One thing I haven't been able to work through is the fact that the Great Goddess is somehow identified with the Funnel-Beaker/Long House culture, and the male sky-pantheon with the arriving Yamnaya/Kurgan/"Battleaxe" Culture (which was a steppe equiculture which spoke Indo-European) which, in the older recounting, came into conflict with the Goddess Culture and diplaced it (in Greece they accreted, yielding a syncretistic dog's-breakfast religion of bits and pieces and a fusion Olympic pantheon).
So the rub is, that the Yamnaya Kurgans have yielded bodies of Indo-European steppe "witches" (complete with tall, broad-brimmed, conical "witch" hats) who were priestesses .... of what? Something is wrong with this picture. What's up with powerful, high-status "witch"-priestesses in a culture that bequeathed us male sky-gods? Sum Ting Wong must be called to consult.
It looks to me like the power hungry skirt chasers were specifically selected for in the “king for a year” thing. I wonder if the practice of kings having the prerogative of standing in for the bridegroom on the wedding night of any newly married couple is a remnant of that? Thanks to you I don’t think I’ll ever look the same way at a Scott’s Weed and Feed commercial now :(