Sunday, 11th March, 2007
New Scientist: Curves were best for Stone Age women
Stone Age men would not have been impressed by size zero women. Female figurines dating back 15,000 years reveal that the preferred body shape for women was curvy with prominent buttocks.
You reckon?
… All of the figurines were headless and had hugely exaggerated buttocks. Perhaps strangely, given their allure today, few of the figures had breasts.
So, presumably, Stone Age men also preferred their women without heads and breasts.
… However, the figurines may have expressed more than just men's desires. "It is hard to say if this body shape was a social preference or if it represented a spiritual image," says Nanneke Redclift, a social anthropologist at University College London.
In other words, they haven't a baldy clue why these figurines were shaped in the way that they were. But congratulations to these social anthropologists for getting some press coverage by writing about buttocks.
Me? I suspect Stone Age man just wasn't very good at sculpture.