The 30,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf was probably made from northern Italian rock. According to a German-Austrian research team, this material or the figure itself was brought across the Alps to the later site in Austria. The rock features are almost identical to rock found near Lake Garda. This could indicate an enormous mobility of the people of that time, write the researchers in the journal Scientific Reports.
The Venus of Willendorf is an eleven centimeter tall statuette. The adult, faceless woman has an exaggerated female figure, with strong hips, large breasts and a wide buttocks. Hair or a hat is depicted on the head. It is considered one of the most important testimonies of early art in Europe. The figurine was found in 1908 during excavations in Lower Austria.
Based on the find layer, the figurine was dated to be around 30,000 years old; it therefore belongs to the Gravettian culture. It was made of oolite, also called egg stone. It is a sedimentary rock made up of millions of small globules called ooides. Tiny fragments of mussel shells are also often found inside oolite.
“If the climate or the prey situation changed, they moved on.”
Under the direction of scientists from the University of Vienna and the Natural History Museum in Vienna, the researchers examined the figure using a micro-computer tomograph. This technique makes it possible to display the inner structures of the rock with a very high spatial resolution of up to 11.5 micrometers and to determine the grain size, for example. The researchers then compared the results with rock samples from other regions of Europe, some of which were also X-rayed, some sawed up and examined under the microscope.
The evaluation showed that the rock from the Venus von Willendorf can hardly be distinguished from samples from a location in northern Italy near Lake Garda. While they couldn’t pinpoint Sega di Ala as the place of origin with absolute certainty, the researchers write that the similarities make it very likely. It is also possible that the rock came from the Donets Basin in Ukraine. The similarities are a little less, but very similar female figures are known from Ukraine and Russia.
If the researchers are correct in their assumption of Italy as the place of origin, the Venus or the rock from which it was made must have been brought across the Alps. “People in the Gravettian – the tool culture of the time – looked for and lived in favorable locations,” explains anthropologist Gerhard Weber in a statement from the University of Vienna. “If the climate or the prey situation has changed, they have moved on, preferably along rivers.” It could have taken years or even generations.
The researchers cannot say exactly how the figure or material came from Italy to Lower Austria. Routes are conceivable either over the Alps or along the mountains in an easterly direction.
The investigation could possibly also clarify the previously unanswered question of whether the figure’s navel was intentionally made or whether the indentation was formed naturally. During their investigations, the researchers found several comparatively dense and large grains, so-called limonite. “The hard limonites probably broke out when the creator of Venus was carving,” says Weber. “In the case of the Venus navel, he apparently made a virtue out of necessity.”