Venus of Hohle Fels: The Oldest Known Human Figurine

The Venus of Hohle Fels is a small female figurine carved from mammoth ivory, found in 2008 in the Hohle Fels cave in south-western Germany. Around 40,000 years old and only about 6 cm tall, it is the oldest undisputed depiction of a human being in the world. Its discovery showed that the tradition of so-called Venus figurines in Europe began with the very first modern humans to settle there.

Hohle Fels cave

Hohle Fels (“hollow rock”) lies in the valley of the River Ach near the small town of Schelklingen, in the Swabian Jura of Baden-Württemberg. Behind a narrow entrance passage it opens into a large hall, one of the biggest cave chambers in the region.

The cave has been studied since 1870-1871, when the geologist Oscar Fraas excavated it and found bones of cave bears and other Ice Age animals. Modern excavations began in 1977 under Joachim Hahn and, since 1997, have been directed by Nicholas Conard of the University of Tübingen. They have revealed layers spanning the Middle Palaeolithic, associated with Neanderthals, and the Upper Palaeolithic periods of modern humans, including the Aurignacian, Gravettian and Magdalenian.

Hohle Fels has produced a remarkable range of Aurignacian finds: small ivory figures of a water bird, a horse head and a tiny lion-human, as well as one of the Ice Age flutes of Swabia.

The cave is still being excavated each summer, and its layers continue to yield new finds. Because Hohle Fels preserves a long sequence from Neanderthal occupation through to the end of the last Ice Age, it is one of the key sites for understanding the transition between the two populations in central Europe.

The discovery

In September 2008 Conard’s team was excavating the lowest Aurignacian deposits, about 3 m below the present floor of the cave. There they found six fragments of carved ivory which, when fitted together, formed a nearly complete female figure. Only the left arm and shoulder were missing.

The layer lay directly above a sterile deposit separating it from the older Middle Palaeolithic layers. This placed the figurine at the very start of the Aurignacian sequence at the site, among the earliest traces of Homo sapiens in the region. The find was published in the journal Nature on 14 May 2009 and attracted worldwide attention.

Description

The figurine is about 6 cm tall (59.7 mm), 3.5 cm wide and weighs 33.3 g. It shows a woman with very large, projecting breasts, a broad body, wide hips and a strongly emphasised vulva. The arms are short, with the hands resting on the belly, and each hand has carefully carved fingers. The legs are short and pointed.

Instead of a head, a small ring rises from between the shoulders, pierced through. The ring suggests it was worn on a cord, so the figure may have been a pendant. Deep horizontal lines are incised across the abdomen and upper body, and other marks appear on the shoulders and arms. Their meaning is unknown, but some researchers suggest they may represent clothing, straps or body decoration.

Dating

Radiocarbon dates on bone and charcoal from the layer give ages of around 35,000 radiocarbon years. Converted to calendar years, this is roughly 40,000 years ago, and at least 35,000 years ago on any reckoning. The figurine is therefore similar in age to the Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, found in a nearby valley, and somewhat older than most of the famous painted caves of France.

Before 2008 the earliest known female figurines belonged to the Gravettian period, roughly 33,000-22,000 years ago. The Hohle Fels Venus pushed that tradition back by at least 5,000 years and showed it was rooted in the Aurignacian.

The Venus figurines

“Venus figurines” is a 19th-century label for small Palaeolithic sculptures of women, borrowed from the Roman goddess of love. It is a convenient name rather than an interpretation. More than 200 such figurines are known from sites stretching from the Pyrenees to Siberia.

Well-known later examples include the Venus of Willendorf from Austria, about 30,000 years old, the ceramic Venus of Dolní Věstonice from Moravia, and figures from Lespugue and Brassempouy in France and Kostenki in Russia. Many share the Hohle Fels figure’s emphasis on breasts, belly and hips and its small or featureless head, though they vary greatly in style and size.

The first modern humans in the Swabian Jura

The Venus belongs to the earliest phase of the Aurignacian, the culture associated with the first Homo sapiens in central Europe. In the Swabian Jura this phase begins around 43,000-42,000 years ago, at a time when Neanderthals may still have lived elsewhere in Europe.

Nicholas Conard and his colleague Michael Bolus have argued that the upper Danube valley served as a corridor through which modern humans moved into central Europe. They have also suggested that the region acted as a “Kulturpumpe”, a centre where innovations such as figurative art and music appeared early and later spread. Other archaeologists question whether the Swabian finds are truly earlier than those elsewhere or simply better preserved and more intensively studied.

Whatever the answer, the concentration of finds is extraordinary. Within a few kilometres of each other, the caves of the Ach and Lone valleys have produced the Venus, the Lion Man, flutes of bone and ivory, and dozens of small animal carvings. Together they form one of the richest bodies of early art anywhere in the world.

The carvers worked mammoth ivory with stone tools, sawing, scraping and polishing it into shape. The Venus shows careful planning: its proportions, the pierced ring and the incised lines were all executed on a very small scale, suggesting an experienced craftsperson working within an established tradition rather than a first experiment.

Interpretations

The strong emphasis on sexual features has led to a range of interpretations. Some researchers see the Venus as a symbol of fertility, motherhood or abundance; others as an erotic image; others as an amulet, a representation of a goddess or ancestor, or a way of marking female social roles. Archaeologist Paul Mellars, writing in Nature in 2009, described the figure as strikingly explicit even by modern standards.

Some scholars have suggested that such figurines were made by women and show the female body as seen from the maker’s own viewpoint, which would explain the foreshortened proportions. This idea is debated. What is clear is that the carver was highly skilled and that the figure was handled and worn, rather than made and discarded.

Older candidates

Two much older objects are sometimes called figurines: the “Venus of Berekhat Ram” from the Golan Heights, perhaps 230,000-280,000 years old, and the “Venus of Tan-Tan” from Morocco, possibly 300,000-500,000 years old. Both are natural pebbles with grooves that may or may not have been shaped deliberately. Because their human form is uncertain, the Hohle Fels figure is usually described as the oldest undisputed representation of a human.

The discovery also renewed public interest in Ice Age art. Images of the figurine appeared in newspapers around the world in May 2009, and it has since featured in exhibitions, documentaries and school textbooks as an emblem of early human creativity.

Myths and facts

• Myth: the head broke off. The ring was carved in place of a head; it is not a break.
• Myth: all Venus figurines are fertility goddesses. That is one of several interpretations. Their original meaning is not known and may have varied.
• Fact: it is tiny. At about 6 cm, it fits easily in the palm of a hand, which matches its likely use as a pendant.

Museum and World Heritage

After its discovery the figurine was shown in a major exhibition on Ice Age art in Stuttgart in 2009-2010. Since 2014 it has been displayed at the Museum of Prehistory (Urgeschichtliches Museum) in Blaubeuren, close to the cave. In July 2017 Hohle Fels and five other caves of the Ach and Lone valleys were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as “Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura”.

By the numbers

Timeline

• c. 40,000 years ago: The figurine is carved and left in Hohle Fels during the early Aurignacian.
• 1870-1871: Oscar Fraas carries out the first excavations at Hohle Fels.
• 1977: Joachim Hahn begins modern excavations at the cave.
• 1997: Nicholas Conard takes over the excavations.
• 2008, September: The six fragments of the figurine are found.
• 2009, 14 May: The discovery is published in Nature.
• 2014: The figurine goes on permanent display in Blaubeuren.
• 2017, July: Hohle Fels becomes part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

The Venus of Hohle Fels shows that the first modern humans in Europe were already making detailed images of the human body around 40,000 years ago. It connects the early art of the Swabian caves to a figurine tradition that lasted more than 15,000 years across Europe and northern Asia.