Talk:Venus figurines
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I remember reading, in a basic first-year anthropology survey class, that the Venus figurines maybe be the self-image of the women who created them - "the body as seen by a woman looking down on herself". Is this a popular theory? It seemed dumb to me, surely they could see their reflection in water or something, or they could see what other women looked like...seems more like an assumption that prehistoric people weren't very bright. The quote is from "Toward Decolonizing Gender: Female Vision in the Upper Paleolithic" by Catherine Hodge McCoid and LeRoy D. McDermott, in American Anthropologist, June 1996. Adam Bishop 03:05, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- The article just says that "the body as seen by a woman looking down on herself" has almost exactly the same proportions as the figurine viewed from above. Therefore it's likely that the figurine was created by a woman who used her own body as a model.
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[edit] Redirect
I'm not understanding why this has been set to redirect to the plural form. Can someone explain the reasoning before I try to change anything back? Beginning 04:27, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] How bout some pictures
I want to see a picture of the rest of the Venuses! The only article that seems to display a picture is that of the Venus of Willendorf--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 09:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Obesity was key to human survival
"Like many such artifacts, their true cultural meaning may never be known; however, given that at the time of their construction human society would not have the same tendency towards obesity as it has today (as foodstuffs, particularly those which are fattening, would have been scarce as farming had not yet been invented)"
Meat and fat is very calorific, so is honey, and gathered seeds also are not 'lite' snacks either. Obesity is not a problem but a boon in a society where there is no guaranteed food supply, see my discussion comment on the Venus of Willendorf for a simple calculation that shows that an obese woman with a BMI of about 36 just about has enough reserves to survive 3 month (about one winter) and so, the figurine could equally well be a model to remind women to be well prepared for the cold season. In other words, if people were as skinny back then as some people think, humans would have died out long ago, and there is a reason why so many people are fat nowadays -- we're built for it, our bodies gravitate towards it when there is plentiful supply of food -- which is why you hear much about diets, but see very few dieting sucesses, as the body itself views weightloss as a failure. Cinnamon —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.45.218.135 (talk • contribs) 12 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] another image:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Venus_da_Vinci.jpg --Snek01 22:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Clay - > ceramics
Hi all. I have made one small change:
- Now "The latter are are among the oldest ceramics known."
- Was "The clay items are among the oldest ceramics known."
- The reason is that whilst it may been shpaed from clay the firing process changes the minerals. After firing contains no clay. ThanxTheriac
[edit] Clothing
Archaeologist Olga Soffer has studied the figurines and seems to have identified clothing upon them. That theory should be added to this article. T@nn 05:26, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
- If you have the reference, it would be great if you could add this information. BrainyBabe 14:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
