Friday, April 15, 2005

Pornographic Stone-Age Just-So Stories

Here is an article discussing how the discovery of new artifacts reminiscent of the Venus of Willendorf has reignited the debate over the sexuality of our Stone Age ancestors. The two main camps see them as either evidence that the Pleistocene was a nonstop sexual orgy, or extended inhibition and prudery punctuated by the occasional seasonal outburst of mating. But the article does a poor job of hammering home what should be screamingly obvious:

We do not and cannot know the true nature of these objects.

Sure, we can speculate all sorts of things: maybe they were objects of fertility magic, or simple pornography, or images of divinities, or decorative artwork... or even none of these. The fact remains that we know nothing beyond the physical characteristics of the figures. Anything beyond that is anyone's guess.

It's another example of why so many see sociobiology as little more than a collection of Just So Stories.

2 Comments:

Blogger Ellyn said...

apropos of nothing: back in my art student days, I was out drinking with my friends and found a peanut that looked just like the Venus of Willendorf.

Now that I am a middle aged mother of six, my guess would be that Venus was a self-portrait sculpture executed on a poor self-image day. (i.e., when you are a nubile young 19, you won't know the future when it is shown to you on a very large projection screen! :) )

4:12 AM  
Blogger Bernhardt Varenius said...

Well, the tilted head of the statue does suggest dejection... :-)

2:01 PM  

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