Western Europe

Even  older then the Namibian painted plaques are some of the first sculptures and paintings of western Europe  although examples of still greater antiquity may yet be found in Africa, bridging the gap between the Makapansgat pebble and the Apollo 11 painted plaques.

   Prehistoric Sites in Europe

Human with Feline Head   from Hohlenstein-Stadel, Germany

ca. 30,000-28,000 B.C.E. mammoth ivory 11 5/8 in. high

One of the oldest known sculptures is this large ivory figure of a human with a feline head.It is uncertain whether the work depicts a composite creature or a human wearing an animal mask.Venus of willendroof The composite feline- hman from germany is execptional for the stone Age.The vast majority of perhistoric sclpturees despit either animals or humans. In the earliest art, humankind consist almost excusivly of women as opposed to men and the painter and sculptors almost invariably showed them nude,although scholars generally assume that during the Ice Ageboth Women and Men wore garmentscoverings parts of their bodies.when archaeologists  first discoverds paleolithic statuettes of women,they dubbed them “Venuses” after the Greco-Romen goddess of beauty and love,whome artists usually despited nude The nickname is inappropriate and misleading.It is doubtful that the Old stone Age  figurines represented deities of any kind.One of yhe oldest and the most famouse of the perhistoric female figure is the tiny lime stonefigurineof a woman that long has been known as the Venus of Willendrof after its findspot in Austria.Its cluster of almost ball-like shapes is unusual,the result in part of the sculptor’s response to the natural shape of the stone selected for carving.The anatomical severd as fertility images.But other paleolithic stone women of far more slender proportions exist, and the meaning of these images is as clusive as everythings else about paleolithic art.Yet the preonderance of female over male figures in the Old Stone Age seems to indicate a preoccupation with women , whose child-bearing capabilities ensured the survival of the species.One thing at least is clea.The Venus of willendroof sculptor did not aim for naturalism in shape and proportion.As with most Paleolithic figures,the sculptor did no carveany facial features.Here the carver suggested only  Mss of curly hair or,as some researchers have recently argued,a hat woven from plant fibers –evidence for the art of textile manufacture at avery early date.In either case,the emphasis is on female anatomy.the breasts of the Willendrof woman are enormous,far larger then the tiny forearms and hand that rest upon them.The carver also took pains to scratch in to the stone the outline of the pubic triangle.sculptors often omitted this detai in other early figurines, leadings some scholers to question the nature of these figures as fertility images.Whatever the purpose of these statuettes , the makers ‘ intent seems to have been to represent not  a speecific woman but the female form.
 

Venus of Willendorf from Willendorf, Austria

ca. 28,000-25,000 B.C.E. limestone 4 1/4 in. high