One of the first anthropologists to notice the hints of Goddess worship in ancient Greece was Jane Ellen Harrison.  Her Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903) was a groundbreaking work on the subject.  If you want to start at the beginning, that's a good place.

You have some brown-ish substance on the tip of your nose there...

Admit it, you just want to fuck one of 'em!

   I admit it     .... But it's true, .... men couldn't be sharing power with women, and so god gave his only begotten son, not a lesser girl ..... girls in chains all the years .....

You know, the proof that ancient man worshiped goddesses is right here in front of us.  I guarantee that at least two thirds of the straight men who read this post thought something like, "Woah... that chick is cool.  I could worship her..."

Somewhere along the line, a good looking woman figured out that all she had to do was tell men to worship her and they would.  Who needs archaeology when you've got psychology?

Depending on what modern religion you're looking at, the goddess may still be hanging around in some form.  Protestants from Luther till today have jumped all over the Catholics for their elevation of Mary to what they determine to be near equal status with Jesus himself, very often pointing out similarities to the Cult of Diana. And the Catholics don't have too much to say in their defense, given that the doctrine of the Assumption was only written into stone by a Pope in 1950--that is to say they aren't exactly running from the accusation.  And of course the "Madonna with child" is an ancient trope of the art of the Pagan world, as is to a lesser extent the Pieta.  And the Qu'ran, influenced in its view of Christianity by the Nestorian church, has similar feelings about the supernatural quality of Mary, replacing the Holy Spirit in their version of the Trinity with her (of course Muslims don't believe in the Trinity, but there was apparently the need to point out the foolishness and tendency to idolatry of the Christians).  

It does seem that the old Pagan love/fertility Goddess (Diana, Astarte, etc) really struggled and eventually collapsed in the Common Era.  I'm wondering if the rising popularity of the female-excluding Mithraist cult and male-centered but female-courting Christian cult weren't the nail in the coffin. 

How can you tell how old they are?  I'm 34.  Are you older than me?

Magical powers. I don't know, they look young.

No.

I'd like to apologize to Jan for this topic turning into an awkward locker-room. My joke was lame! I admit it! Both women had goddess usernames! I didn't realize at the time that my comment would read so creepy, so let's drop it. Apologies all around.

Am I missing an in-joke here? Are you her girlfriend? You're acting like I claimed Jesus existed or something.

(ahem... back on topic...)

IIRC, Joseph Campbell named ~600BCE as the somewhat arbitrary turning point from female centered worship to male dominated patriarchal pantheons and monotheist religions.  I say somewhat arbitrary because in music, we say that the Baroque era ended in 1750, but that's only because Bach didn't die before then.  People had been writing classical style music for thirty years, but out of respect for J.S. musicologists didn't end his era before he died.  I believe religion has to be viewed in the same way.  As late as the early 1900s, there were primitive societies still practicing goddess worship in parts of Africa, and I believe South America.

Right.  Since all of the Western religions come from the occident, I think it's safe to go with Campbell for general conversation.  Most of that area was characterized by male dominated pantheons or monotheist religions by around 600.