Social hierarchies are thought to be one of the innovations of civilization. There is not any evidence of an inherent matriarchy or patriarchy, and there were civilizations that went either way. In fact the strongest theory I've seen argues for a dichotomy of plough vs hoe civilizations: men are better equipped to plough, women are better equipped to hoe. This led to division of labor and social stratification along the lines of sex.
One interesting note on primates is that, of the two closest relatives to humans, the social hierarchy seems to falls on both sides of the spectrum. As in: chimpanzees are considered to be more "patriarchal" (read: the alpha male is at the top of the hierarchy), whereas bonobos are considered to be more "matriarchal" (read: mothers are at the top of the hierarchy, although bonobo society is more egalitarian overall than chimpanzee society).
One cannot obviously conclude that much about human society by studying the great apes. However, just by this I honestly think it's safe to say that the author's statement was made in haste. Without evidence, it's hard to tell what the social structure was 30,000 years ago is without making some (in my opinion) shaky assumptions.
(This does not justify the poison in the comment section of that article though.)
In fact the strongest theory I've seen argues for a dichotomy of plough vs hoe civilizations: men are better equipped to plough, women are better equipped to hoe.
Whether accurate or not, this emphasizes that there are very small and often unintended details in society that give power to one gender or another.
