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Erotica may date back to Stone Age

Clay image

Clay images of bulls, like this one from South America, are used to symbolise fertility and luck. But humans may have been using sexual imagery since the Stone Age (Image: iStockphoto)

German archaeologists have found what they believe is Europe's earliest known clay figure of a male, along with a female figure that they think once was attached to the male in a sexual position.

Together, the two finds could represent the earliest 3D depiction of a copulating human couple, according to the archaeological team.

Clay is difficult to date accurately, the team indicate, but markings on the objects, their style and the place in which they were found suggest the figures date to 5200 BC.

"We don't really know what function sexual representations really had in those times," says Dr Harald Stäuble, a scientist with Germany's National Office for Archaeology in Dresden, who led the excavation.

"But we know that they were colonising early farmers, and we expect that fertility rites must have had an overall importance."

The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the German archaeological journal Germania.

Stäuble and his colleagues unearthed the artefacts while excavating a site called Zschernitz, just north of Leipzig.

The team is responsible for researching sites marked for pipeline and highway projects. Zschernitz was being prepared for the installation of a gas pipeline when the remains of the ancient figures were found.

Stäuble says two fragments make up the male figurine, which he has nicknamed Adonis, since early female figurines often are called "Venus."

He says the name suits the male figure "very well, looking at the explicit representation of the male gender".

Defined anatomy

The first fragment attributed to the male shows an enlarged, erect penis and the scrotum at the front, both of which are bent slightly forward. The back of this same object shows clearly defined buttocks.

"The butt cheeks are decorated by two rows of triangular motifs, which are typical for the Linearbandkeramic culture, which is the oldest Neolithic [late Stone Age] culture in central Europe and dates between 5500 and 4900 BC," Stäuble says.

The second fragment shows part of the male's shoulder and a section of his chest. The shoulder area indicates his now-missing head must have been bent backwards.

The second figurine, which was excavated nearby one month later, would have belonged to a 25 to 28-centimetre long statuette, as for the male.

Only the buttocks, legs and knees remain, all of which suggest that it was meant to represent a female.

Markings similar to those found on the male exist on the back of the legs, and the object's position suggests the female once could have been situated directly in front of the male.

"The [female] figure is much more bent forward, almost 90°, and could not stand by itself nor be seated," says Stäuble.

He theorised that the couple could have been performing a ritual dance, but that a sexual scene was much more likely.

"There will never be a positive proof for either of the two explanations, just arguments for and against," he explains. "But first of all, the penis is erected and secondly the figurines show different angles of bending forward."

It's not erotica

Emeritus Professor Jens Lüning from the University of Frankfurt, who is an expert on prehistory, disagrees with this interpretation.

He believes Neolithic statuettes should be regarded as representing individuals, and not couples.

Most all other Neolithic figures, in fact, do clearly show separate men and women, often with exaggerated sexual characteristics, suggesting that the figures probably were related to fertility rituals.

Most of these objects were excavated in what are now Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.

Aside from the impressive age and rarity in Europe of the Zschernitz objects, Stäuble believes they are important because they "are not stylistic, but realistic".

In future, he hopes they will inspire historians and anthropologists to investigate how people in the Stone Age viewed sex. He suggests that sex in prehistoric times may not have been a taboo subject, as it is even today in many parts of the world.

Tags: archaeology