Ice Age Women

I have to admit, all of this talk about patriarchal societies in class the past few days has set me on edge. While we did discuss that not all men viewed women as inferior and subservient to the male species, it seems clear that those who had differing views were a minority. And so, this topic of patriarchy got me to thinking about the possible matriarchies that may have existed. I think it's important to remember for everything that we discover in history and archaeology, just because something has not been discovered yet does not mean it never existed. Like Heather Pringle states in her article about matriarchies: "Ethnographic record does not provide evidence of a truly matriarchal society....This does not mean, however, that matriarchal societies never existed in the past; rather they may have become extinct" (CP 1). By analyzing the Venus of Willendorf artifact, the scholars Pringle interviewed make an interesting notion. The Venus figure, dated back to at least 26,000 years ago, could represent a society in the Ice Age that centered around women. 

The process of coming to the conclusion of a possible matriarchal society in the Ice Age is one that shows quite a bit of development. Originally, scholars thought that the figurine would have been a pornographic object for the Ice Age men; something to feed their sexual fantasies while on mammoth hunts (CP 5). This conclusion of the Venus's purpose portrays some of the stereotypes associated with women. As Pringle describes this assumption as "the ultimate man's world" (CP 5). Yet as more research has been done, the purpose of the Venus has changed. By looking at how communal hunting was the essential norm of Upper Paleolithic society, scholars began to assume that the Venus had more of a role to play than just being a man's sexual toy. Instead, the conclusion now is that the Venus "may have played a key part in Upper Paleolithic rituals that centered on women" (CP 6). Through the analysis of hunting and foraging techniques of both hunter-gatherer societies today and then, notions that societies of the Ice Age represented only a man's world were discarded. 

However, just because evidence now leans toward the Venus and similar artifacts being ritualistic rather than pornographic does not mean that this is a definite conclusion that women in the Ice Age were elite spiritually or otherwise. One of the scholars Pringle interviewed states that the Grimaldi Beauty and the Beast figurine (similar to the Venus figurine in appearance) shows "that these women were related to the capacity of communicating with a different world...I think they were believed to be the gateway to a different dimension" (CP 10). While it is entirely possible that women could have had powerful roles in Upper Paleolithic society, such as spiritual leaders or shamans, more evidence besides one figurine needs to be given before that assumption can have any worth. And like the Youtube video over the Venus of Willendorf points out, currently, we have only found female figurines dating back to the Ice Age era. Sometime in the future, we may find male figurines (SmartHistory Nude Woman). Another possibility stated by scholars is that the Venus figurines symbolized luck because of the seven bands around each figurine's head and the abstract features (http://anthropology.msu.edu/anp264-ss13/2013/03/28/venus-of-willendorf/ ). 

To conclude, while all these assumptions over the significance of the Venus and similar figurines are fascinating and provide hope that matriarchies may have existed in some point in time, based on the evidence that we have, we simply can't state whether this is true or not. More research needs to be conducted and more evidence provided before we can make a sure statement on whether or not the Ice Age women were really as important as we have suggested.