The Venus figures

 Venus figure created about 25,000 years ago from the Kostenki - Borshevo region on the Don River, north of the Black Sea.

Kostenki / Kostienki is a very important Paleolithic site on the Don River in Russia. It was a settlement which contained venus figures, dwellings made of mammoth bones, and many flint tools and bone implements. Actually it is not a single site but really an area on the right bank of the Don River in the region of the villages of Kostenki and Borshevo, consisting of more than twenty site locations, all dating to the Paleolithic.

Photo by Heritage images

From Max Dashu who has written and researched in depth about the goddess figures:

When I got to visit the Grandmother of Willendorf, on my one and only visit to Vienna. They have her in a kind of shrine, lit up in the dark, suspended in a clear kiosk. Her name is on the entrance of the chamber.

However, I contest the "Venus" naming; see my article "They Are Not Venus Figurines" https://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/notvenusfigurines.html By Max Dashu on FB

Goddess figures, most date from the Gravettian period, which succeeded the Aurignacian period, and begins approximately around 33,000 to 21,000 BP.

I like that Marija Gimbutus in her work as an anthropologist, found that early civilizations where goddess figures were found, said there were no defensive structures in these towns. She posited that the cultures didn't need them, as there were no warlike exchanges happening yet. She also thought that these civilizations were led by women, a matriarchal society.

See my earlier post about these cultures, as well as more images of goddess figures here where I talk about eco-feminism.

And this earlier post about "Why I'm an Environmentalist" demonstrates how our connection to the earth is more than just something to take for granted.

Today's quote:

Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the gun.

 -Martin Amis, novelist (1949-2023)