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PaleolithicArt
Chapter·April2015
DOI:10.1002/9781118896877.wbiehs327
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A.J.Tripp
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Paleolithic art
Allison J. Tripp
University of Victoria, Canada
Introduction to the Paleolithic and the
origins of art in Europe
The Paleolithic is a period of prehistory in Europe,
which begins 2.6 million years before present
(B.P.) and ends 10,000 years B.P. It can be subdivided chronologically into the Lower, Middle, and
Upper Paleolithic, with the older being the most
ancient. Paleolithic art emerges in the Upper
Paleolithic, which can be further divided into
many minor divisions, each representing a different culture. Art is created on two mediums: cave
walls (also known as parietal art) and as figurines
or pendants (portable art).
The earliest rock art and figurines are from the
Aurignacian, which lasted approximately from
32,000 to 26,000 years B.P. Themes are diverse
and include, but are not limited to, anthropomorphic images, hand prints, abstract symbols, and
animals. Anthropomorphic imagery is rare in
rock art; drawings of animals and symbols are
much more common. The majority of figurines
represent females and were created during the
Gravettian (approximately 28,000–22,000 years
B.P.). However, males, an intersexed individual,
and statuettes that lack sexual characteristics,
were also present in Gravettian collections. The
statuettes were found at sites across Eurasia,
sometimes in conjunction with animal figurines.
In the stages that follow the Gravettian, the
Solutrean and Magdalenian, images of females
become more stylized and less realistic.
The interpretation of Paleolithic art has often
been biased by the sex of the researcher and the
sociopolitical climate of the time. Both portable and
parietal art were discovered in the late 1800s,
although archaeologists did not accept parietal art
until the turn of the century. Males interpreted both
forms of art; many were not even archaeologists.
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Their interpretations of the imagery centered on
fertility, paleoerotica, and interpreting abstract symbols as vulvae. Over time, females began suggesting
interpretations for the art. They built on earlier
themes such as fertility, but were also influenced by
the sociopolitical climate in which they lived.
Male interpretations: fertility and
the status of women
The majority of figurines from the Paleolithic
represent females and are often termed “Venuses.”
In 1864, a small ivory statuette was found at
Laugerie-Basse (Dordogne), France, and was
called the Vénus Impudique, or the immodest
Venus. She was discovered by Marquis de Vibraye
and is attributed to the Magdalenian. De Vibraye
was influenced by classical cannons of beauty,
and jokingly named her the immodest Venus. In
the years following, other female statuettes were
discovered outside of France. A French prehistorian, Edward Piette, purchased the female statuettes and sought to interpret them.
Piette believed that the artwork was realistic
and should be interpreted as two different races
that lived simultaneously (White 2006). One race
was robust and considered inferior; the other
was more gracile and advanced. He studied what
he believed to be Paleolithic racial variation
within the statuettes, and the supposed similarities that they shared with modern Africans. In
fact, he directly linked the robust “steatogygous”
figurines to the modern-day Bushman, especially Saartje Baartman, the “Hottentot Venus”
(White 2006).
Her proportions, particularly her enormous
buttocks, fascinated Piette, like many physical
anthropologists of the time. After the 100th anniversary of Saartje’s death, a commemoration of
the “Hottentot Venus” was published, and it
was from then onward that robust “Bushman”
figurines were labeled Venuses. Later, the term
Venus was also applied to Gravettian statuettes,
­pendants, masks, beads, and engravings.
The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality, First Edition. Edited by Patricia Whelehan and Anne Bolin.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
2
Figure 1 The Venus of Willendorf, Vienna, Austria.
Source: © Caro/Alamy.
The fact that most of the figurines are females
has inspired countless blanket hypotheses to
explain why our ancestors created these objects.
The Mother Goddess hypothesis has long been
linked with Paleolithic female imagery. Originally
proposed in 1856, by a Swiss Lawyer named
Johann Bachofan, images of Paleolithic females
were believed to represent evidence for ancient
matriarchies and the belief in a mother goddess,
or earth mother whom was worshipped all over
Eurasia (Lowie 1937, cited in Russell 1998:262).
While different versions of the hypothesis exist,
the goddesses are usually linked to fertility.
Taylor (1996) argued that the female statuettes,
engravings, and the ambiguous ceramic objects
from Dolní Věstonice were a form of Paleolithic
pornography. According to him, these images
and items would have been considered appealing
to Paleolithic males. He also mentioned that often
there is “bonding” on the wrists or across the
breasts, which was intended to be sexual, or to
highlight sexual features (Taylor 1996). However,
none of the statuettes have adornments on the
actual breasts, the nipples, or across the hips. In
many cases, it is hard to believe that “bonding”
across the body is overtly sexual. In contrast,
Soffer, Adovasio, and Hyland (2000) argued that
these decorations look more like clothing and do
not emphasize sexual features.
Guthrie, like Taylor, is also an advocate of
the paleoerotica hypothesis. He argued that the
­statuettes were in erotic, sexually inviting poses,
and that their heads were “bowed in subservience,
submissiveness and shyness” (Guthrie 1984:67,
cited in Russell 1998:266). In 2005 he tested
whether the statuettes represented paleoerotica by
analyzing their waist-to-hip ratios (WHRs) and
found that they shared a low WHR. The WHR is
measurement that compares the relative difference between the waist and hip and is correlated
with fertility, beauty, and health in females (Singh
and Singh 2006). Tripp and Schmidt (2013) challenged this study and found that the statuettes
actually share a high WHR. This body type is
linked with infertility, several health problems,
and is not seen as attractive in modern populations. Overall, the heterogeneous appearance, size,
and contextual details make it difficult to find a
single explanation for the “Venus” figurines.
“Vulvar” images
Although many symbols are present on cave walls,
the “vulvae” have received the most attention.
These markings are not uniform in appearance
and can be circular, triangular, squared, curved,
pear shaped, with a vertical line through their
centers. Despite their heterogeneous nature and
ambiguity, they are still referred to as vulvar
images (White et al. 2012). These images are
found in seven caves in the Vézère Valley of southwestern France, and at Tito Bustillo in northern
Spain. The first examples were found in 1910 and
described unmistakably by Breuil as “vulvae”
(Bahn 1986). Peyrony also saw vulvae while looking at images and drew lines that he believed to be
incomplete. Often, those images were reproduced
instead of the original engravings (Bahn 1986).
These assumed vulvar images and the fact that
most of the figurines are naked females has led to
the assumption that Paleolithic people were sex
obsessed (Bahn 1986). We will never know, however, whether these images represent realistic or
abstract representations.
Early interpretations of the
art by females
It was not until the 1960s and 1970s that women
in academia began to really question the
research that was being promoted by their male
predecessors. Women argued that bias prevailed
in these interpretations, and went back to the
original idea of the mother goddess. Instead of
focusing on the reproductive importance of
females, they focused on the power of the
woman and the traits associated with that
image, including the high status of females and
early matriarchies. According to Russell (1998),
the beliefs associated with the mother goddess
were fundamentally different between males
and females. To males, the goddess symbolized
fertility and procreation, whereas to females,
she turned into some kind of a superwoman.
British archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes (1963),
for example, argued that there was a universal
acceptance of the goddess in the Paleolithic,
that she was connected with fertility, and that
there has been continuity in beliefs between the
Neolithic and Paleolithic. However, having a
large number of female figurines across Europe
in different periods is not enough to prove
shared ideologies. Hawkes’ research, like that of
other feminist researchers at the time, was not
based on evidence and was instead influenced
by their sociopolitical environment. Feminist
researchers, therefore, exposed bias but created
new assumptions.
Current emphases in work on
the topic in research and theory
These early interpretations highlight an androcentric bias in Paleolithic archaeology. Many of
the previously mentioned scholars assumed that
all parietal and portable art was created by males
and for males. However, studies on handprints in
caves comparing the second-to-fourth-digit ratio
has demonstrated that females as well as individuals of all ages (including infants) participated in
the creation of art. In terms of sculptural art, there
is no evidence to suggest that the statuettes were
created exclusively by males, as this is not a human
3
universal. In contrast, McCoid and McDermott
(1996) suggested that the objects were made by
women and for women, as a form of self-­
representation. According to them, the statuettes
and bas-reliefs could have functioned as obstetrical aides according to the authors, allowing
females to keep track of their pregnancies. Their
work showed photographs of pregnant women
looking down toward their feet, and compared the
results with pictures of some of the popular
“Venuses” from the same angle. This method, they
argued, would explain why many parts of the
body appear to be ill proportioned at first glance.
It is also possible that children may have
­created some of the statuettes. The Navajo of the
American Southwest, for instance, have rich
inventories of both anthropomorphic and animal
ceramic figurines (Fewkes 1923). These statuettes, however, are not made by adults, but by
children. Like the “Venuses,” the majority of these
statuettes are females that lack faces and feet and
sometimes wear jewelry. Like the Gravettian
­figurines, males are rare. However, other than
these superficial similarities, these statuettes are
not stylistically similar to those of the Gravettian.
Although the majority of the Upper Paleolithic
statuettes are created from hard stones like steatite, jade, or serpentine, this does not preclude the
possibility that some of the statuettes could have
been carved by adults and given to children as
toys. Or alternatively, that some of the clay figurines were molded by children and then fired by
their parents. Current research thus suggests that
both sexes as well as various age groups would
have participated in art making during the
Paleolithic.
Parietal art of the Paleolithic age has also been
found in other parts of the world. As dating
methods improve, this may change our understanding of the origins and spread of art. Although
both parietal and sculptural art are currently
associated with modern humans, it has been
­suggested that the some of the oldest art, found in
El Castillo cave, may have been created by
Neanderthals. However, at this point, the claim is
unsubstantiated.
SEE ALSO: Feminist Archaeology; Fertility
and Fecundity; Figurines: Europe; Goddesses;
Rock Art
4
References
Bahn, Paul G. 1986. “No Sex Please We’re Aurignacians.”
Rock Art Research: The Journal of the Australian Rock
Art Association (AURA), 3: 99–105.
Fewkes, Jesse W. 1923. “Clay Figurines Made by Navaho
Children.” American Anthropologist, 25(4): 559–563.
doi:10.1525/aa.1923.25.4.02a00080.
Hawkes, Jacquetta. 1963. History of Mankind Cultural
and Scientific Development. Prehistory and the
Beginnings of Civilization, vol. 1. New York: Harper
& Row.
McCoid, Catherine H., and LeRoy McDermott. 1996.
“Towards Decolonizing Gender: Female Vision in the
Upper Paleolithic.” American Anthropologist, New Series,
98(2): 319–326. doi:10.1525/aa.1996.98.2.02a00080.
Russell, Pamela. 1998. “The Mother-Goddess: Fact or
Fiction?” In Reader in Gender Archaeology, edited by
Kelley Hays-Gilpin and David S. Whitley. London:
Routledge.
Singh, Devendra, and Dorian Singh. 2006. “Role of Body
Fat and Body Shape on Judgment of Female Health
and Attractiveness: An Evolutionary Perspective.”
Psychological Topics, 15(2): 331–350.
Soffer, Olga, James M. Adovasio, and David C. Hyland.
2000. “The ‘Venus’ Figurines Textiles, Basketry,
Gender and Status in the Upper Paleolithic.” Current
Anthropology, 41(4): 511–537.
Taylor, Timothy. 1996. The Prehistory of Sex: Four Million
Years of Human Culture. London: Fourth Estate.
Tripp, Allison J., and Naomi E. Schmidt. 2013.
“Analyzing Fertility and Attraction in the Paleolithic:
The Venus Figurines.” Archaeology, Ethnology and
Anthropology of Eurasia, 41(2): 54–60.
White, Randall. 2006. “The Women of Brassempouy: A
Century of Research and Interpretation.” Journal of
Archaeological Method and Theory, 13(4): 251–304.
doi:10.1007/s10816-006-9023-z.
White, Randall, Romain Mensan, Raphaëlle
Bourrillon, Catherine Cretin, Thomas F. G.
Higham, Amy E. Clarke, Matthew L. Sisk, Elise
Tartar, Philippe Gardère, Paul Goldberg, Jacques
Pelegrin, Hélène Valladas, Nadine TisnératLaborde, Jacques de Sanoit, Dominique
Chambellan, and Laurent Chiotti. 2012. “Context
and dating of Aurignacian Vulvar Representations
from Abri Castanet, France.” Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the United States
of America, 109(22): 8450–8455. doi:10.1073/
pnas.1119663109.
Further readings
Nelson, Sarah. 1990. “Diversity of the Upper
Paleolithic ‘Venus’ Figurines and Archaeological
Mythology.” In Gender in Cross-Cultural
Perspective, edited by Caroline B. Brettel and
Carolyn F. Sargent, 51–58. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Rice, Patricia. 1981. “Prehistoric Venuses, Symbols of
Motherhood or Womanhood?” Journal of Anthro­
pological Research, 37(4): 402–414.
Ucko, Peter. 1962. “The Interpretation of Prehistoric
Anthropomorphic Figurines.” Journal of the Royal
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 92: 38–54.