For over a hundred thousand years,

since Homo sapiens evolved, our species has lived by the moon. After all, we were everywhere hunter-gatherers; as any successful hunter will confirm, you need to keep track of the moon.

For women, the moon is internal; menstruation is part of human nature. So it’s hardly surprising that when patriarchs began establishing their jealous gods, they denounced menstruation as ‘the curse’ and all associated traditions as ‘moonshine’, ‘lunacy’ and so forth. They’re still using such language today.

Patriarchal religions everywhere privilege the sun. ‘Let there be light!’, they command.  Torturers during the Inquisition claimed to be in terror of women’s ‘dark arts’ – their healing powers. Despite this, the ancient traditions linger on. Scheduling ceremonies by lunar phase remains central to all religious traditions to this day.

Rule by the moon harks back to an egalitarian lifestyle forged in a revolution. Archaeologists call it ‘the human revolution’. You’ll find links to the archaeology on these pages, much of it recent and exciting. But this website is not primarily for scientists. You don’t have to be an archaeologist to derive inspiration from the first and greatest of all social revolutions – the one which really worked.

                                                      Read more about ‘the revolution which worked’.....

Left: Aurignacian lunar calendar, 32,000 years old – one of the earliest known records of time.