Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994) was a Lithuanian-American archeologist, who had worked at Harvard and UCLA Universities. She was known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of “Old Europe,” a term she introduced. Her works, published between 1946 and 1971, introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological interpretation.
Her conclusions that Neolithic sites in Lithuania and across Europe pointed to long-term stable egalitarian societies with women at the center materially and spiritually, became a keystone of the matriarchal studies movement and the Goddess movement.