The Venus of Berekhat Ram (280,000-250,000 BP) is a pebble found at Berekhat Ram on the

Golan Heights The Golan Heights ( ar, هَضْبَةُ الْجَوْلَانِ, Haḍbatu l-Jawlān or ; he, רמת הגולן, ), or simply the Golan, is a region in the Levant spanning about . The region defined as the Golan Heights differs between di ...

. The pebble was modified by early humans and is suggested to represent a female human figure.

Description

The object was excavated and first described by

Naama Goren-Inbar Naama Goren-Inbar (born July 20, 1948) is an Israeli archaeologist and paleoanthropologist and Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Goren-Inbar excavated many important prehistoric sites in Israel ...

from the Institute of Archaeology,

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

. The artifact is a

scoria Scoria is a pyroclastic, highly vesicular, dark-colored volcanic rock that was ejected from a volcano as a molten blob and cooled in the air to form discrete grains or clasts.Neuendorf, K.K.E., J.P. Mehl, Jr., and J.A. Jackson, eds. (2005) '' ...

pebble, 35 mm long, 25 mm wide, and 21 mm thick. It weighs approximately 10 g. It was excavated in 1981 at the

Acheulian Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated ...

site of Berekhat Ram,

. The object is dated 280,000-250,000 BP. Goren-Inbar reported several artificial grooves on the object: one is a transversal groove in the upper third, others are longitudinal grooves on the sides below the traversal groove. Alexander Marshack performed a microscopic study of the object in 1997. He also reported artificial modifications including the transversal and longitudinal grooves found by Goren-Inbar. Finally,

Francesco d'Errico Francesco d'Errico (born 24 September 1957 in Foggia, Italy) is an archaeologist who works as CNRS Director of Research at the University of Bordeaux in France and Professor at the Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour, University of Bergen. In 20 ...

and April Nowell re-examined the object using a comparative approach. They partly confirmed, partly corrected the findings of Marshack. d'Errico and Nowell also reported the above grooves (with some corrections) and, additionally, reported areas of possible abrasion on the front, back and bottom of the object.

Interpretation

Goren-Inbar and Marshack suggested that the object resembled a

female body Female body shape or female figure is the cumulative product of a woman's skeletal structure and the quantity and distribution of muscle and fat on the body. There is a wide range of normality of female body shapes. Female figures are typicall ...

and was artificially modified by

hominids The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ...

to emphasize its anthropomorphic features. The object was then called a

figurine A figurine (a diminutive form of the word ''figure'') or statuette is a small, three-dimensional sculpture that represents a human, deity or animal, or, in practice, a pair or small group of them. Figurines have been made in many media, with clay ...

and is currently known as the Venus of Berekhat Ram (the term "Venus" was taken from the conventional name of much younger

Venus figurines A Venus figurine is any Upper Palaeolithic statuette portraying a woman, usually carved in the round.Fagan, Brian M., Beck, Charlotte, "Venus Figurines", ''The Oxford Companion to Archaeology'', 1996, Oxford University Press, pp. 740–741 Most ...

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coin ...

). If this hypothesis is correct, the object would be the earliest example of representational art in the archaeological record, together with the

Venus of Tan-Tan The Venus of Tan-Tan (supposedly, 500,000-300,000 BP) is an alleged artifact found in Morocco. It and its contemporary, the Venus of Berekhat Ram, have been claimed as the earliest representations of the human form. Description The Venus of T ...

. d'Errico and Nowell confirmed the artificial nature of modifications of the object, but refrained from identifying it with a human body. They noted that grooves, in general, may have a functional purpose. Still, they stated that the longitudinal symmetrical U-shaped grooves (supposedly representing the "arms") are hard to explain functionally. So, similarly to Goren-Inbar and Marshack, d'Errico and Nowell argued in favor of the non-utilitarian and symbolic nature of the object.

Controversy

The main discussion around the Venus of Berekhat Ram took place after the study of d'Errico and Nowell. A number of scholars, namely,

Ofer Bar-Yosef Ofer Bar-Yosef ( he, עופר בר-יוסף; 29 August 1937 – 14 March 2020) was an Israeli archaeologist and anthropologist whose main field of study was the Palaeolithic period. From 1967 Bar-Yosef was Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at ...

, Angela E. Close, João Zilhão,

Steven Mithen Steven Mithen, (born 16 October 1960) is a Professor of Archaeology at the University of Reading. He has written a number of books, including ''The Singing Neanderthals'' and ''The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion ...

, Thomas G. Wynn, and Alexander Marshack, commented on that study, while d'Errico and Nowell provided a reply to these comments (both the comments and reply are included in the manuscript). The discussion around the Venus of Berekhat Ram concerned three questions: # Whether the scratched marks were made by humans or hominids at all. # If they were, whether they had non-utilitarian/symbolic intent. # If they did, whether they were intended to represent a female figure.

Anthropogenic origin

All commentators of d'Errico and Nowell's study were convinced by their analysis and results and accepted the hypothesis that the object was modified by early humans. Marshack argued in favor of this hypothesis already in his earlier study of the object.

Symbolic vs. utilitarian

d'Errico and Nowell's argument that the "arm"-shaped grooves suggest a symbolic nature of the object was questioned by three commentators: João Zilhão from the Instituto Português de Arqueologia, Thomas Wynn from the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...

, and Steven Mithen from the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

. All of them suggested that the object and its grooves could have a utilitarian purpose. Zilhão hypothesized that the object could be used to produce

pigment A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compou ...

and that the grooves could be byproducts of this process. Wynn suggested that the object could be a result of "someone passing time with a stone tool and a pebble". Mithen also stated that our symbolic understanding of the object does not imply that it was considered as such by early humans who produced it, because the cognitive processes for symbolic thinking we use today may differ from the ones used by early humans. d'Errico and Nowell argued, however, that, although their analysis and results cannot refute a functional interpretation of the object, there are too many inconsistencies in this interpretation to investigate it any further. For example, d'Errico and Nowell suggested that, based on the existing

Acheulean Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated ...

archaeological record, pigment "would have been more quickly and effectively produced by grinding one face of this object against a

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...

flake or smashing it with a similar tool", which is different from the process used to create the observed grooves. This contradicts the hypothesis of Zilhão. d'Errico and Nowell also believe that the grooves on the object are the result of a deliberate motion rather than of non-purposive behavior, as suggested by Wynn.

Representational nature

Zilhão, Wynn, and Mithen rejected the hypothesis on the symbolic nature of the object and, thus, rejected the idea that the object is iconic. Angela E. Close from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

also could not see a figurine of a woman in the object, but, instead, the object reminded her of a

penguin Penguins (order Sphenisciformes , family Spheniscidae ) are a group of aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adap ...

and a

phallus A phallus is a penis (especially when erect), an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history a figure with an erect penis is described as ithyphallic. Any object that symbolically—or, more precise ...

when seen from different angles.

References

External links

Don Hitchcock (Don's Maps): "The Berekhat Ram Venus"Rock Art Network (Bradshaw Foundation): "Berekhat Ram"
{{Venus figurines Archaeological artifacts Berekhat Ram Paleolithic Acheulean Works of unknown authorship 1981 archaeological discoveries Golan Heights