Prehistoric Obesity?

[Michael]

Old and Fat - Were there obese people 35,000 years ago?

Researchers say a "Venus" figurine discovered in 2008 in southern Germany and created an estimated 35,000 years ago may be the oldest statue ever found. Its sexually suggestive figure— large breasts, large rear end—is said to connote fertility. But it also looks extremely fat. Were there obese people in prehistoric times?

Article-Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2218400/)

I'm not sure what to make of this. On the one hand, the question is I suppose an interesting one, but at the same time, does anyone think an old statue of Shiva (for example) means that women used to have 6 or 8 arms?

I think that in a culture where survival is a premium and draught/famine is a major threat (as one might speculate about 35,000 years ago), then there obviously would be some kind of 'mythical' meaning to fatness (as an extreme luxury outside of normal human lifestyles). On this basis, I don't see any need to postulate any common status of 'obesity' amongst humans 35,000 years ago.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this issue?

[andrewl]

Article-Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2218400/)

I'm not sure what to make of this. On the one hand, the question is I suppose an interesting one, but at the same time, does anyone think an old statue of Shiva (for example) means that women used to have 6 or 8 arms?

I think that in a culture where survival is a premium and draught/famine is a major threat (as one might speculate about 35,000 years ago), then there obviously would be some kind of 'mythical' meaning to fatness (as an extreme luxury outside of normal human lifestyles). On this basis, I don't see any need to postulate any common status of 'obesity' amongst humans 35,000 years ago.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this issue?

I'm kinda thinking that if obesity was common 35K years ago, the statue would be skinny.

I do disagree with the speculation that drought & famine were a common threat 35 000 years ago in southern germany though. They would not have been covered in ice at that time, and they most likely would have had adequate and reliable food to gather and hunt.

I think it likely that people were not fat because they were active and had a healthy diet. This fat figurine must be something unique, a child's attempt at carving a curvaceous female, or an exaggeration of the pregnant female.... it looks rather crude when compared to similar figurines from other regions...

Andrew

[Margot]

Article-Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2218400/)

I'm not sure what to make of this. On the one hand, the question is I suppose an interesting one, but at the same time, does anyone think an old statue of Shiva (for example) means that women used to have 6 or 8 arms?

I think that in a culture where survival is a premium and draught/famine is a major threat (as one might speculate about 35,000 years ago), then there obviously would be some kind of 'mythical' meaning to fatness (as an extreme luxury outside of normal human lifestyles). On this basis, I don't see any need to postulate any common status of 'obesity' amongst humans 35,000 years ago.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this issue?

Wasn't it the hawaiians who massaged the stomach of their queen to help her eat more to help her get fatter to make her more attractive? I think I read that in Mitchener's Hawaii.

Maybe this is hunk of ancient love particular to one particular group. Then again, my understanding of prehistoric peoples comes almost exclusively from Jean M. Auel and her randy cave-people, and I quit reading after the second book.

[Dominick]

Then again, my understanding of prehistoric peoples comes almost exclusively from Jean M. Auel and her randy cave-people, and I quit reading after the second book.
Then you missed the most obese of them all, i.e. Zelandonii of the Ninth Cave.

[Greendruid]

I once read an article back during my MA that proposed, from an artistic perspective, that the many, many, many "venus" figurines, as they're widely known, may have been teaching tools for girls about what pregnancy does to the body. The author was actually an art historian and photographer and took photos of a few of the figurines from the perspective of the head of the figurine of the rest of its body and then took the same shots from the perspective of the head of a pregnant woman of her own body. The similarities were striking. I'll have to try to dig that article up if I can. Then again, Ralph Rowlett, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri insists that these are "prehistoric playboys" :rofl: He's a bit of an excentric fellow himself.

[Margot]

Not that it matters, but I want to acknowledge that "Maybe this is hunk of ancient love particular to one particular group." makes absolutely no sense. I was aiming at the idea that there may have been one particular fat-worshiping cult out there. Whatever. It's not funny when it's retarded.

[Sucre]

I once read an article back during my MA that proposed, from an artistic perspective, that the many, many, many "venus" figurines, as they're widely known, may have been teaching tools for girls about what pregnancy does to the body. The author was actually an art historian and photographer and took photos of a few of the figurines from the perspective of the head of the figurine of the rest of its body and then took the same shots from the perspective of the head of a pregnant woman of her own body. The similarities were striking. I'll have to try to dig that article up if I can. Then again, Ralph Rowlett, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri insists that these are "prehistoric playboys" :rofl: He's a bit of an excentric fellow himself.
Quite right. These could be just pregnant women.

Obesity was certainly uncommon in pre-historic times. It could be worshipped as it was the exception.

I always found these statutes very beautiful.

[Michael]

Yes, pregnancy is also a good rational source for 'mystic veneration' of human fatness.

It would make sense for humans to 'imagine' the creator of the world to be represented in the form of a giant pregnant woman giving birth to the world.

[Greendruid]

Not that it matters, but I want to acknowledge that "Maybe this is hunk of ancient love particular to one particular group." makes absolutely no sense. I was aiming at the idea that there may have been one particular fat-worshiping cult out there. Whatever. It's not funny when it's retarded.

Unfortunately, there are thousands of similar figurines as this (though none as old as the one cited in the OP) that are spread across Europe, into Eurasia and sporadically throughout Africa. These cannot be attributed to one group over a span of 20,000 years.

This very incomplete Wiki link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines) gives a few of the more famous examples from Europe and Eurasia.

I think the figurines make sense in the context of exactly the sort of thing Michael is alluding to. This is good evidence that early religions in these parts of the world venerated pregnancy and drew analogies to pregnancy/fecundity/productivity in the plants of the earth that they gathered and the animals that they hunted.

[Sucre]

What about the worship of the Great Goddess in matriarchal times and the myth of Lilly ?

Thinking about it twice, the explanation of these beautiful little statutes being nothing more than teaching tools for girls about pregnancy strikes me as very male chauvinistic, if you may excuse the expression.

Not a Godess, but a mere tool for school and for girls to teach them the only area in which men will never be able to compete ...

[Donkey]

I'm pretty skeptical that the average member of any prehistoric hunter gatherer society (or early low-tech agrarian society for that matter) could afford the luxury of obesity. I would suspect, perhaps, that obesity induced by over eating and lack of exercise (rather than pregnancy) would be indicative of wealth or power: that is, not having to bust ass to get your calories.

[Dominick]

I'm pretty skeptical that the average member of any prehistoric hunter gatherer society (or early low-tech agrarian society for that matter) could afford the luxury of obesity. I would suspect, perhaps, that obesity induced by over eating and lack of exercise (rather than pregnancy) would be indicative of wealth or power: that is, not having to bust ass to get your calories.
If/when there were elites it's quite possible obesity would become a status symbol in the same way being extremely pale was in the pre-industrial age (indicating you didn't have to work in the field and therefore didn't get a suntan) or alternatively having a suntan in the industrial age where it indicated that you could afford to travel to sunnier places than the factory was.
Obesity would than have meant that you didn't need to hunt, gather or forage and that you could afford to live off the work of others.

[Greendruid]

What about the worship of the Great Goddess in matriarchal times and the myth of Lilly ?

Thinking about it twice, the explanation of these beautiful little statutes being nothing more than teaching tools for girls about pregnancy strikes me as very male chauvinistic, if you may excuse the expression.

Not a Godess, but a mere tool for school and for girls to teach them the only area in which men will never be able to compete ...

There is no evidence of the existence of these matriarchal times you speak of, nor the Great Goddess. These are re-constructions as much as the suggestion that the statues are teaching tools. You could equally claim that the veneration of the statues as goddesses is sexist as well.

I don't see how the suggestion that these were tools rather than goddess figurines makes the suggestion offensive in this manner but, I am male. They could equally be both - there is no need to make them mutually exclusive of each other. However, the distance that these statues have been found at and the many thousands of years apart that they existed makes it impossible for them to all belong to the same cultural complex. Not even the most intact Empires that have existed have lasted that long nor have they produced consistent ideologies over their vast landscapes. The Roman Empire was only such in name when it came to the cultural practices of the local populace in the British Isles compared to those in Romania, for example.

[Michael]

I'm pretty skeptical that the average member of any prehistoric hunter gatherer society (or early low-tech agrarian society for that matter) could afford the luxury of obesity. I would suspect, perhaps, that obesity induced by over eating and lack of exercise (rather than pregnancy) would be indicative of wealth or power: that is, not having to bust ass to get your calories.
Between this and the observation that 'fatness' produces children in women, it doesn't surprise me at all to find that prehistoric human socieites may have attributed some mystical-religious properties to 'fatness'. It would be very rational and logical from a 'prehistoric' perspective.

[Sucre]

There is no evidence of the existence of these matriarchal times you speak of, nor the Great Goddess. These are re-constructions as much as the suggestion that the statues are teaching tools. You could equally claim that the veneration of the statues as goddesses is sexist as well.
I perfectly agree. Actually, I read for the first time about it in a book from an author I like a lot, Paule Salomon, who writes about receonciling the feminine and the masculine part in us, but her descriptions sound like reconstructions and I have never been too sure about the historic reality.

I don't see how the suggestion that these were tools rather than goddess figurines makes the suggestion offensive in this manner but, I am male.
Because it is a reduction. These statutes are artful objects, they could be used for sacred rites, they could be just art --- but just a tool for teaching ?

[Michael]

Because it is a reduction. These statutes are artful objects, they could be used for sacred rites, they could be just art --- but just a tool for teaching ?

I'm inclined to agree with Sucre here. Objects of manufactured beauty strongly suggest a sacred/mystic role, rather than a mundane one.

Besides, why would one need to teach young girls about pregnancy with a doll when a real live pregnant woman would probably be available anyway? :ummm:

[Margot]

I don't think it's cool to ban burkas on the grounds that it's humiliating women, cause, like, what if said woman actually wants to wear one?

I do, however, support a ban on burkas.

[Margot]

I don't think it's cool to ban burkas on the grounds that it's humiliating women, cause, like, what if said woman actually wants to wear one?

I do, however, support a ban on burkas.

Holy crap I wasn't paying attention at all. this is SO not the thread I was aiming for.

[SMadsen]

Holy crap I wasn't paying attention at all. this is SO not the thread I was aiming for.
Hehe .. well, obesity and fully covering garments may have a common denominator in certain kinds of perspectives :)

[Lily]

Between this and the observation that 'fatness' produces children in women, it doesn't surprise me at all to find that prehistoric human socieites may have attributed some mystical-religious properties to 'fatness'. It would be very rational and logical from a 'prehistoric' perspective.

I think I'm of the fat equals fertility school of thought on this one. It seems to me that practical matters might usurp the aesthic and/or mystical, although at some point the two may have become inexorably intertwined.

[Michael]

Hehe .. well, obesity and fully covering garments may have a common denominator in certain kinds of perspectives :)
Indeed! If anyone is going to go around legislating dress codes, full body covering for obese people is probably a good place to start. :D

(I just saw Borat the other day - and there is a scene where they show a very short, fat and hairy man naked and running around - it was very comical and impossible to get rid of that ugly image - as they say at 4Chan - one can't "unsee" something!)