Venus of Hohle Fels: earliest depiction of the human body
- Date
- c. 42,000–40,000 years ago
- Category
- Culture, arts & philosophy
- Region
- Central Europe (Germany, Swabian Jura)
- Era
- Prehistory
- Significance
Excavated in 2008 from the Hohle Fels cave near Schelklingen in southwestern Germany, this 6-cm female figurine carved from mammoth ivory is the oldest undisputed depiction of a human being and one of the oldest figurative artworks in the world.
Recovered from the basal Aurignacian, it is dated to roughly 40,000-42,000 years ago. In place of a head it has a carved loop, suggesting it was worn as a pendant. With its exaggerated breasts, belly and vulva, it anticipates by thousands of years the later tradition of so-called 'Venus' figurines found across Ice Age Europe, and it indicates that conventions for representing the female body were established at the very start of the Upper Paleolithic. The figure was found in the same cave layers that yielded the world's earliest musical instruments, marking the Swabian Jura as a remarkable early centre of symbolic and artistic innovation by Homo sapiens in Europe.
One piece of history in your inbox, weekly
New empires, events and features as they land — one good email a week. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Related culture, arts & philosophy events
- Earliest musical instruments: Ice Age bone flutesc. 43,000–40,000 years ago
- Behavioural modernity and major Out-of-Africa dispersalc. 70,000–50,000 years ago
- Göbekli Tepe – monumental architecture by hunter-gatherersc. 9,600–8,000 BCE
- Upper Paleolithic art and symbolic explosionc. 40,000+ years ago
- World's earliest figurative and narrative cave art on Sulawesic. 51,000 – 45,500 years ago
- Chauvet Cave: early masterworks of figurative cave artc. 36,500 years ago
Further reading
The wider story
The Story of Art
The best-selling art history ever written, from cave paintings to the modern age.
Get it on Amazon →As an Amazon Associate, Human Saga earns from qualifying purchases.