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Most anthropologists hold that there are no known societies that are unambiguously matriarchal, at least no matriarchal society that have completely excluded the opposite gender from roles of authority. [1] [61] [2] According to J. M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer, and Jake Page, no matriarchy with the element of exclusion is known to have existed. [57]
Many matriarchal societies have existed throughout Africa's history where women played important roles and maintained social equilibrium. [3] In pre-colonial Africa, there was no transition from matriarchy to patriarchy since the social structure was fundamentally matriarchal in that women held power, passed down property and lineage, and were ...
More generally, recent research pointed to climate change as a key player in the decline and fall of historical societies in China, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. In fact, paleoclimatogical temperature reconstruction suggests that historical periods of social unrest, societal collapse, and population crash and significant climate ...
[96] [clarification needed] However, there do exist cultures that some anthropologists have described as matriarchal. Among the Mosuo (a tiny society in Yunnan Province, China), for example, women exert greater power, authority, and control over decision-making. [65]
The Kalapuya had a patriarchal society consisting of bands or villages, usually led in social and political life by a male leader or group of leaders. [18] The primary leader was generally the man with the greatest wealth. [19] While female leaders did exist, it was more common for a woman to gain status in spiritual leadership.
Some will disagree with the idea of a Black matriarchy because they see Black matriarchy being used in a derogatory way. The author of the article "The Myth of the Black Matriarchy" argues that black women were seen in a threatening way and their position in the family has resulted in the psychological castration of the black male and has produced a variety of other negative effects.
Detailed anthropological and sociological studies have been made about customs of patrilineal inheritance, where only male children can inherit. Some cultures also employ matrilineal succession, where property can only pass along the female line, most commonly going to the sister's sons of the decedent; but also, in some societies, from the mother to her daughters.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (titled Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive for the British edition) is a 2005 book by academic and popular science author Jared Diamond, in which the author first defines collapse: "a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time."