Mysterious figures of overweight women from the time of the hunter-gatherers
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The “Venus von Willendorf” and similar Stone Age representations are considered to be the oldest works of art known to man. Her extreme curves have so far been explained with pregnancy. Researchers are now bringing climate into play.
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– – –The “Venus von Willendorf” is the best known representation of women that came to us from the Upper Palaeolithic
Quelle: picture alliance / HERBERT NEUBAUER; picture alliance / Heritage-Images; picture-alliance / akg-images
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IHer breasts were ample, her thighs large and plump, her stomach much more voluminous than would be expected from a woman who had to try day in and day out to hunt and gather her and her children to ensure their livelihood. Fat must have been a luxury for the people of the Upper Paleolithic (40,000 to 10,000 BC). So why did they depict the human body in the oldest depictions as being drawn from fat?
The striking type has been known since 1908 during construction work in Willendorf, Lower Austria, an eleven centimeter high stone statuette came to light. The “Venus von Willendorf” is characterized by a fat belly and large breasts. The shampoo has also been carefully worked out, while her face is veiled by a hairstyle or hood-like headgear.
– –The “Venus vom Hohlefels” is the oldest known representation of a person
Quelle: picture alliance / dpa
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Similar representations are known from France to Russia. The ivory “Venus vom Hohlefels”, which came to light in 2008 in a cave at the foot of the Swabian Alb, became famous. At 35,000 to 31,000 years old, it is a lot older than the figurine from Willendorf, whose age is dated to around 30,000 years.
What the people of the Middle Stone Age wanted to represent with these statuettes has not yet been conclusively clarified. “There are many possible interpretations,” it says succinctly at the Natural History Museum Vienna about his “Venus von Willendorf”. Now scientists have the University of Colorado in the journal „Obesity“ presented a new attempt to explain it: “Some of the earliest works of art in the world are these mysterious figures of overweight women from the time of the hunters and gatherers in the European Ice Age, where overweight would not be expected at all,” writes the first author and doctor Richard Johnson: “We show that these figures correlate with times of extreme food shortages.”
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