20 i Flora Unveiled
Shuttle Diplomacy: Venus at the LoomArcheologists had long noted that Venus figurines may be either nude or partially clothed.
Partially clothed examples are adorned with incised caps, snoods (a type of hair- net), belts,
string skirts, bandeaux,^25 fillets or hair- bands, and jewelry (Figure 2.4A– D). The incised
parallel lines on the Venus of Hohle Fels, for example, could represent a ceremonial apron.
Archaeologists had long assumed that such articles of clothing were made of animal furs
and hides, but Olga Soffer and her colleagues demonstrated that they were actually made
of plant- based textiles. Because no actual woven material from the Ice Age has survived,
this important Paleolithic industry was completely unknown to archeologists until Soffer’s
important discovery. Small clay fragments bearing crude impressions of rope, textiles, and
basketry provided the clues that led to the breakthrough. Some of the clay fragments had
been fired, some unfired, and the impressions seemed to have been produced accidentally.
Only thirty- six of them, each less than 2 cm in diameter, have now been found at Paleolithic
sites throughout Europe, from France to Russia.^26
Fortunately, there was sufficient detail preserved in the clay impressions to enable
Soffer and her team to determine that the textiles were made of plant fibers rather than
wool or hair. They all dated to around 29,000 to 23,000 years ago, during the Aurignacian
and Gravettian periods. Their appearance in the Aurignacian and Gravettian periods
Figure 2.3 The Venus of Hohle Fels.
From Conard, N. J. (2009), Female figurine from the basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels cave in Southwestern
Germany. Nature 459:248– 252, figure 1.