The Cave Art Debate
The discovery of a 40,000-year old figurine reignites debate among archaeologists about the origins—and true purpose—of art
- By Andrew Curry
- Smithsonian magazine, March 2012, Subscribe
The oldest sculpture of a human being is so small it could be hidden in your fist. Carved out of mammoth ivory, the 40,000-year-old figurine clearly represents a woman, with ballooning breasts and elaborately carved genitalia. The head, arms and legs are merely suggested. “You couldn’t get more female than this,” says Nicholas Conard, the Ohio-born archaeologist whose University of Tübingen team found the sculpture at the bottom of a vaulted cave in southwestern Germany in the fall of 2008. “Head and legs don’t matter. This is about sex, reproduction.”
The discovery of the “Venus of Hohle Fels”—named by Conard for the cave where it was found—made news around the world. Headlines called the busty statuette “prehistoric porn.” But the Venus renews a serious scholarly debate that has flared now and then since Stone Age figurines—including a waterfowl, lions and mammoths—were first discovered early last century at Hohle Fels and nearby caves. Were these literal representations of the surrounding world? Or artworks created to express emotions or abstract ideas?
Some experts viewed such pieces as “hunting magic”—representations of sought-after game animals and, therefore, survival tools, not works of art. The problem is, many of the figurines discovered so far—predators such as lions and bears—don’t correspond to what prehistoric people ate. (Their diet consisted largely of reindeer, bison and horse meat, according to bones that archaeologists have found.) Others perceive some prehistoric figurines—including a half-lion, half-man —not as imaginative works but literal depictions of hallucinations experienced by tribal shamans.
The Venus has prompted new thinking, encouraging some scholars to focus on what the figure tells us about prehistoric perceptions of beauty and obesity. Anthropologists at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, recently published a study arguing that corpulent figurines symbolized the hope for a well-nourished community.
For his part, Conard emphasizes the significance of the figurine’s exaggerated anatomical features. “This is an extremely powerful depiction of the essence of being female,” Conard tells Smithsonian. He’s convinced the artifacts from these caves—regardless of whether they are art or talismans—mark a milestone in human development, an intense flowering of creativity that began in the region more than 35,000 years ago. Within a few thousand years, he says, this impulse spread to Stone Age France and Spain—where it turns up in paintings of bison, rhinos and lions on the walls of caves like Chauvet and Altamira.
University of Illinois archaeologist Olga Soffer doubts that we’ll ever know the true nature of these creations, and cautions against speculating about prehistoric imagery in terms of “18th-century Western European art.” But, art or not, Conard emphasizes that Stone Age sculptors imbued their work with larger meaning.“They’re talking about something other than their daily lives.”
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Comments (24)
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40,000 years ago people were doing what? Does it have artistic value? Religious value? Medicinal value? Value as humor? Value as a visual sex object? The questions are as much speculation as the answers!
Posted by RayM on March 23,2013 | 03:07 PM
My goodness, does the origin of this work this take THAT much speculation? Just go to any class of 10 year olds. Find which boy draws the best. Then ask what the other boys always ask him to draw for them! Case solved.
Posted by ladini on May 23,2012 | 10:45 PM
Art is to express an idea by an improper use of a language. So I think the figurines represent art creations.
Posted by Roberto di Luzio on April 14,2012 | 07:12 AM
It speaks to our cultural denial of the facts of women's biology that nobody has recognized in this figurine a pretty accurate representation of the physiology of a woman who's just given birth. Maybe it's just a clay doodle by someone - a midwife, a sister, a daughter, a spouse, a new mother herself - who was blown away by the transformation, as anyone paying attention might be.
Posted by Katharine Hikel, MD on April 2,2012 | 04:54 PM
It really looks more like a chicken trussed for baking!
Posted by Ian on March 25,2012 | 11:28 PM
I'm surprised Mr. Curry did not mention the religious implications of these figurines. That the figurines represent a reverence for fertility and thus worship of female deities is widespread enough to have made it into religion and anthropology textbooks. I'm not saying that this is what the figurines MUST represent, but that it is a theory about them that should be mentioned in a scholarly article about the figurines.
Posted by P. Sullivan on March 20,2012 | 09:00 AM
When I first saw this, I also saw a body of a fowl. Considering nearby a half lion half man was found there is a likely chance this is half woman half bird. I think that people from long ago had many reasons for their creations. This one may have been made out of humor.
Posted by Terrie on March 13,2012 | 12:08 PM
Any controversy about time and history must be divided into two categories. One; where the time scale is incumbent upon the belief that our civilization is the only one in earth's long history, and two; where one realizes that there is a good reason to believe that there have been civilizations which advanced to a high level before any of our recorded history began.
Should you believe, as I do, that there have been civilizations, perhaps several, separated by cataclysms, then one must consider that there would be left-overs, perhaps from survivors, to be found.
It amuses me that scientists are adamant about the scientific method, until the preconceived notions about the time scale come into play. Historically, there has been a complete disregard of scientific thinking when an authority figure's ox is to be gored. Certainly, as the evidence of how plate tectonics work, and how completely obliterated evidence of civilization may be; it seems prudent to assume any and all possibilities of lost civilizations. It certainly helps to explain many of the mythical lore coming from all quarters of the globe.
Posted by Bill Pitsker on March 9,2012 | 02:49 PM
Actually, the second i saw the photo, I knew they were of a bird. When my sons were small. I would take a whole roasting chicken from the market, wash it and sit it on the counter with it's legs hanging down. It as quite cute. In the Photo, I can see the folding of the skin, where it was gutted and cleaned out and the wings tucked up. The artist just emphasized them into breasts. Depending on how small it is, perhaps a finch or humming bird.
Posted by Kristin on March 7,2012 | 07:55 PM
The original shape of the piece of Mammoth ivory possibly has something to do with the lack of feet and head, and the tapering size of the legs. The obesity of the chest and belly might have something to do with not scraping much tooth away from the original shape. Remember, a sculptor takes a block and just takes away everything that doesn't look like what is being carved. The hook on top looks like it was to be hung up over something/somebody.
Posted by Maureen on March 7,2012 | 06:32 PM
While reading these comments, not one purposed that maybe these figurines represent a statement by the tribe or family grouping. They could be saying "Hey look at how we are great hunters and providers. Look at our women, look at how big and healty they are." While being sexual in nature they don't actually indicate that the female figure is pregnent but only very healthy and well fed.
Posted by Jack on March 7,2012 | 06:24 PM
When I first looked at it I saw a mother holding a shoulder. The baby's head is on the mother's right shoulder and the mother's head is on the child's right shoulder. Rather than a woman's genitalia, I see the child's legs and feet. Does anyone else see this? Are there other pictures that would show this figurine from better angles?
Posted by Rick Stewart on March 7,2012 | 04:04 PM
As a very amateur student of "cave art," I long ago came to the conclusion that it is pointless to argue about the function of these works. People living at that time, like hunter-gatherer peoples today, would have very different means of classifying what they perceived and, hence, what they made. The lines between art, religion, magic and even the recording of events (history) was a blurry one. In some ways, our "post-modern" society is returning to that blurring of distinctions. In the end, the thing was the thing itself and its meanings were/are fluid. As for the size of the objects, it seems obvious that these hunter-gatherers had to keep their possessions small because of the need to migrate with the animals they hunted. You couldn't build the Sphinx unless you were pretty sure you were going to stay put.
Posted by Seth Feldman on March 7,2012 | 03:43 PM
I, too, stood in the cave of Peche Merle in southwestern France. It was a pilgrimage for me because I teach art history. I "felt" that it was a place of worship- a place for faith. My response was emotional not rational. Our oldest artifacts must have been there to answer the same questions that we ask now. Why are we here? How can we control what appears to be uncontrollable? I don't think we will ever fully understand the specifics of these ancient religions but if we are receptive to the sensory clues we will percieve the artifacts as ancient answers. How will our relics and icons be "read" in 30,000 years?
Posted by Rebecca Boatman on March 6,2012 | 06:44 AM
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