Ignateva Cave

Ignateva cave, also known as Ignatievka cave, Ignatievskaya cave (Russian: Игнатьевская пещера), or Yamazy-Tash, is a large limestone cave on the banks of the Sim River, a tributary of the Belaya river in the southern Ural mountains of Russia.[1][2] It was in 1980 the site of the discovery of a venus figure, with twenty-eight red dots between her legs that are believed to represent the female menstrual cycle.[3][4] The cave also contains microliths, remains of animals, and many other cave paintings, as well as a layer of Iron Age materials.[5] Although some sources date the paintings in the cave to the Upper Paleolithic,[5] radiocarbon dating of the pigments in the paintings places their origin more recently, between 6000 and 8000 years ago.[6]

References

  1. ^ Bahn, Paul G. (1993), Collins Dictionary of Archaeology, ABC-CLIO, p. 224, ISBN 0874367441 .
  2. ^ Shirokov, Vladimir (2002), Review of the Ural cave and rock art, The Northern Archaeological Congress, http://www.northcongress.ural.ru/index/en/arh/public?r_id=504 .
  3. ^ Rudgley, Richard (1998), Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age, Century, p. 196, ISBN 0712677585 .
  4. ^ Blackledge, Catherine (2004), The Story of V: A Natural History of Female Sexuality, Rutgers University Press, p. 37, ISBN 0813534550 .
  5. ^ a b Kipfer, Barbara Ann (2000), Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology, Springer-Verlag, p. 250, ISBN 0306461587 .
  6. ^ Steelman, K. L.; Rowe, M. W.; Shirokov, V. N.; Southon, J. R. (2002), "Radiocarbon dates for pictographs in Ignatievskaya Cave, Russia: Holocene age for supposed Pleistocene fauna", Antiquity 76 (292): 341–348, http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/ant/076/Ant0760341.htm .