Is too!
NONE of your slavish 'veneration' of the woman that gave birth to JESUS is to be found ANYWHERE inn the early church.
The first thing is, this is not "slavish veneration" -- it's "veneration."
The accompanying adjectives have shifted over the centuries --- never rightly understood, I think, unless you understand the veneration we have for "all the Saints", as brothers and sisters in Christ, as members of His Body, as image and likeness and holy children of God, as temples of the Holy Spirit.
If people truly understood how much veneration we should rightly give each other, there would be no surprise at the affection and reverence we have for the mother of Our Lord.
emphasizing our relationship with Mary as her children in the Church (John 19:26-27, and, by the same author, Rev. 12:17), emphasizing her role as mother of the King (Queen Mother), emphasizing the way she shared in Christ's Passion by her empathy, as foretold in prophecy (Luke 2:35), and I suppose the Louis de Montfort emphasized our being servants of the handmaid, using the word "slave"-- but none of this, including the latter, is to be pared down to merely slavish practice (we understand the dignity of being, like her, servants and handmaids as well.)
You can't find a century in the history of the Church in which Mary was NOT venerated.
You can find a LOT of historic indications of the already-existing veneration of Mary carried on from the days of the Apostolic Church as manifested in the Roman catacombs. A good writer on this, to whom I am indebted, is Mark Miravalle, but googling and searching Amazon.com would turn up more --- for your interest.
As early as the end of the first century to the first half of the second century, Mary is depicted in frescos in the Roman catacombs both with and without her divine Son. Mary is depicted as a model of virginity with her Son; at the Annunciation; at the adoration of the Magi; and as the orans, the "praying one," the woman of prayer.
Here's a little taste of the subject of our Christian original/primitive as evidenced in the catacombs.
One catacomb fresco found in the catacombs of St. Agnes depicts Mary situated between St. Peter and St. Paul with her arms outstretched to both. This fresco reflects, in the language of Christian frescoes, the earliest symbol of Mary as "Mother of the Church."
Whenever St. Peter and St. Paul are shown together, it is symbolic of the one Church of Christ, a Church of authority and evangelization, a Church for both Jew and Gentile. Mary's prominent position between Sts. Peter and Paul illustrates the recognition by the Apostolic Church of the maternal centrality of the Savior's Mother in his young Church.
You can see from the number and locations of depictions of the Mother of Jesus hat she was also recognized for her maternal intercession of protection and defense. Her image was present on tombs, as well as on the large central vaults of the catacombs. Clearly, the early 1st-3rd century Christians dwelling in the catacombs prayed to Mary as intercessor to her Son for special protection and for motherly assistance. As early as the first century to the first half of the second century, Mary's role as Spiritual Mother was recognized and her protective intercession was invoked.
This cannot be understood outside the the reality of the Communion of Saints, of which Mary is a member, not the Head!
From what I've read, I've seen that Christians of the various affiliations tned to support the doctrine of the Communion of Saints (which is another way of expressing the Body of Christ) and which is an article of the Apostles' Creed, the earliest Creed we know from our Christian history, probably in the 2nd century (100's AD).
The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology has this:
"The traditional, and probably the best, interpretation refers the phrase to the union of all believers, living or dead, in Christ, stressing their common life in Christ and their sharing of all the blessings of God." Evidence for Christianity oif NAY sort in the first 3 centuries is a little scant, due to the Church's status as a movement which was usually illegal, sporadically persecuted, and often hidden and underground (literally, in the case of the catacombs.) But you will neve find an era, anywhere, that was Mary-less, let alone one which criticized devotion to Mary and the Saints.> It's fascinating, it's beautiful, and as I said, it's historically uncontradicted.