http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ mirrored file For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== History Reference: Ancient History & World History :: Ancient History to the Middle Ages: Vegetarianism to ʼAlī Biography Venus Figurines Temporal and Spatial Distribution, Explanatory Theories, Future Directions for Research, Functionalist Accounts, Gynecological Accounts., ébauches The class of artifacts known as Venus figurines comprises an extremely heterogeneous body of artifactual material from Eurasia, dating to the Upper Paleolithic Period. Venus figurines include, on the one hand, small and easily transportable three-dimensional artifacts or images incised on portable supports, and on the other hand, two-dimensional images deeply carved, light incised, and/or painted onto fixed surfaces such as cave or rock-shelter walls. They range in height from 3 cm to 40 cm or more. While some researchers include in this class abstract images (so-called “vulvae” and forms resembling an elongated “S” or upside-down “P”), these are not discussed here. The best-studied and most oft-pictured specimens in the “Venus figurine” category are the realistically rendered and almost voluptuous images of the female body, but these are not representative of the class as a whole. There are also clear portrayals of the male body (e.g., from Brassempouy, Laussel, and Dolní Vĕstonice) as well as numerous generalized anthropomorphs (e.g., examples from Sireuil, Tursac, Grimaldi, Dolní Vĕstonice, and Malt'a). Many specimens appear to be purposefully androgynous, and those with only faces cannot be sexed at all (e.g., specimens from Brassempouy, Mas d'Azil, Bédeilhac, and Dolní Vĕstonice). Some may be no more than incomplete rough-outs (or /ébauches/), and a rare few appear to be composite images of anthropomorphs and animals (i.e., Grimaldi, Laussel, Hohlenstein-Städel). There are examples with detailed facial features (e.g., from Malt'a, Buret, and Dolní Vĕstonice), pronounced coiffures but no facial details (e.g., Brassempouy and Willendorf), and many more with neither face, hair, hands, nor feet rendered in any detail. Some specimens, mostly from the Ukraine and Siberia, have body elaboration interpreted as clothing, belts, and/or tattoos (e.g., especially from the Kostenki group and Buret). Beyond superficial morphology these artifacts have been worked from many different raw materials, each possessing unique physical qualities that were likely selected for their different attributes of workability, availability, and/or overall surface appearance. Venus figurines were made from ivory, serpentine, schist, limestone, hematite, lignite, calcite, fired clay, steatite, and a few of bone or antler. While they have been the subject of scholarly attention for more than a century, a detailed understanding of the sequence of techniques employed to fabricate them (in all their diversity) has been sorely lacking. Work has only recently been started to study the relationship between raw materials, techniques of fabrication, morphological appearance, and prehistoric significance. Most coffee-table art books and many well-known studies highlight only what are considered to be the most visually striking specimens. Yet Venus figurines include flat and apparently pre-pubescent female subjects, images interpreted to be in various stages of pregnancy or of the general female life cycle, as well as several obviously male specimens. The preference in allowing such a heterogeneous class of artifacts to be represented by the most voluptuous examples perhaps says more about the analysts than it does about the artifacts. It betrays their extraordinary diversity in morphology, raw materials, technologies of production, and archaeological contexts through time and space. Some theories to explain their prehistoric significance are now questioned because they have overemphasized specimens representing only one side of the morphological system. Temporal and Spatial Distribution Venus figurines date to three periods of the Upper Paleolithic. They appear in the archaeological record between approximately 31,000 and 9000 b.p., but chronometric dating is problematic on several counts. Their distribution through both time and space is episodic. /Western Europe:/ the earliest examples here date to the Gravettian (ca. 26,000 to 21,000 b.p.) and the Magdalenian (ca. 12,300 to 9000 b.p.), with most specimens associated with cave and rock shelter sites. (The earliest renderings from the French Aurignacian, ca. 31,000 to 28,000 b.p., are the problematic so-called “vulvae” forms not discussed here.) /Central Europe:/ specimens are primarily associated with the Pavlovian (ca. 31,000 to 24,000 b.p.); /Ukraine:/ anthropomorphic imagery is found throughout the Kostenki-Avdeevo culture period (ca. 26,000 to 12,500 b.p.), and comes almost exclusively from open-air occupation sites; /Siberian/ images date to the so-called Eastern Gravettian (primarily ca. 21,000 to 19,000 b.p.). Significantly, some regions with well-established records of Upper Paleolithic human occupation have no evidence of anthropomorphic imagery, including the Cantabrian region of northern Spain and the Mediterranean region of southwestern Europe (with the sole exception of Italy). Explanatory Theories Most explanatory theories treat Venus figurines as a homogeneous class of data and collapse together more than 20,000 years of varied production. Portable and immobile specimens are lumped together, and what may be significant regional and temporal differences in technologies, raw materials, and styles are often ignored. Contextual differences between those specimens found at open-air sites, in cave and/or rock shelters, and other geographic locales are typically underestimated. /Functionalist Accounts/ Today it is generally thought that Upper Paleolithic visual imagery, including Venus figurines, transmitted through stylistic means ecological and/or social information necessary to group survival. One of the primary explanatory accounts for the appearance and geographic distribution of Venus figurines focuses on ecological stress associated with the ice sheets advancing well into northern Europe 20,000 to 16,000 years ago. According to this account, as resources became more difficult to obtain, areas remaining occupied would have been able to sustain only low population densities. Alliance networks forged by the exchange of marriage partners could have counter-balanced these problems, and some researchers believe that Venus figurines played an important role in symbolizing and communicating information related to mating alliances. The geographically widespread production of Venus figurines as part of a system of information exchange could have permitted small groups of prehistoric hunter-gatherers to remain in areas that, without alliance connections, they might otherwise have had to abandon. A second and far more questionable set of functionalist interpretations derives from sociobiology. According to several authors, these are representations of female biology that were fabricated and used for erotic and sexual reasons by males and for male gratification and/or education. While some of these explanations highlight the sensuality of the voluptuous three-dimensional images and argue that they were used as prehistoric sex toys or educational aids, others suggest that they served as trophies to mark “brave” acts of rape, kidnapping, and possibly murder. A genetic (and thus evolutionary) advantage was supposedly conferred upon the makers/users, either by teaching and practicing lovemaking skills or by publicizing physical prowess and thereby gaining social advantage among one's peers. The inherently androcentric and heterosexist bias in assumptions underpinning these accounts has now come under close scrutiny and they are today considered far less plausible than when originally proposed. /Gynecological Accounts./ According to some, different Venus figurines literally depict physiological processes associated with pregnancy and/or childbirth or else signify the entire female life cycle. Some researchers note that aspects of parturition are well represented, while still others stress that the subject matter is womanhood and not just motherhood. In some ways these (and other related) contemporary theories build on, but also challenge the simplicity of, turn-of-the-century notions that they were symbols of female fertility and magic (hence in part explaining their original appellation—Venus). Future Directions for Research The use of multiple lines of evidence is a time-honored way to understand the significance of prehistoric material culture. Attention to different kinds of site. context, detailed understanding of various techniques of fabrication, recognition of their diverse morphologies and raw material, site-specific spatial information, and consideration of other classes of artifacts with which Venus figurines were discovered may all help turn attention away from what is compelling today and toward whatever might have made them compelling in prehistory.[See also Europe: The European Paleolithic Period ; Paleolithic: Upper Paleolithic ; Rock Art: Paleolithic Art .] Bibliography and More Information about /Venus Figurines/ * Z. A. Abramova, Palaeolithic Art in the USSR, Arctic Anthropology 4 (1967): 1–179. * Desmond Collins and John Onians, The Origins of Art, Art History 1 (1978): 1–25. * Randall Eaton, The Evolution of Trophy Hunting, Carnivore 1 (1978): 110–121. * Randall Eaton, Mediations on the Origin of Art as Trophyism, Carnivore 2 (1979): 6–8. * Patricia Rice, Prehistoric Venuses: Symbols of Motherhood or Womanhood? Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 37 (1981): 402–414. * Marija Gimbutas, /The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe/ (1982). * R. Dale Guthrie, Ethological Observations From Palaeolithic Art, in /La Contribution de la Zoologie et de l'Ethologie à l'Interprétation de l' Art des Peuples Chasseurs Préhistoriques/, eds. Hans-Georg Bandi, et al. (1984), pp. 35–74. * Mariana Gvozdover, Female Imagery in the Palaeolithic, Soviet Anthropology and Archaeology 27 (1989): 8–94. * Sarah Nelson, Diversity of the Upper Palaeolithic ‘Venus’ Figurines and Archaeological Mythology, in /Powers of Observation: Alternative Views in Archaeology/, eds. Sarah Nelson and Alice Kehoe (1990), pp. 11–22. * Clive Gamble, The Social Context for European Paleolithic Art, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 57 (1991): 3–15. * Marcia-Anne Dobres, Re-Presentations of Palaeolithic Visual Imagery: Simulacra and Their Alternatives, Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers 73–74 (1992): 1–25. * Marcia-Anne Dobres, Reconsidering Venus Figurines: A Feminist Inspired Re-analysis, in /Ancient Images, Ancient Thought: The Archaeology of Ideology/, eds. A. Sean Goldsmith, et al. (1992), pp. 245–262. * Henri Delporte, /L'Image de la Femme dans l'Art Préhistorique/ (2nd Edition, 1993). * Henri Delporte, Gravettian Female Figurines: A Regional Survey, in /Before Lascaux: The Complex Record of the Early Upper Palaeolithic/, eds. Heidi Knecht, et al. (1993), pp. 243–257. * Jean-Pierre Duhard, /Reálisme de l'Image Féminine Paléolithique/ (1993). Marcia-Anne Dobres Vercingetorix Biography [next] [back] Venus - agnomen Citing this material Please include a link to this page if you have found this material useful for research or writing a related article. Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally published in print form. You can always be sure you're reading unbiased, factual, and accurate information. Highlight the text below, right-click, and select “copy”. Paste the link into your website, email, or any other HTML document. Venus Figurines - Temporal and Spatial Distribution, Explanatory Theories, Future Directions for Research, Functionalist Accounts, Gynecological Accounts., ébauches