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Nature 459, 176-177 (14 May 2009) | doi:10.1038/459176a; Published online 13 May 2009
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Archaeology: Origins of the female image
See associated Correspondence: McDonnell, Nature 459, 909 (June 2009)
Paul Mellars1
Abstract
Discovery of the sexually explicit figurine of a woman, dating to 35,000 years ago, provides striking evidence of the symbolic explosion that occurred in the earliest populations of Homo sapiens in Europe.
On page 248 of this issue1, Nicholas Conard describes an archaeological discovery of considerable significance — arguably the world's oldest depiction of a human figure, carved in impressive detail from a solid piece of mammoth ivory, and only 60 millimetres long. The find (Fig. 1
- Paul Mellars is in the Turkana Basin Institute, Stony Brook University, USA, and the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK.
Email: pam59@cam.ac.uk
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