Stone Age Fertility Ritual Object Found [...may have been used to promote fertility]

Discovery News ^ | February 4, 2011 | Jennifer Viegas

[SunkenCiv]

THE GIST

• A Paleolithic elk antler, carved with zigzag lines and a human figure, has been unearthed in Poland.
• Analysis of the figure indicates an image on it depicts a woman with spread legs.
• Carved zigzags on the object may symbolize water and life.

[SunkenCiv]

A Stone Age-era artifact carved with multiple zigzags and what is likely a woman with spread legs suggest fertility rituals may have been important to early Europeans. A close-up of etchings found on a 11,000-year-old elk antler. Scientists believe the figure is a woman with spread legs. -- image. Tomasz Plonka

[SunkenCiv]

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[exDemMom]

Scientists believe the figure is a woman with spread legs.

And how do they come to that conclusion? The marks could just as easily be a critter of some sort (it looks generally frog-like to me), or it could be some sort of tally system.

[SunkenCiv]

In her Plato Prehistorian: 10,000 to 5000 B.C. Myth, Religion, Archaeology, Mary Settegast reproduces a table which shows four runic character sets; a is Upper Paleolithic (found among the cave paintings), b is Indus Valley script, c is Greek (western branch), and d is the Scandinavian runic alphabet.

[stayathomemom]

Scientists believe the figure is a woman with spread legs.

Who also appears to be missing her head.

[Interesting Times]

It would be more honest for the scientists to write, “There are geometric markings carved on this antler, but we have no idea what they might mean.” However, this sort of honesty does not enhance the odds of getting one’s grant renewed.

[Salamander]

It’s really hard to chisel a paper bag on stone.

:)

[afraidfortherepublic]

Many women long for a baby. Men are happy to aid in that endeavor. What makes anyone think that it wasn’t always that way?

[cranked]

Pffffffft, Spencers carries a mess of them .... opps, wrong “fertility ritual object(s)”..../s =.=

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Thanks for your interesting post. However, the object pictured looks more like it was a Rorschach test for archaeologists than a fertility item.

[Joe 6-pack]

"Many women long for a baby. Men are happy to aid in that endeavor. What makes anyone think that it wasn’t always that way?"

ALL people long for food when they're hungry, and the glyph that is purported to be a woman with her legs spread could just as easily represent an animal being splayed for meat.

[dirtymac]

another ink blot failure by bookish anthropologist.

[Jeff Winston]

Scientists believe the figure is a woman with spread legs.

You mean a headless "woman," who also pretty clearly appears to have a "thingy."

So much for "scientists."

[FroggyTheGremlim]

All those runes look like women with spread legs.

[aruanan]

the glyph that is purported to be a woman with her legs spread could just as easily represent an animal being splayed for meat.

It looked to me like those splayed legs were displaying meat and the arms held up in the WHOO HOO conformation.

[Hardastarboard]

Reminds me of the old joke about the guy who goes to a psychiatrist who gives him a Rohrschach test. Every picture, the guy either says it's a naked woman, or two people having sex.

They get to the end and the shrink says, "Well Mr. So and So, you seem to be obssessed with sex." The guy says "I'm obsessessed with sex! You're the one showing me all the dirty pictures!"

[holden]

Headless woman spreading her legs?

It's far more plausible that it's a depiction of a swan gliding along atop the water and leaving a wake.

HF

[SunkenCiv]

Cold shower time. ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

They’re clearly in denial about their own latent homsexuality, must be white males.

[Joe 6-pack]

It might be a hermaphrodite...

Of course, these same folks have for years been telling us that the Venus of Willendorf was a fertility totem...

...and as proof they offer as evidence the quite exaggerated primary female sex characteristics, pointing out that the stone age ideal of fecundity were the rounded, swollen, voluptuous features. Now, those same folks are telling us that a stick figure with no obvious female sex characteristics is also a totem of female fertility.

So much for universal symbology. Looks like the stone-age may have had it's own version of heroin chic.