of organizing our lives and of interpreting the present?

Based on many years of research into ancient history and prehistory, Judy Foster and linguist Marlene Derlet take on the world. They argue that three million years of peace, a period when women’s status in society was much higher than it is now, preceded the last six thousand years of war during which men have come to hold power over women.

They challenge the academic resistance to these ideas and re-examine both the archaeological work of Marjia Gimbutas and recent research into the prehistories of Africa, East and South Asia, the Americas, Australia, South-East Asia and Oceania.

Read more →

Invisible Women of Prehistory: Three million years of peace, six thousand years of war (PDF)

A$29.95

Judy Foster

with Marlene Derlet

Invisible Women of Prehistory is a revolutionary book that challenges our preconceptions about the past.

We often think of history as a linear development in which we are steadily moving out of a violent and patriarchal past to a more equitable and peaceful future. While we have no shortage of wars – and the incidence of violence against women is alarmingly high – we are told that humans have never lived in such peaceful times. We continually hear that our predecessors were violent but also that patriarchy is inevitable and universal. But what if none of this were true? What if we were descended from peaceful societies in which women were respected and equal to men? Would this inspire us to seek new ways of organizing our lives and of interpreting the present?

Based on many years of research into ancient history and prehistory, Judy Foster and linguist Marlene Derlet take on the world. They argue that three million years of peace, a period when women’s status in society was much higher than it is now, preceded the last six thousand years of war during which men have come to hold power over women.

They challenge the academic resistance to these ideas and re-examine both the archaeological work of Marjia Gimbutas and recent research into the prehistories of Africa, East and South Asia, the Americas, Australia, South-East Asia and Oceania.