Flora Unveiled

24 i Flora Unveiled

reproduction.^32 Assuming the reindeer is male, the association with the pregnant woman
may imply some understanding of the role of the male in childbirth.
If copulation images are rare and difficult to interpret, representations of childbirth
are even more so. Alexander Marshack described one stone with a possible birth scene
inscribed on it, but in the absence of any other plausible scenes of childbirth from the Upper
Paleolithic it remains doubtful at best.^33

AB

Figure 2.7 Tracing by Spanish archaeologist Aguilo Cabré of an image scratched on the wall of
the cave of Los Casares.
From Angulo Cuesta, J., and M. Garcia Diez (2005), Sexo en Piedra. Sexualidad, Reproducción y Erotismo en
Época Paleolítica.

Figure 2.8 Middle Magdalenian engraved bone from Laugerie Basse (Dordogne) apparently
showing the hindquarters of a male reindeer over a pregnant woman.
From Marshack, A. (1991), The Roots of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man's First Art, Symbol and Notation.
McGraw- Hill, figure 189, p. 320. Original from Piette, E. (1907), L’Art Pendant L’Age du Renne, Masson et Cie.