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The 160-year mystery of Europe's Ice Age 'queens'
- stevenwoo 3y agoWe will never know but it is a fascinating topic and interesting to read all the speculation, the one thing tying the dimensions to climate is wild that anyone even thought to investigate.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pan69 3y agoReminds me of the song Sheela-Na-Gig by PJ Harvey. Growing up I had no idea what it was about, only later to find out (as with so many other things in life). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQfElg77sCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQfElg77sCA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheela-Na-Gig_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheela-Na-Gig_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheela_na_gig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheela_na_gig
- Contortion 3y agoSomehow, despite being an alt-rock fan since my early teens, PJ Harvey had completely passed me by in all but name. Due to your link I'm now listening to the Dry album from start to finish and really enjoying it. So thanks friend for brightening my Sunday morning!
- gilleain 3y agoThis is now very off-topic to Ice Age Queens ... but yes PJ Harvey has some great tracks - one of my favourites is from the album '4 Track Demos', called 'M-Bike' that's about a motorbike as the focus of hatred of a boyfriend (I guess). It's great.
- BerislavLopac 3y agoWell, "Ice Age Queens" is the perfect name for an alt rock band...
- rokkitmensch 3y agoIn strong contrast to "Queens of the Stone Age", hah!
- defrost 3y agoAdd this to your list: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Henry Lee ft. P.J Harvey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzmMB8dTwGs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzmMB8dTwGs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Hunting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Hunting
- thom 3y agoOh wow, somewhat jealous of the rest of your Sunday now. Would love to be able to listen to music with fresh ears. And to be a teenage boy watching her 1995 Glastonbury set again…
- pimlottc 3y agoThere's an official music video as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQfElg77sCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQfElg77sCA
- adrian_b 3y agoPerhaps just the ancestors of Barbie dolls?
- dvh 3y agoOr Viagra
- ptsneves 3y agoThe article just mentions them as being pre-historic pinups. Curiously the romans left us lots of phaluses but I don’t remember venuses being prevalent. Great cocktail material
- adrian_b 3y agoThe supposition of them being pinups implies that they were intended to be used by adults. Had they been dolls, they would have been intended to be used by children. The first supposition might be supported by the fact that carving any of these would have required much work, which might have not been justified for just making toys. On the other hand it is easier to imagine children playing with such small statues than a busy adult using them for any purpose. It is unlikely that the kind of dwellings that may have existed at that time included any part that could have been decorated with such figures. The article contains the supposition that they may have been used as some kind of home guardians, but the choice of a small feisty female figure does not seem very appropriate for such a role (instead of a more scary guardian). Perhaps they could have been owned by some shamans who used them in some rituals and they were small to be easily carried in their luggage, but being just toys for children seems an equally likely possibility.
- ptsneves 3y agoNot sure if you read the article but it mentions the dolls had preeminent vulvas and sexual attributes. I think that excludes the children usage supposition. The symbolic or humorous interpretation is much more plausible.
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- Anotheroneagain 3y agoImagine trying to figure out a crucifix pendant separated by 50000 years of unrecorded history, and just give up on any hope to figure it out.
- berkes 3y ago"This old culture clearly worshipped violence and torture" - some researcher in 3009 ACR (ACR-After Climate Restore)
- aebtebeten 3y agosee https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2008-11-24 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2008-11-24 > "Oh, he comes back every two weeks or so. We gave him this big box of chocolates when he first arrived. Why? What'd you guys do?"
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y agoOr imagine finding a Mickey Mouse figurine and wondering why the ancients depicted a human child with the head of a rat. There is no end of symbolic interpretations one could place on what is just a bit of whimsy.
- jowdones 3y ago[flagged]
- inductive_magic 3y ago>For decades, the idea that they were simply pornographic objects, designed primarily for the male gaze, has remained a popular explanation, alongside the view of the artworks as fertility figures.
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- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mytailorisrich 3y agoSince these are realistic, to me it means that the artists had an actual model if front of them. This what I find very interesting considering we expect that the environment was very harsh and it perhaps gives some weight to the 'queen' hypothesis.
- lukan 3y ago"Since these are realistic, to me it means that the artists had an actual model if front of them" You find it surprising, that there were actual woman around in the ice age? Only when you need to paint or sculpt very fine details, one needs a model to sit still for hours. To model the basic shape like the Venus, it would be enough to sit in a corner and watch other women, or one women in particular.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoObviously I find it surprising that they had "severely overweight" models... which is the whole point.
- lukan 3y agoAh, now I see your point.
- throw310822 3y ago[flagged]
- mytailorisrich 3y agoAs I understand it, the term is not racist [1], though of course many words can be used in a racist way... In context it is an hypothesis like any other, taking into account that modern Europeans are a totally difference population from the people who made those Venus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steatopygia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steatopygia
- throw310822 3y agoBecause the other obsession of the current era is racism.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gyomu 3y agoI think we tend to overestimate the purposefulness of things humans do. Why do so many artists draw anime girls and post them on twitter? Cause they’re bored, cause they want to practice their skills, cause they want to impress their friends, cause they’re horny, ... Probably the same here.
- actionfromafar 3y agoI think you may underestimate the purposefulness of anime girls.
- ramon156 3y agoI'm still trying to find the correlation
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mola 3y agoAll of these are interesting reasons. "They're bored" tells you a lot about the societal and economical situation Etc. These artifacts are physical imprints of the "spiritual" human condition. There's a ton of meaning there. I don't think purpose is the right word here, nor is it what being investigated.
- Ekaros 3y agoAnd I think we might underestimate amount of downtime people have. Like keeping guard or watching herds of animals grazing or drinking... You could probably very well carry some tools and small figure during those times.
- throwup238 3y agoWhat people draw today is far less interesting because we have had global cross pollination via print for hundreds of years and the internet for decades. Where people draw inspiration and learn the mechanics of drawing is obvious These figurines are interesting because of the large geographical and temporal distribution long before humans even invented writing. However I think this article is overselling the similarities between the hundreds of figures found.
- scotty79 3y ago> figurines are headless and footless because they were self-portraits or because faces, hands and feet are hard to get sexy Ask any teenage boy (or a former one) who tried to draw naked ladies if he drew hands or feet. Exclude feet fetishists.
- AlecSchueler 3y agoYou're assuming that because they're naked women that their purpose must be sexual.
- scotty79 3y agoI wouldn't call it a purpose. Just a source of inspiration and dedication.
- twic 3y agoThere's a particularly impressive one from Malta, although much later than many in the article, 3000 BC: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/VAWR7KPNk-UDKw https://artsandculture.google.com/story/VAWR7KPNk-UDKw
- jonah 3y agoInteresting! We recently visited Parque Arqueológico Nacional de Tierradentro[1] in southern Colombia. The Hypogea remind me very much of the ones in Malta you shared. There, IIRC, they were saying they were 3,000 years old, but now online I'm seeing 600-900AD, so I'm unsure of the age, but it's neat to see a similar independently developed solution to a problem. [1] https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/743/gallery/ https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/743/gallery/
- twic 3y agoOh, that's stunning! Ancient people really did like digging holes and hanging out underground. Mind you, modern people do too.
- t-3 3y agoIt's a lot easier and less labor-intensive to dig a dwelling or expand a cave that will keep you warm in winter and cool in summer than a to build an above-ground house that will. Rodents which would invade below-ground food stores weren't as widely spread in ancient times either.
- qwerty456127 3y ago> However, there are also more surprising ideas, such as the suggestion that the figurines are headless and footless because they were self-portraits made by women, who sculpted what they saw. In this scenario, the exaggerated breasts, stomachs and vulvas are purely the result of a woman's eye view. This reminded me about D. E. Harding's "On Having No Head". And also about the stereotype suggesting ladies are prone to self-perception biased in a specific way - often seeing themselves as overweight even when perfectly fit. Could these ways of thinking exist (notably worldwide, also notably supposedly predating abstraction-capable languages) even during the prehistoric days when there was no modern kind of cultural influence?
- shrubble 3y agoIsn't there the belief that few hunter gatherers were overweight because of the continual need to move and do things to have enough food? So what would an overweight, meaning very well-fed, woman mean in such a society?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- goda90 3y agoI think it's more likely hunter-gatherers that live in seasonal climates would be skinnier in the spring and fatter in the fall. Lots of fat would mean it was a really good summer and winter probably won't be as difficult.
- carrozo 3y ago“ancient paleolithic venus statues were likely made by women who were examining their own bodies and sculpting them from their own first person POV, rather than, as previously assumed, exaggerated features from an outside perspective.” From this tweet with photos for reference: https://x.com/na74362408/status/1559314219295805440?s=46 https://x.com/na74362408/status/1559314219295805440?s=46
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y agoI accept that the angles might be similar to a lying down position, but, especially the back, I don’t think your head is flexible enough for you to see that yourself. It probably wasn’t the women examining their own bodies, but a sculptor examining the bodies of women lying down.
- andrewflnr 3y agoI like this theory because it allows for convergent evolution in their shapes, which makes a much more compelling explanation for their longevity than even finding and replicating them at habitation sites, much less cultural transmission over tens of thousands of years.
- sorokod 3y agoWouldn't that perspective affect how arms and hands are depicted? Also, worth saying something why the looks of other females in the group are not relevant.
- every 3y agoThese seem from hunter/gatherers with a cycle of feast/famine in a harsh climate. Those who could most efficiently store energy in fat would be most likely to survive the cycle. And undoubtedly both infant and maternal mortality would be high. Fecundity might be both a valued individual and group trait. One or more of these traits might be in the designs of these figurines. Possibly they are talismans...
- GaggiX 3y ago>Though more recent artworks – including those generated by artificial intelligence – are sometimes biased towards men, in the Stone Age women were centre-stage. Women are still centre-stage of nowadays artworks, probably for a different reason than in the past. I remember my sister complaining about how little artwork there was of male characters compared to female characters on the Internet.
- golergka 3y agoIs there a reason that the most obvious explanation is almost never suggested? Its porn.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- stargazer-3 3y agoIt is mentioned in the linked article.
- zingababba 3y agoDepends highly on the individual/tribe too. One tribe's spiritual totem is another tribe's spanking material.
- contingencies 3y agoRandom hypotheses: ice-queen lesbian dildo cult, she-shamanic fertility tool with potential for ritual insertion, leadership or speaking token in pre-historic matrilineal societies (we learned in the 20th century that many early and mobile societies were in fact matrilineal and patrilineal societies only came to dominate after "civilization" ~= settled expansionist warmongering).
- rhelz 3y agoThe article mentions the remarkable stability in form these figurines had, but towards the end, they started variating in an interesting way, and perhaps this variation can give us clues as to what these figurines meant. Specifically, the figurines tended to get more stretched out, and more abstract (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Monruz#/media/File:Laténium-dame-Monruz.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Monruz#/media/File:La...) As this trend continued, the statues started looking less like figurines of women, and more like...phaluses, e.g. https://www.donsmaps.com/milandesvenus.html https://www.donsmaps.com/milandesvenus.html What are we to make of this? Sheer speculation of course, but I wonder if it has something to do with those european tribes discovering that it was sex which caused pregnancy. It might seem incredible that we didn't always know this, but even into the 20th century, we were discovering cultures which hadn't made that connection yet. So imagine you have no idea where babies come from...just every once in a while, a woman would grow a belly and start putting on fat...and a baby would come. Sexy, sacred, and mysterious...and very worthy of making artwork to celebrate. Eventually, however, they made the connection. I think these later venus figurines are attempts to acknowledge the male role in reproduction--and also attempts to reconcile their sense of the sacred with both the godlike-power females have to produce new people, with the newly discovered godlike power males have to get females pregnant. Perhaps it also documents the transition from female, earth-mother-based religion to the sky-daddy-based religions we've had ever since.