Stone age dildo?

[SweetWitch]

Interesting artifact. Wonder what its real purpose was.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Given the dimensions? I should think it's pretty obvious, despite the prudish academic response.

 

[TE999]

Possibly to deflower virgins in some ancient ritual to bring rain or make crops grow.

I can't see the need back then for a dildo just to bring pleasure. Folks were far from prudish. Whenever they wanted to fuck they did it in front of everybody. Such is the life of cave dwellers.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Unless the men were all off running down some caribou or something and one of the ladies felt lonely . . .

 

[TE999]

Unless the men were all off running down some caribou or something and one of the ladies felt lonely . . .

And maybe they used it on each other.

 

[Bebeslut]

Possibly to deflower virgins in some ancient ritual to bring rain or make crops grow.

I can't see the need back then for a dildo just to bring pleasure. Folks were far from prudish. Whenever they wanted to fuck they did it in front of everybody. Such is the life of cave dwellers.

That's what the characters in my stories do, too.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Tom, you really need to read Sex at Dawn. You'll love it.

 

[SweetWitch]

Deflowering virgins? I thought that was something men like to do in person.

 

[Verdad]

I’m suddenly imagining future archaeologists proclaiming everything from our era that’s longer than it’s thick, a dildo. Deodorant bottles, gardening tools…

 

[oggbashan]

I'm surprised by the statement that ancient phalluses were rare.

Phallic worship was fairly common in the times of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Christians destroyed many such artefacts and images but lots survive. Christians destroyed many representations of the ancient gods and items used in their worship. Pompeii and Herculaneum had many representations of phalluses, presumably because those towns were destroyed before Christians were in a position of power.

Og

 

[NerdGuy11]

I thought the clitoris didn't evolve till around medieval times or am I completely wrong?

 

[oggbashan]

I thought the clitoris didn't evolve till around medieval times or am I completely wrong?

It was there. Who knew it was there?

The ancient Greeks and Romans did. They tried everything.

Og

 

[R. Richard]

Ancient civilizations worried a great deal about human fertility. They created 'Venus' images and statues and also phallic symbols to 'insure' that the tribe would continue to produce a good supply of children.

The following is just guess work but I think reasonable. Take a tribe of hunter gatherers. The tribe had to be small, a large tribe of hunters would quickly wipe out the game in an area. The men hunted beasties, sometimes the beasties hunted back. If a woman involved herself with only one man, who fed the chldren when that man didn't come back from the hunt? The obvious solution is for the woman to involve herself with all of the adult men. Then the men would have a vested interest in feeding what might just be their baby. Also, it was a common practice for the hunter gatherer tribes to swap female children, to expand their gene pools. It's not too difficult to imagine a woman of one tribe fucking a man of another tribe, for the same reason. (The Polynesians did it.)

When people turned to agriculture, a problem developed. It became necessary to know who owned the farm. Thus marriage was developed to answer that question.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Ancient civilizations worried a great deal about human fertility. They created 'Venus' images and statues and also phallic symbols to 'insure' that the tribe would continue to produce a good supply of children.

The following is just guess work but I think reasonable. Take a tribe of hunter gatherers. The tribe had to be small, a large tribe of hunters would quickly wipe out the game in an area. The men hunted beasties, sometimes the beasties hunted back. If a woman involved herself with only one man, who fed the chldren when that man didn't come back from the hunt? The obvious solution is for the woman to involve herself with all of the adult men. Then the men would have a vested interest in feeding what might just be their baby. Also, it was a common practice for the hunter gatherer tribes to swap female children, to expand their gene pools. It's not too difficult to imagine a woman of one tribe fucking a man of another tribe, for the same reason. (The Polynesians did it.)

When people turned to agriculture, a problem developed. It became necessary to know who owned the farm. Thus marriage was developed to answer that question.

That is the premise of Sex at Dawn in a nutshell. Additionally, in quite a few h/g tribes the women believed that babies were constructed of bits of semen conglomerated together. So if she wanted her baby to be the 'best of the best' she would have sex with a strong hunter, a shaman (for spirituality) the guy with the best sense of humor, etc. Polyamory looks to be the natural state of humanity . . .

 

[Stella_Omega]

I’m suddenly imagining future archaeologists proclaiming everything from our era that’s longer than it’s thick, a dildo. Deodorant bottles, gardening tools…

In a pinch, yes.

I suggest rolling a rubber onto any deodorant bottles though, you don't want that stuff getting inside you... Actually, a rubber on any "pervertable" is a good idea.

 

[bronzeage]

Deflowering virgins? I thought that was something men like to do in person.

I am sure it was.

Virginity would not have any significance or value, until private property became a social concept. Property and resources were channeled through inheritance, so it was very important for a man to insure all children born in the house were truly his.

The connection between virginity, fertility and sex were probably understood for many thousands of years before property rights became an issue.

 

[Xelebes]

Deflowering virgins? I thought that was something men like to do in person.

But the women know it is a bother to keep one's hymen. Off it goes!

 

[Stella_Omega]

That is the premise of Sex at Dawn in a nutshell. Additionally, in quite a few h/g tribes the women believed that babies were constructed of bits of semen conglomerated together. So if she wanted her baby to be the 'best of the best' she would have sex with a strong hunter, a shaman (for spirituality) the guy with the best sense of humor, etc. Polyamory looks to be the natural state of humanity . . .

We know about these beliefs how?

Sorry folks, there is zero and even more zero evidence for what prehistoric people believed. We have some minimal evidence for what they did-- especially, of course, in how they treated their dead-- but we cannot extrapolate much from those treatments beyond the obvious one that they deemed treatment necessary. Sometimes. Maybe.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

We know about these beliefs how?

Sorry folks, there is zero and even more zero evidence for what prehistoric people believed. We have some minimal evidence for what they did-- especially, of course, in how they treated their dead-- but we cannot extrapolate much from those treatments beyond the obvious one that they deemed treatment necessary. Sometimes. Maybe.

We don't know what prehistoric people believed. We do know what hunter/gatherer peoples in the present day believe because anthropologists have gone and talked with them. Admittedly there are a very few societies of them left but the ones we can talk to have been very informative.

Now I know from my old anthro courses that it is not fashionable to infer from the present about the past. However, peoples like that are very conservative and their customs last for centuries, not like our current ADHK culture that has the memory of a demented ferret!

The most current interpretations of the iconography and theology of the Pleistocene caves are derived from the !Xan stories about their own cave paintings. The French are in furious disagreement, at least the older generation is, but their own interpretations are just ludicrous.

So if we see that !Kung bushmen, Amazonian Indians, Inuit (back in the day, at least), and tribes in New Guinea seem quite happy to share each other like Bonobos do, it is no great stretch of the imagination to conclude that our ancestors quite likely behaved the same way.

 

[Stella_Omega]

We don't know what prehistoric people believed. We do know what hunter/gatherer peoples in the present day believe because anthropologists have gone and talked with them. Admittedly there are a very few societies of them left but the ones we can talk to have been very informative.

Now I know from my old anthro courses that it is not fashionable to infer from the present about the past. However, peoples like that are very conservative and their customs last for centuries, not like our current ADHK culture that has the memory of a demented ferret!

The most current interpretations of the iconography and theology of the Pleistocene caves are derived from the !Xan stories about their own cave paintings. The French are in furious disagreement, at least the older generation is, but their own interpretations are just ludicrous.

So if we see that !Kung bushmen, Amazonian Indians, Inuit (back in the day, at least), and tribes in New Guinea seem quite happy to share each other like Bonobos do, it is no great stretch of the imagination to conclude that our ancestors quite likely behaved the same way.

Hmm, thanks. I would prefer to see statements like "we might extrapolate from the !kung 's stories that... " because that's more accurate, and there is plenty controversy about how accurate their stories of prehistoric times might be.

I'm on your side, you know. I want us to be more open and sharing, just as you do. But I think it's a mistake to try to form evobio arguments for the cause.. not that my thoughts will ever stem the tide!

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Ah, neatly put. I probably failed to say it that way because I've been away from High Academia for about ten years now and am desperately trying to stop using that kind of language. However, it has its place and this case is one of them. It leads to a sort of 'if A, then possibly B and if B than perhaps C . . .' kind of reasoning. This is the only real way one can speak about things so far ago and so far away--not to mention so alien in concept.

Yeah, I would love to be part of a group marriage in a big house on an organic farm where the hunting and fishing were good and there were a lot of hardwood forests . . .

I may be Lutheran theologically but I am definitely a Swedenborgian philosophically.

 

[oggbashan]

Robert Graves' Greek Myths does a scholarly take on how pre-historic societies viewed religion. He puts forwards some suggestions of how their beliefs worked from the oral traditions that were written down centuries later.

However he admits that his versions are only one interpretation.

Og

 

[xssve]

The region where the artifact was found is rich in Mesolithic sites. Most of the excavations near Sweden's Motala River have turned up large numbers of bone and wood artifacts - mainly harpoon and leister points, according to Rundkvist.

Obviously a harpoon point - for harpooning poon.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Robert Graves' Greek Myths does a scholarly take on how pre-historic societies viewed religion. He puts forwards some suggestions of how their beliefs worked from the oral traditions that were written down centuries later.

However he admits that his versions are only one interpretation.

Og

which admission is rare unto extinction in the academic world of today.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

which admission is rare unto extinction in the academic world of today.

Sigh! Only too true! I blame Noam Chomsky . . . mostly because it's so easy to blame Noam Chomsky . . . for whatever you want!