Posted on 05/13/2009 4:44:19 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
If human culture seems obsessed with sex lately, it's nothing new. Archaeologists have discovered the oldest known artistic representation of a woman - a carved ivory statue of a naked female, dating from 35,000 years ago.
The figurine, unearthed in September 2008 in Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany, may be the oldest known example of figurative art, meaning art that is supposed to represent and resemble a real person, animal or object. The discovery could help scientists understand the origins of art and the advent of symbolic thinking, including complicated language.
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The fixation wasn't just for naked women, though. Early carvings of phalluses appeared in Europe at about the same time.
Little 'Venus'
The tiny statue is carved out of the tusk of a woolly mammoth and is less than 2.5 inches (60 millimeters) long. Instead of a head, it has a ring that scientists think meant it was worn as a pendant looped through string. Paleoanthropologist Nicholas Conard of Germany's Tubingen University reported the discovery in the May 14 issue of the journal Nature.
The oldest human art dates back much further, to between 75,000 and 95,000 years ago in Africa. But that art was abstract, and consisted of geometrical designs .. . This is the first known art to represent a woman, and possibly the first art to represent anything real at all. Another find, a simple drawing that may represent a half-man, half-animal, could be a few thousand years older, but the date on that is uncertain.
The jump from abstract art to representative art seems significant, and might reflect a leap in the cognitive capacity of the human brain around this time. Some experts think that the development might have gone along with a leap in the complexity of human language.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Helen got a honorary degree from NYU today, so did Hillary and a couple other ‘notables’ as well..
It’s a good thing the head is broken off.
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She definitely was from the ‘healthy’ side of the family, maybe not a Biggest Loser candidate.. or the figurine maker was near-sighted or sumthin’ ;-)
[looks like a turkey on ‘roids.]
Hold the dressing.....urp!!
People only lived until 25 back then. 30 was ancient.
“If there’s one conclusion you want to draw from this, it’s that an obsession with sex goes back at least 35,000 years,”
Umm - I think it goes back to day one.
They probably dated it based on its stamp that says Made in China, 33,000 B.C.
If it didn’t go back longer than that, we wouldn’t be here.
Ugh. Helen Thomas WAS alive back then. But they must have put a basket over her head.
lol.. I can hear one of the old coots on Antique Roadshow going, “It’s a fake.”
I guess women had giant breasts and extremely small heads back then.
Ha!....and here’s another stunner.....water is wet!
I’m guessing it goes back waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay farther than that.
Antonio Banderas-The 13th Warrior
See? The statue is a fake. It is a Hollywood prop about nine years old. The radio carbon dating is confused by the hamburger grease smeared on it by the prop guy.
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The Attack Of The 35,000 Year Old Women......
LOL...
And what an attack it would be........lol.
Wonder what they used to carve it with, stone chips or their teeth, snicker.
FAT seemed to be good way back in time.
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