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In their purest form, “egalitarian matriarchies” place the mother principle at the center of culture and society. Their highest values are the love, care, and generosity they associate with motherhood. These values are not limited to women and girls. Boys and men are also encouraged to honor mothers above all, to practice the traits of love, care, and generosity, and to value them in others.

“Egalitarian matriarchal” societies are matrilineal which means that family membership and descent are passed through the female line. They are also usually matrilocal, which means that women live in their maternal home all of their lives. Family groups are usually extended rather than nuclear. Often there is a “big house” in which groups of sisters, brothers, and cousins live together with mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and great-aunts. In what I imagine to have been the original form of the system (still practiced by the Mosuo of the Himalayas), men also live in their maternal house, visiting their lovers at night, and returning home in the morning.

If I had been asked to write the words that introduce visitors to the Heraklion Archaeological Museum of Crete to its earliest inhabitants, I would have said something like this:

While there is evidence that human beings visited Crete as early as 150,000 years ago, the first permanent settlers arrived from Anatolia in the New Stone Age or Neolithic era, about 9000 years ago, bringing with them the secrets of agriculture and soon afterward learning the techniques of pottery and weaving. As the gatherers of fruits, nuts, and vegetables and as preparers of food in earlier Old Stone Age or Paleolithic cultures, women would have noticed that seeds dropped at a campsite might sprout into plants. Women most likely discovered the secrets of agriculture that enabled people to settle down in the first farming communities of the New Stone Age. As pottery is associated with women’s work of food storage and preparation, and as weaving is women’s work in most traditional cultures, women probably invented these new technologies as well. Each of these inventions was understood to be a mystery of transformation: seed to plant to harvested crop; clay to snake coil to fired pot; wool or flax to thread to spun cloth. The mysteries were passed on from mother to daughter through songs, stories, and rituals.

In today's Earthy Thursday post, we feature stories of our planet and our connections to it. The mystery of Easter Island may have a new solution; German's most fascinating monolith; huge trees; seed bank diversity; the frontiers of vegan technology.

Surprise! Turns out it was disease (brought by Europeans) not environmental devastation, that caused the destruction of the colony on Easter island.

This unusual German sandstone rock formation is a special monolith: whereas Stonehenge was built by people, Externsteine was built by Nature and then manipulated by people.

For today's Airy Monday post, at the close of 2014 we look back -- but not just to the year gone past but to the days of our ancestors. Modern Cornish witchcraft traced back to Elizabethan times; a matriarchal temple; bringing Bronze age Cyprus to life; down the way from Stonehenge, Silbury Hill unveils its secrets; a historic and fascinating map of Inuit Arctic "highways."

This archaeology dig was supposed to be for Neolithic remains. The researchers were pretty surprised to find solid evidence of Cornish witchcraft stretching from the 1600's up to the 1970s.

In today's Earthy Thursday post, the Pagan News Beagle celebrates unearthly Icelandic beauty; carbon sequestration to the rescue?; lesser-known stone circles; the wild foxes of Chukotka; the beauty of mad mushrooms.

The Nordic landscapes of Iceland take our breath away. (Note to self: add Iceland to the Beagle's bucket list!)

It's earthy Thursday here at the Pagan News Beagle -- let's dig deep and get dirty! Today's stories include amazing mushrooms; neolithic burial -- now available!; hope for the Monarch butterfly?; living breakwaters and other new ideas in conservation and remediation; a guide to Earth's major chakras.

This slideshow includes photos of twenty five of the most amazing mushrooms I've ever seen. Wow!