When reading that patriarchy's approximately 5,000 years old, I haven't found serious justifications for it. Arguments seemed mostly to be about men being buried with posher grave goods (but women have been buried with equally swanky goods after that) and a reduction in 'venus' icons (but we don't know what they were for, and goddess worship doesn't prove anything anyway).
It never occurred to me to look at DNA. Here it is, though it happened more like 7,000 years ago. Google says:
The Neolithic Y-chromosome bottleneck was a sharp drop in male genetic diversity that occurred globally between 7,000 and 5,000 years ago. 1, 2]
What Happened
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Genetic collapse: Diversity in the male Y-chromosome dropped so fast that it looked like only one man reproduced for every 17 women.
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Only men affected: Mitochondrial DNA (passed down through mothers) showed normal, steady growth. This rules out general disasters like famines, plagues, or climate change. 1, 2, ]
Why It Happened
Scientists link this event to the shift from hunter-gatherer groups to farming and agro-pastoralist cultures. Two main ideas explain the drop: 1, 2]
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Patrilineal warfare: Early research suggests that wealth and power grew in male-dominated clans. Competing clans fought wars where entire family lines of men were killed, wiping out their specific Y-chromosomes. 1, 2, 3]
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Peaceful social structures: Newer models show that strict patrilineal and patrilocal systems (where land and names stay with male kin groups) can naturally reduce Y-chromosome diversity over time through normal social fission and unequal reproductive success, without requiring massive violence. 1, 2, 3]
One man reproduced for every 17 women! No matter what narrative we superimpose on this, it's quite an unpleasant picture. 17 women getting pregnant for each impregnator. Men indisputably took control over women and dictated which men they could reproduce with.
I think the 'peaceful' patrilocal societies must've been established by force, since I can't imagine women all over the world cheerfully leaving their homes to join strangers' harems.
Y-chromosome diversity recovered in a rapid spate of 'star-shaped' explosions from 5,000 years ago, when cities and city-states became the norm. People from what had been discrete rural settlements moved to the cities and mingled, then the city-states started fighting each other and taking each other's populations as prisoners. This resulted in more men and genetic mixture, with the star shapes being patterns of Y diversity radiating out from the city centres.
Sadly, it doesn't look like the men gave up controlling women's reproductive options and living conditions, although far fewer of them had as many as 17 wombs at their disposal.
Women made a patchy comeback at times. Now archaeology's giving up its sexist assumptions and re-examining grave finds, it's becoming clear that many societies throughout history have been female-led and matrilocal. I'm happy to note that this seems especially the case in Britain - our Celts buried more 'warrior queens' than they did in mainland Europe, for instance, though of course there's still much more to be discovered.