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The 40,000-Year-Old Female Figurine of Hohle Fels: Previous Assumptions and New Perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2020

Melissa K. Stannard  and
Michelle C. Langley Open the ORCID record for Michelle C. Langley [Opens in a new window]
Melissa K. Stannard
Affiliation:
Yuwaalaraay, Kamilaroi, Ngemba, and Wailwan Nations & Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, 226 Grey Street, Southbank, 4101 QLDAustralia Email: [email protected]
Michelle C. Langley
Affiliation:
Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Environmental Futures Research Institute & Forensics and Archaeology, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Road, Nathan, 4111 QLDAustralia Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

As the earliest image of a human being and the oldest piece of figurative art, the female figurine of Hohle Fels remains a significant discovery for understanding the development of symbolic behaviour in Homo sapiens. Discovered in southwestern Germany in 2008, this mammoth-ivory sculpture was found in several fragments and has always been assumed to be complete, never owning a head. In place of a head, there is instead a small loop that would allow her to be threaded, possibly to be worn as a pendant. Several hypotheses have been put forward as to her original use context, ranging from representing a fertility goddess to a pornographic figure. Yet none of these theses have ever suggested that she once had a head. Here we explore whether the female figurine of Hohle Fels was designed as a two-part piece, with the head made of perishable material culture, possibly woven plant or animal fibres; or that the artefact is a broken and reworked figurine with the head simply never found. By exploring the possibility that this figurine did originally have a second part—a head—we investigate issues surrounding the role of women and children in the Swabian Aurignacian.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 21 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2020

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