Archaeology Today has the news – heartwrenching to Austrians, joyous to Italians – that one of the world’s most famous figurines, the round-bodied Venus of Willendorf, was actually carved of rock from northern Italy. Specifically, she seems to made from oolitic limestone (that is, the remains of primordial coral reefs) from around Lake Garda in the Dolomite Mountains. So now, they’re trying to figure out how the zaftig little lady traveled halfway across Europe 30,000 years ago:
Anthropologist Gerhard Weber of the University of Vienna, geologists Alexander Lukeneder and Mathias Harzhauser, and prehistorian Walpurga Antl-Weiser of the Natural History Museum Vienna employed micro-computed tomography to examine the interior structure of the figurine. The study revealed sediments in different densities and sizes, remnants of shells, and large grains called limonites. Cavities on the surface of the figurine probably appeared when hard limonites broke away during carving, Weber explained. One of the limonites became the navel of the Venus, he added. One of the shell fragments in the figurine was dated to the Jurassic period, which helped the researchers narrow the possible source of the limestone.
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Weber suggests the figurine crossed the Alps over a long period as people traveled along rivers in search of prey and suitable climate.
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You can read more of the Venus research here, in Scientific Reports.