Food fads and fashions

Body size and glaciation

So-called ‘Venus’ figurines are among the earliest examples of prehistoric art, and not the least remarkable aspect of these representations of the female body is the longevity of this form of figurative carving. Some 200 examples have been found in various parts of Europe and Asia. The oldest to date is the 35,000- to 40,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels, carved from a 60mm length of mammoth tusk and found as recently as 2008 in a cave near Schelklingen, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The most recent dates back to a mere 11,000 years ago: the Venus of Monruz, carved from jet, was found in 1991 during road construction work near Monruz in the Swiss municipality of Neuchâtel.

Writing in the journal Obesity in December 2020, Dr Richard Johnson, of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, has come up with a new theory to explain the purpose of these figurines. He and his colleagues argue that the figurines are a response to climate change and diet, and are designed to promote fecundity.

Dr Johnson and his co-authors – Professor John Fox of the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and Associate Professor of Medicine Miguel Lanaspa-Garcia of the University of Colorado School of Medicine – looked at a number of factors. They examined the distribution of the figurines and their dates, and measured the carvings themselves to calculate the degree of obesity: based on waist-to-hip and waist-to-shoulder ratio. They concluded that the most obese examples were found closest to known glaciers and ice sheets, and that the numbers of such figurines increase ‘in times of extreme nutritional stress when falling temperatures led to regional extinctions and a reduction in the population’.