[Excerpt from Cyborgs Versus the Earth Goddess: Men’s Domestication of Women and Animals and Female Resistance by Moses Seenarine]
Woman and Goddess Figures
Hundreds of Woman/Goddess figurines were uncovered from the Stone Age, Neolithic, and Bronze Age. Female icons are the most frequent human figurative art that occur in prehistory, and some discoveries date before 40,000 BP. Woman/Goddess figures are among the first works of prehistoric art and ceramics known.
Importantly, erotic depictions of women, vulvae, and penises are absent. A few phallus and possibly other sexual toys were pieced together, but there are no imagery of sexual intercourse in Stone Age art. The lack of objectification suggests that the artists were egg-producing humans. And for the phallic artists, it indicates that Paleolithic sperm-producers did not objectify females.
The recovered Woman/Goddess carvings include the Hohle Fels, Galgenberg, Kostenki, Montpazier, Dolni Vestonice, Willendorf, and Frasassi figures. The Hohle Fels and other statuettes confirms that Woman/Goddess figurative imagery was part of human migration into Europe, 40,000 years ago.
There are several fragments of Woman/Goddess figures found at Grottes du Pape, France, dated from around 27,000 to 25,000 BP. There are dozens of Woman/Goddess figures from Russia, which contains prominent Stone Age sites from 25,000 to 16,000 BP.
Other European Woman/Goddess statuettes include the Mauern, Lespugue, Sireuil, Mainz, Tursac, Savignano, Renancourt, Moravany, Abri Pataud, and Laussel. The Laussel Woman/Goddess holds a wisent horn in one hand, which has 13 notches which could symbolize the number of moons or menstrual cycles in a year.
Other figures were found at La Madeleine, Parabita, Impudique, Mas d’Azil, Courbet, Neuchâtel, Roc-aux-Sorciers, Nebra, and Grimaldi, where 15 Woman/Goddess were uncovered. The Petersfels site, in Germany, was one of the most important Paleolithic sites in Central Europe from 15,500 to 14,000 BP. At Petersfels, numerous stylized Woman/Goddess figurines made of jet, or hard coal, were discovered, some with holes for use as pendants.
Dozens of Gönnersdorf statuettes and icons were uncovered in 19 sites across Germany, France, Czech Republic, Poland and Russia. In addition to Woman/Goddess figures, other gynocentric sculptures were discovered, including phallic objects at Milandes, Hohle Fels, and Mas d’Azil.
The distributed presence of Woman/Goddess figures in the Late Stone Age suggests that gynocentrism was evolving rapidly in art, spirituality, culture, communication, trade, and food production. The progression of female-centered cultures occurred alongside a refinement of woman-the-gatherer’s task to feed expanding human populations, which naturally led to their development of farming and settlements.
Avdeevo Woman/Goddess
The Avdeevo Woman/Goddess figures in Russia depict mature women in various stages of their reproductive cycle. Numerous Woman/Goddess statuettes were uncovered in two oval living areas surrounded by semi-subterranean lodges and pits dated between 21,000 and 20,000 BP.
The Avdeevo cultural site is remarkable because its abundant and picturesque material show the peculiarities of, and links between, the Stone Age sites of Eastern and Central Europe. The inter-connections included the predominant use of Woman/Goddess figurines and female triangle symbols in cultures across the region.
Avdeevo contains several mammoth-bone and ivory Woman/Goddess figures, including double-female, back-to-back carvings. Four of these statuettes are about 6 inches (15 cm) high. Goddess statuettes made from marl and chalk were also uncovered, along with other figurines.
Over 11,000 Avdeevo objects were discovered at this single site, including Woman/Goddess figures and fragments; jewelry; diadems, an ornamental headband; bracelets; beads and decorated points. There are needles, decorated needle-cases, spoons, and spatulas. Beads were made from sectioned teeth of wolf and polar fox and from long bones of petite animals.
The Avdeevo inventory contains a series of utilitarian objects fashioned with anthropomorphic or zoomorphic ‘heads,’ shaped limbs, and sub-triangular pieces. These art pieces and tools reflect schematic and realistic depictions of animals and females.
Why Portable Art of ♀ ?
Why did Stone Age people create so many Woman/Goddess statuettes? The Woman/Goddess carvings do not leave us any clear message, and their precise meanings and significance are open to debate. All the same, the figures were not merely inanimate, passive artifacts, and probably had more value than use as toys. As one researcher points out, “a society’s iconography certainly bears some relation to its ideology.”
More specifically, Marshack claims each Woman/Goddess carving “was clearly richly and elaborately clothed in inference and meaning. She wore the fabric of her culture. She was, in fact, a referential library and a multivalent, multipurpose symbol.”
The Woman/Goddess images served complex purposes that varied over time and place. Each Woman/Goddess statuette was an object that played an active social role in human clans. These unique icons were invested with powerful symbolic attributes which cannot be fully ascertained. Quite possibly, they reflected various aspects of gynecological cultures.
The Woman/Goddess figures were part of a wide array of female-centered stories, imagery, and symbols, including vulvas, downward-pointing triangles, caves, concentric ovals, spiral patterns, sea shells, and fruits. For instance, researchers in France uncovered rock engravings of vulvas dated to 30,000 BP. Vulvas and the spread legs of a Woman/Goddess could indicate womb and vagina worship.
Some archaeologists speculate that the Woman/Goddess figures were emblems of security and success. A female icon with excess weight could have symbolized a yearning for plenty and safety. It might also represent health and fertility, which could ensure the ability to produce strong children, thus guaranteeing the survival of the clan.
The Woman/Goddess figures could easily have served a ritual or symbolic function and used in a social context, like singing and learning. They were mostly uncovered in settlement contexts, both in open-air sites and caves. Discoveries in burial contexts are rare.
The figures might have been part of an ancestors’ cult. Ancestor images in various forms exist all over the Earth and are central aspects of traditional societies. The Woman/Goddess statuettes could represent real and mythological female ancestors. The 40,000-year history of the phenomena in art suggests that Woman/Goddess figures were vital to modern human material cultures. And, it points to the existence and persistence of symbolism, rites, and myths centered around human egg-producers.
Helen Benigni argues that the consistency in design of these featureless, large-breasted, often pregnant figures throughout a vast region and over a broad interval suggests they represent an archetype of a female Supreme Creator. New Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age people likely connected ‘female-as-creator’ to the rhythm of nature since the young-bearing sex gave birth and their menstrual intervals aligned with lunar cycles and tides.
Gamble noted the unusual similarity in the shapes of figures, even those found in widely distant parts of Europe. He suggested that when groups of Paleolithic gatherer-‘hunters’ occasionally met up and interacted, the statues of egg-producers and other objects signaled whether a clan was friendly and acceptable for interaction and, probably, for mating.
The Woman/Goddess figures could likewise be a female representation of nature or an Earth-based deity. They may be part of an Earth Goddess theology that combined human female sexuality, motherhood, fertility and the birth of humanity as a whole. Marija Gimbutas ascertained that the statuettes were representations of “the Great Mother Goddess who personifies the eternally renewing cycle of life in all of its forms and manifestations.”
There was direct continuity between the Stone Age figurines and later examples of Goddess depictions in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The worshiping of the Great Mother has been continually practiced into the present as evident in contemporary devotion to Mother Kali, Virgin Mary, Quan Yin, Gaia, and other Great Mothers.
Three fundamental premises could be inferred from the numerous Woman/Goddess figures recovered so far. The first is the notion that female beings are the source of magical and religious powers. The second is the idea that these abilities originate exclusively in the egg-producing sex. And third, the thousands of realistic representations of ovary beings of all ages and sizes, collectively demonstrate that female objectification and body shaming were certainly not part of prehistoric cultures.
Goddess of Mothers
Possibly, prehistoric Woman/Goddess figures were regarded as genius-spirits and used to protect people’s houses and territories. As such, the carvings were representations of the abodes of spirits whose function was to help and protect human and nonhuman animals. Maybe, the icons were conceived as Mothers or rulers of the animals, and Goddesses of the underworld.
Interestingly, McDermott argued that the objects’ perspective was that of a pregnant woman looking down at her body. The young-bearing artists created Woman/Goddess figurines with broad breasts and bellies as symbols of their motherhood. If pregnant women sculpted the icons, then females were artists in control of their representation. Closely related to this idea is the contention that Upper Paleolithic women employed these female-centered artifacts for obstetrical purposes. But, they could have used the real living bodies in their midst as well.
Maybe the idols were part of birthing preparation by prospective mothers themselves, one that included positive reformations and guided imagery similar to current Lamaze childbirth exercises. They could also have used as part of the work of mid-wives, doulas, and birth companions. Whether it was a woman individually known or a more publicly acclaimed Goddess, the symbols might have been endowed with spiritual potency and powers for young-bearing worshipers.
Possibly, the carvings were viewed as an extension of the physical body of the Mother Goddess. As such, by coming into contact with the icon, touching it, looking at it, or even making a mental picture of it, girls and women could actually be making contact with her. In this framing, the statuette opened a channel of communication whereby the Goddess’ own creative forces could pass into the body of a pregnant young-bearer.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Dr. Moses Seenarine