[stripes1776]

And where tombstones might stand, declaring pious hope for some god's mercy in the afterlife, their cemetery sports instead a vigorous forest of phallic symbols, signaling an intense interest in pleasures or utility of procreation.

Only a very uninformed journalist or a pointy-headed academic would presume to interpret a symbol of an ancient people by modern ideas.

[livius]

I agree. There are certain phallic symbols that are very obvious - the huge pieces of wood with balls attached from the South Pacific, for example. They were barely even symbolic but were more like huge depictions.

But there are other upright symbols that may have meant other things. Who were these people and what did they believe?