A tiny ivory statue of a woman was discovered in Germany last fall.
The voluptuous woman depicted is, to say the least, earthier, with huge, projecting breasts and sexually explicit genitalia. Nicholas J. Conard, an archaeologist at Tubingen University in Germany, who found the small carving in a cave last year, says it is at least 35,000 years old, “one of the oldest known examples of figurative art” in the world.... Another archaeologist, Paul Mellars of the University of Cambridge in England, agrees and goes on to remark on the obvious. By modern standards, he says, the figurine’s blatant sexuality “could be seen as bordering on the pornographic.”
My favorite line, however, comes later in the article:
Riiiiight. Fertility beliefs and shamanistic rituals. That's why some German caveman made this doll. No other reason. (Isn't this a violation of Ockham's Razor?)
Scholars speculate that these Venus figurines, as they are known, were associated with fertility beliefs or shamanistic rituals.
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