Ancient Figurine of Voluptuous Woman Is Found

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD The New York Times

No one would mistake the Stone Age ivory carving for a Venus de Milo. The voluptuous woman depicted is, to say the least, earthier, with huge, projecting breasts and sexually explicit genitalia.

Side and front views of the Venus of Hohle Fels

Nicholas J. Conard, an archaeologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany, who found the small carving in a cave last year, says it is at least 35,000 years old, “one of the oldest known examples of figurative art” in the world. It is about 5,000 years older than some other so-called Venus artifacts made by early populations of Homo sapiens in Europe.

Another archaeologist, Paul Mellars of the University of Cambridge in England, agrees and goes on to remark on the obvious. By modern standards, he says, the figurine’s blatant sexuality “could be seen as bordering on the pornographic.”

The tiny statuette was uncovered last September in a cave in southwestern Germany, near Ulm and the Danube headwaters. Dr. Conard’s report on the find is being published Thursday in the journal Nature.

The discovery, Dr. Conard wrote, “radically changes our view of the origins of Paleolithic art.” Before this, he noted, female imagery was unknown, most carvings and cave drawings being of mammoths, horses and other animals.

Sexual images in early Homo sapiens European art

Scholars say the figurine is roughly contemporaneous with other early expressions of artistic creativity, like drawings on cave walls in southeastern France and northern Italy. The inspiration and symbolism behind the rather sudden flowering have long been debated by art historians.

Commenting in the journal on the new discovery, Dr. Mellars, who did not participate in the research, wrote that the artifact was one of 25 similar carvings found over the past 70 years in other caves in the Swabian region of southern Germany — “a veritable art gallery of early ‘modern’ human art.”

These sites, he concluded, “must be seen as the birthplace of true sculpture in the European — maybe global — artistic tradition.”

The large caves were presumably inviting sanctuaries, scholars say, for populations of modern humans migrating then into central and western Europe. These were the people who eventually displaced the resident Neanderthals, around 30,000 years ago.

Dr. Conard reported that the discovery was made beneath three feet of red-brown sediment in the floor of the Hohle Fels cave. Six fragments of the carved ivory, including all but the left arm and shoulder, were recovered. When he brushed dirt off the torso, he said, “the importance of the discovery became apparent.”

The short, squat torso is dominated by oversized breasts and broad buttocks. The split between the two halves of the buttocks is deep and continuous without interruption to the front of the figurine. A greatly enlarged vulva, Dr. Conard said, emphasizes the “deliberate exaggeration” of the figurine’s sexual characteristics.

As such, the object reminded experts of the most famous of the sexually explicit figurines from the Stone Age, the Venus of Willendorf, discovered in Austria a century ago. It was somewhat larger and dated at about 24,000 years ago, but it was in a style that appeared to be prevalent for several thousand years. Scholars speculate that these Venus figurines, as they are known, were associated with fertility beliefs or shamanistic rituals.

The Hohle Fels artifact, less than 2.5 inches long and weighing little more than an ounce, is headless. Carved at the top, instead, is a ring, evidently to allow the object to be suspended from a string or thong.

Its sexual symbolism should not come as a surprise, Dr. Mellars said, because at about the same time people in western France were chipping out limestone to represent vulvas. Nor were these Stone Age artists fixated only on female sexuality. Archaeologists in recent years have also found phallic representations carved out of bone, ivory and bison horn.

Un-, Dis-, Non-, and Im-

From the New Yorker, July 25, 1994

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I’d have to make bones about it, since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn’t be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do. Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion. So I decided not to rush it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads or tails of. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings. Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. “What a perfect nomer,” I said, advertently. The conversation became more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.

Down the Amazon in Search of Ayahuasca

People dance after drinking ayahuasca in Amazonas, Brazil

By John Otis, Time Magazine

Although his parents urged him to study medicine, Jimmy Weiskopf dropped out of college and in the 1970s moved to Colombia, where he eventually began to focus on a different kind of elixir. The New York City native became an early advocate for the hallucinogenic plant mixture ayahuasca. For centuries, Amazonian Indians have been drinking ayahuasca, also known as yaje — a combination of the ayahuasca vine, tree bark and other plants — to achieve a trancelike state that they believe cleanses body and mind and enables communication with spirits. Weiskopf, who has published a 688-page tome about ayahuasca, was once among a tiny coterie of foreigners using the potion, but these days he has lots of company. (Read “Colombia’s Drug Extraditions: Are They Worth It?”)

Word of ayahuasca’s healing properties has brought a growing number of New Age tourists from the U.S. and Europe, some of whom pay thousands of dollars to stay at jungle lodges where Indian medicine men guide them through all-night ayahuasca rituals. Sting and Tori Amos have admitted sampling it in Latin America, where it is legal, as has Paul Simon, who chronicled the experience in his song “Spirit Voices.” “It heals the body and the spirit,” says Eustacio Payaguaje, 51, a Cofán Indian shaman who regularly treks to Bogotá to lead weekend ayahuasca ceremonies in the city. “It is medicine for the soul.” (Read “The Year in Medicine 2008: From A to Z.”)

But as the subtitle of Weiskopf’s 2004 book, Yaje: The New Purgatory, suggests, ayahuasca is not for the faint of heart — or stomach. Drinking a few ounces of the sludgy brown liquid usually leads to a violent purge from both ends of the body. Beat Generation novelist William Burroughs, seeking to get high on Colombian ayahuasca in the early 1960s, described hurling himself against a tree and barfing six times. At a recent ceremony on the outskirts of Bogotá, most of the 40 participants packed sleeping bags, water bottles — and rolls of toilet paper. Sting, in a Rolling Stone interview, made clear that ayahuasca is no party drug. “There’s a certain amount of dread attached to taking it,” the singer said. “You have a hallucinogenic trip that deals with death and your mortality. So it’s quite an ordeal. It’s not something you’re going to score and have a great time on.”

Although the hallucinations induced by the substance can be pleasant, some people experience nightmarish visions that last for hours. The agony, Weiskopf says, is part of the allure. “You get these near death experiences,” he says. “And once you see life from the perspective of death, you become a bit more philosophical and have a better sense of what’s important and what’s not.”

Because it contains the hallucinogenic alkaloid dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, drinking ayahuasca in the U.S. is illegal. But traditional use of the plant potion is permitted in much of South America. Its mecca is the Peruvian city of Iquitos, which hosts the annual International Amazonian Shamanism Conference and is home to about a dozen lodges that cater to curious foreigners. At first, local residents feared that a flood of stoned beatniks would turn Iquitos into an unruly rain-forest Woodstock. “I thought they’d be from the hippie graveyard, with tattoos and sunken faces,” says Gerald Mayeaux, a Houston native who runs The Yellow Rose of Texas restaurant in Iquitos. “But these are doctors and lawyers. These are professional people.”

One of the most popular lodges, Blue Morpho, is run by Hamilton Souther, a California native who moved to Peru in 2001 to learn about medicinal plants from local Indians. After receiving the title of master shaman, Souther set up Blue Morpho, a collection of charming thatch-roofed huts and nature trails with a ceremonial roundhouse where Souther offers ayahuasca sessions for a mostly U.S. crowd. As the only full-fledged gringo shaman in the Peruvian Amazon, Souther is a natural interpreter for tourists navigating the mysteries of traditional Indian culture and its sacred plants. “These are people who are interested in their own spiritual growth and development,” Souther says. “For me, it’s an expression of their courage to come all the way down to the Amazon on the hope that [ayahuasca] may be able to help them.”

Many of Souther’s guests shun alcohol and recreational drugs. Some experiment with ayahuasca to address emotional, physical or psychological problems that Western medicine has failed to alleviate. Others hope to time-travel in order to confront childhood traumas. Some even view ayahuasca as a way to kick their addiction to prescription drugs.

Although traditional-medicine practices had been waning in some Indian communities in Latin America, ayahuasca tourism has helped spark a revival, as guiding foreigners through the ceremonies can provide a decent income for shamans. The business has become so popular that at the airports in Iquitos and the Colombian Amazon city of Leticia, locals trying to drum up clients for freelance medicine men stand outside the terminals shouting “Ayahuasca! Ayahuasca!”

Outsiders, however, are advised to proceed with caution. Even among devotees, there’s a consensus that people with heart ailments, high blood pressure or mental disorders should steer clear of ayahuasca. And, Souther says, mixed with certain foods or recreational drugs like cocaine, ayahuasca can be toxic, even fatal.

Despite these provisos, Weiskopf, who says he has taken the tonic hundreds of times “with everyone from guerrillas to government ministers,” remains a passionate advocate for ayahuasca. A growing flock of travelers are heading to Latin America to explore the experience for themselves.