Ah, the Feminist Golden Age! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Science could prove it once upon a time existed?
Figurines just like the one in the picture above have been found in prehistoric sites all over Southern Europe and the Near East. They have never been found along with writing. That means there’s precious little we can know about them or the people that made them.
That doesn’t stop certain “scientists” from rushing way out on a limb, reconstructing a lost world of “egalitarian agricultural” people ruled over by fat women. Sorry, that’s not science–unless that’s what science has degenerated into, these days. It’s only PC wishful thinking.
It astounds me, the extent to which “science” has become fanciful narratives. I used to watch a lot of “science documentaries”, taking exception to the truly atheistic elements, while enjoying the truly scientific, repeatable, testable, aspects of it all. But as time has gone on, ever more of these “documentaries” are becoming “story hour”. I’m waiting for the arrival of a 300# guy in a tutu and a wig. 🙂
Science is about observing, deriving theories which can be tested, and then confirming the validity of the theories by controlled testing. If the theories hold up, then you are on the right track, and if the theories break down, then you go back to the drawing board.
All of this works fine, when you are talking about something happening in the present and which can be tested in a repeatable way. But, when you are dealing in the past, it gets murkier. Someone can dig up a carving like this and can observe all sorts of things, such as the material and the style of the carving, but unless there is more solid, proven, information, it’s a bit tricky to know exactly how it was used and what significance it had.
In the case of this object, especially given the fact that these are fairly common, it appears to be something on the order of an idol, and probably related to fertility. To put it in modern terms, it’s sexually oriented material. They didn’t have four color printing back then and no Internet, so this was probably as close to pornography as they could get. They probably tied it in with fertility and created an imaginary fertility goddess, which is not much of a stretch, given the fact that many of these cultures had all sorts of “gods”, for all sorts of things. But notice that everything in this paragraph is vague, because appearance, and probably are far from solid proof. It would be possible to make up a completely different back-story for this, because it’s just a made up story. Maybe these idols were a way of insulting someone, sort of an ancient versions of “your mama’s so fat” ….
The point is, that some things are impossible to know to an absolute certainty, from forensic evidence alone. This is fertile ground for people with a narrative of their own to promote, and if they come up with an adequately pleasing story, all the better for them … but it means nothing.
The 300-lb. guy in a tutu was on PBS last night.
My source tells me the prehistoric figurines were used as paperweights.
Undoubtedly, you aren’t kidding. What a world we live in.