People seem to be a bit overly upset by the mention of the mother goddess, which I agree is certainly an outmoded hypothesis. But that's a throwaway line in the

People seem to be a bit overly upset by the mention of the mother goddess, which I agree is certainly an outmoded hypothesis. But that's a throwaway line in the article, which fundamentally is about how different technology can create different social norms and institutions. It's like half the comments on the article bitching about a capitalization error. If the authors of the original article dotted all their is and crossed their ts, that's really something extraordinary: peoples whose ancestors were plough users show a strong correlation with regressive views on gender. That's remarkable. That original paper can be found here: On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/02/19/qje.qjt005.abstract http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/02/19/qje.q... Note also that the strong correlation here lends itself to a variety of causal claims. Maybe ploughs led to higher population densities and strong states, which enforce gender roles. Maybe it's the strength based argument offered by the Economist. Maybe they became manufacturable only once society had developed strong states, which would make the correlation purely a one of shared cause.