ly have in the previous chapter, som art in v and objects were created and used for the purpose of securing food avc painting claborate masks. wood carvings. and ceranni culptures helped the hunter-gatherer and larmer to ensure an abundant food supply Likewise, art and art objects have func tioned similarly to ensure human reproducrion, again with sympathetic mag invoked through arr objects FERTILITY GODDESSES AND GO US Some of the earliest arriac s chought to rclare uo human fercil ity come from the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods of history some were small sculptures of feniale fgures. depicted as abun dantiy fleshy and swollen, wit h their bellies. breasts. and thigh accentuated. They are called Herti or Moder Godd suggesting char ulicy ww part of a lert itual and le Venus of Willendorf(Figure 8. is a well-rounded abstracted female figure, only four inches high, carved tron found, egg-shaped piece of limestone. The ancient artist-carver nay have believed that the power of fertility was alieady con- rained in the natural egg-shape of the soone even before it was carved. Its shape, along with the narural indentation that betame che navel, may have been che reason the aris: chose it. The figure was discovered near a hearth ar an excavation site near the town of Willendorf, Austria, in 1908. The small, Pai oli hio sculpture was considered part of the Grave(uian culture dating approximately berween 30,000 and 18,000 BCE. The name"Venus" was given arbitrarily ro the female figurines by the archaeologists who found them