Stone Age Venus figurines were totems of survival, not sex, study suggests
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Megan Marples, CNN
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(CNN) A new theory about the iconic Venus figurines has suggested that the sculptures represent how climate change affected humans over 30,000 years ago.
The Venus figurines are statuettes depicting obese women that, up until now, were thought to have been associated with fertility and beauty. A recent study published in Obesity has suggested instead that the figurines are totems of survival in extreme conditions.
Unlike the challenges of global warming people face today, humans 38,000 to 14,000 years ago struggled with colder temperatures due to advancing glaciers. This made it harder for people to meet their nutritional needs, and population sizes began to dwindle, according to the study.
Fri, 12/18/2020 - 11:57am tim
The Center for Research on Vermont recently asked its members to share the titles of high impact Vermont books. The enthusiastic responses ranged from a single title to long lists. Some members simply submitted titles, while others provided extensive notes to explain why the titles are important. Some members reached back through the decades, and others offered hot-off-the-press publications.
Prudence Doherty, the Public Services Librarian at the Silver Special Collections Library at UVM stepped in to curate the list, organizing the titles into categories. The extraordinarily detailed lists from Michael Sherman, Gary Shattuck, Kevin Graffagnino and Bruce Post can be found here. Tyler Resch alerted us to The Fourteenth State, his collection of short essays on selected Vermont books.