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Archaeology

Origins of the female image

Nature volume 459, pages 176–177 (2009)Cite this article

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.

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Figure 1: A 35,000-year-old sex object.

H. JENSEN/UNIV. TÜBINGEN

Figure 2: Sexual images in early Homo sapiens European art.

A, BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY; B, P. JUGIE/MNP, LES EYZIES, DISTR. RMN; C, RMN

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  1. and the Department of Archaeology, Paul Mellars is in the Turkana Basin Institute, Stony Brook University, USA, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK. pam59@cam.ac.uk,

    Paul Mellars

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  1. Paul Mellars
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Mellars, P. Origins of the female image. Nature 459, 176–177 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/459176a

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