ORIGINAL

 

Diversity and meaning of Palaeolithic phallic male representations in Western Europe

 

J. Angulo Cuesta*, M. García Diez**

 

*Department of Urology. Getafe University Hospital. **Department of Geography, Prehistory, and Archaeology. Basque Country University. Vitoria. Spain

 

Actas Urol Esp 2006; 30 (3): 254-267

 

ABSTRACT

DIVERSITY AND MEANING OF PALAEOLITHIC PHALLIC MALE REPRESENTATIONS IN WESTERN EUROPE

There is scant archaeological evidence showing how our ancestors of the Upper Palaeolithic period (38,000-8,500 BC) understood sexuality. Great significance has traditionally been given to the ethnographic information related to sexuality and relationships between the sexes on the basis of comparisons with current primitive people, assessed from the sociological and anthropological, rather than biological, viewpoints.

Prehistoric art, in its dual parietal and portable representations, reflects the behaviour of Palaeolithic groups. The purpose of this text is to infer from phallic male images the types of representations and sexual attitudes in the Upper Palaeolithic period.

Foreskin retraction practices, some possibly circumcised phalli, copulative acts, onanistic gestures, instruments possibly used for masturbation, and other scenes of a sexual nature, some of them difficult to interpret, show that the sexual behaviour of people in the Upper Palaeolithic period was biologically and physiologically similar to our behaviour.

Key words: Phallic male representations. Sexual behaviour. Parietal and portable art. Upper Palaeolithic. Prehistory. Western Europe.

 

 

Exploring the origins of sexual behaviour is not simple. If we do not have today a precise knowledge of the sexual behaviour of our fellow men due to cultural and religious factors and to our own prejudices, we will find even greater limitations for knowing the sexual attitudes of past societies that did not have a communication system such as writing. Reconstruction of prehistoric times involves many problems. Bones, stones, paintings, and pendants are some of the documents available today to achieve an understanding of human behaviour at the dawn of mankind.

From the first hominid to our species, Homo sapiens, sexual behaviour has undoubtedly changed. To simplify, it could be said that humans went from an animal behaviour to a distinctively human behaviour in which factors other than reproduction would also come into play, such as eroticism, pleasure, beauty, love, possession, sensuality, and so forth. The transition from the physiological animal process involved in courting for mating and the copulative ritual to the complex signs of the human sexual sphere that represent love, understood as a physical and psychological process, required a whole evolutionary process that could be called sexual hominization. We will never know for sure when that change occurred, when the sexual call turned into eroticism and the reproductive act became a sociological phenomenon.

There is a basic tool to understand the mechanisms of human behaviour in the Palaeolithic both as regards external appearance and behaviour. Evidence providing greater information in this regard includes carvings, paintings, and drawings from the Upper Palaeolithic period found in caves, shelters, and outdoor rocks1-4.

 

CULTURAL SETTING IN WHICH PHALLIC IMAGES WERE MADE

Homo sapiens is known to have been living in Africa some 200,000 years ago5-7. He apparently left that continent some 100,000 years ago, but his most important expansion occurred some 40,000 years ago, when he colonized the whole of Europe. This temporal and cultural stage is known as the Upper Palaeolithic period (38,000 to 8,500 BC) 8-10.

Modern behaviour is considered to be already present in Homo neanderthalensis, but its generalization in social terms occurred with Homo sapiens. Elements defined as modern include the development of a laminar carving technology, intensive work of organic matter, generalization of body adornments, artistic feeling, and burials, structuring of the habitat, planned use of resources, and intensification of long-distance relations.

As regards stone work, supports emerged to extract narrow and long sheets, making a better use of raw materials and achieving sharp and long edges. Tools became more diverse and standardised. A range of types emerged for specific purposes such as cutting meat, grinding bones or working wood. Borers, scrapers, sanders, denticulate edges, scourers, points and knives all formed part of the equipment. Bone and antler work was one of the main activities. New techniques emerged, such as polishing and abrasion. The stock of instruments for hunting, fishing and leatherworking further included javelins – used as throwing weapons – harpoons and fishhooks, and punching pins, spatulas, needles, and so forth.

The 30,000 years of the European Upper Palaeolithic are classified on the basis of instruments. The initial stretch (38,000-18,000 BC) encompasses the Chatelperronian, Aurignacian and Gravettian industries. The middle stretch of 2,000 years saw the emergence of the Solutrean industry. In the final stretch – up to 8,500 BC – there developed the Magdalenian culture, characterised by a pronounced diversification of industrial types and major artistic and symbolic activities. Scholarship has brought to light regional and supraregional cultural realities.

Body adornment played an important social role. Perforated conch shells and animal teeth have been found everywhere in Europe. In addition to their purely decorative purpose, these supports were used as items of social distinction and differentiation. There also developed a sentiment surrounding death, as shown by the individual and group burial sites known to us. Inhumations were simple: the body was deposited face up or bent double in a trench that had normally not been specially conditioned. The most novel feature was the spread of funeral rites, using adornments, stone and bone instruments, and ochre.

Living spaces became structured, but the most salient innovation was the building of huts – these constructions have been found in places where there were no caves or other shelter afforded by the natural relief.

The food base comprised animal meat and river and vegetable resources. Forage resources, like fruit and roots, must have been important. That the rivers were fished is shown by remains of fish and of instruments like harpoons and fishhooks. The meat of large herbivores (goat, deer, horse and bison) was a basic constituent of nutrition. The formerly indiscriminate and opportunistic hunting specialised and diversified from the beginnings of the Magdalenian culture, with prey being chosen by age and sex.

The hunter-gatherer-fisher groups of the Upper Palaeolithic remained nomadic, but their occupations began to intensify and their migratory shifts lessened. Settlements appear to have been medium- to long-term and seasonal, depending on the amount of food resources. Long-distance exchanges and mobility have also been documented. At some archaeological sites, flints have appeared from several kilometres away. Pendants have been retrieved that are similar to objects found at sites 100, 200 or even 500 kilometres distant. All the evidence suggests that relations existed among very distant groups who shared common cultural traits. Some scholars have inferred from these similarities the existence of systems of exchange.

One of the most distinctive creations of the Upper Palaeolithic is the emergence of a symbolic imaginary of artistic representations that encompass an aesthetic and the need to convey concepts11-14. A distinction is drawn between works on the wall of a cave, rock shelter or open-air rock (parietal or cave art) and movable works (portable art). Portable art is further classified by material (organic or inorganic) and support type (precarious or durable). Portable art also include sculpted figures and innumerable sets of decorated stone plates.

Palaeolithic art has a limited range of technical resources. Drawing, painting and engraving were the techniques of parietal art, while engraving was the main technique of portable art. Parietal bas relief and sculpture are also in evidence.

Subjects ranged from figurative groups of animal and human forms (references to landscape being virtually none) to abstract themes of linear and geometric motifs, called ‘ideomorphs’ or ‘signs’. Ideomorphs encompassed a wide variety of linear and geometric structures, such as claviforms (keys), scutiforms (shields), laciforms (bows, knots), tectiforms (huts), vulvas (female sexual organs), meandriforms (meanders), arboriforms (trees), and more. Although Palaeolithic humans must have been familiar with very diverse wildlife, large animals predominate in their art: horses, bison, the aurochs (an ancient bull or cow), deer, goats, mammoths, reindeer, bears, great elks, lions, rhinoceroses, canines and saiga antelopes. A few representations also exist of fish, aquatic wildlife (seals and whales), birds (waterfowl, birds of prey and penguins), reptiles and insects. A small number of figures have been found sharing the traits of at least two distinct animals. There were fewer human representations, comprising female, male, indeterminate and mixed forms (combining human and animal traits). Female figures are the most common. They are almost invariably shown nude, with no clothing or body adornment, and are identified by their facial features or vertical shape of the body.

The meaning of such art has been explicated from ethnographic, neuropsychological, semiological and structuralist approaches. This interpretative variability underscores the difficulty of using a single approach to decipher the why and wherefore of Palaeolithic art, particularly since one and the same signifier (a motif) can have several meanings, reflecting the specificity, individuality and idiosyncrasy of authors and human groups. What seems clear for any artistic set is that the graphical representation follows a prior scheme, a process of thought in which the author(s) decided what to paint, where to paint it and how to arrange the figures, lines, dots and geometries. The visual representations also have aesthetic value, because their forms act upon the affect of the observer.

 

TYPES AND FEATURES OF PHALLIC REPRESENTATIONS

Only a few figures explicitly show clearly masculine sexual organs in the Palaeolithic art now known in Western Europe4,15,16. Such figures can be divided into abbreviated phallic images, independent statuettes, and full images of the masculine.

 

Abbreviated phallic images

Abbreviated phallic representations take three distinct forms: sculptures and bas relief, engravings, and portable phallic shapes. All have in common that they represent a phallus exclusively and tend to simplify it.

The sculptures and bas relief works are very few. Today, only three clear, well-documented examples are accurately known, all of the Aurignaco-Gravettian period (c.38,000-18,000 BC). At the Laussel site there was found a 5-cm fragment of glans sculpted in stone which clearly shows the urethral meatus and the navicular cavity of the urethra. Another example is the phallic bas relief – tapered at the distal end and rounded at the proximal end – found at Laugerie-Haute (fig. 1); next to this piece there was found another block of stone with a similar relief but open at both ends, thus thought to be a vulvar form. At the Castanet site in Sergeac there was discovered a further block with phallic relief, near several blocks with multiple vulvar forms.

 

FIGURE 1. Stone block bearing a phallic representation, found at Laugerie-Haute

 

Engraved and painted representations of male sex organs are very rare. One of the most significant is the penis with glans on the wall of the Fronsac cave. More examples have been found on the cave walls of Bédeilhac, Les Combarelles and Chufín. The signs Leroi-Gourhan12 interpreted as masculine (simple lines, dots making up lines and lines with lateral branches, among others) could be considered in connection with this group. If Leroi-Gourhan’s interpretation is correct, the references to the male in Palaeolithic art would be innumerable, but we think this view is untenable as a general rule.

Portable penis-shaped objects compose the widest phallic category, and are often accompanied by engravings of animals or signs. A highlight is the range of instruments – generally batons of command – with a phallic form at one or both ends. Examples have been found at sites in the Iberian peninsula – El Pendo, Valle and Cueto de la Mina – and at the French sites of Bruniquel, Blanchard, Gorge d’Enfer, La Madeleine and Farincourt (fig. 2), among others. The Gorge d’Enfer and Bruniquel pieces are the most striking. At the Gorge d’Enfer cave in the Dordogne, there was retrieved a fragment of a baton with a fork at the proximal end; each of these appendices represents a penis, with a glans and meatus. At the Bruniquel site, Tarn-et-Garonne, two batons of command decorated with signs and fishes have a penis shape at the distal end, also indicating the glans and the meatus.

 

FIGURE 2: Phallic representations on portable artefacts: El Pendo (photograph by P. Saura), Gorges d’Enfer, La Madeleine, Blanchard and Castanet

 

Finally, on a more conjectural basis one could interpret some calcareous formations (stalagmites and stalactites) as phallic suggestions, which, though seemingly clear prima facie, are difficult to ascertain. This hypothesis is sometimes lent support by the presence of an intentional coating of ochre on these natural forms.

 

Independent statuettes

The category of independent statuettes most strongly reflects the scarcity of male figures as against female. So-called ‘Venus figurines’ are numerous and spread throughout most of the world, but male figurines are isolated and sporadic in their spatial distribution.

One of the more striking examples was found at the French site of Laussel. In the same stratigraphic and cultural context as the Lady of the Horn there was retrieved a small figurine termed the ‘Priapus’, scarcely over 35 cm tall and 11 cm wide, made in limestone (fig. 3). The sculpture has a pointed phallus of a exaggerated size, and a scrotum with asymmetrical testicles. The situation of the penis is not anatomically correct, because it appears to stem from the base of the lower limbs. The large size and incorrect anatomical position of the sex organ draw the observer’s entire attention to the penis.

 

FIGURE 3. Sculpture known as the ‘Priapus of Laussel’ (copy by J.P. Duhard)

 

Also in France, in a context associated with Venus figurines, the Brassempouy site yielded a human figure of formerly controversial sex which has been finally described as male, with a small, rounded penis and plump scrotum. A partial human representation was found at the Czech site of Brno II, with a small, salient, non-erect penis; its most striking feature was not the figurine itself but its context, because it was found in connection with a male skeleton surrounded by remains of wildlife, ochre, discs and more than 600 pieces of necklace.

The small number of finds precludes a clear interpretation of this type of statuette. The most expressive image is the Priapus of Laussel. The erectness and size of the penis need not be construed from a clinical point of view, but more likely as a symbol of masculinity and perhaps of fertility, if we assume the culture was aware of the male role in reproduction, in direct relation with the clear expression of fertility in a great number of female figurines. On the other hand, ‘Priapus’ might represent a case of priapism which, if it occurred in the Palaeolithic age, would surely have made a great impression on those witnessing it, and might even have given rise to a myth that entered the collective subconscious.

 

Paintings and engravings: complete images of masculinity

There is a greater number of painted and engraved male figures on portable and parietal supports (figs. 4 and 5), almost all of the Magdalenian period, which often explicitly represent the male sex organ. Notable examples are in evidence at sites such as Les Combarelles, Saint-Cirq, Altamira, Hornos de la Peña, Ribeira de Piscos, Le Portel, La Madeleine, Addaura, Isturitz and Mas d’Azil. At the French site of La Marche, in Vienne, a major batch was found of plates with engraved male figures, some of which could be described as portraits. On many such plates, clear representations of penises, beards and anatomical details like eyes, mouth, nose and limbs make this set one of the main sources of knowledge of Palaeolithic human physiognomy.

 

FIGURE 4. Phallic anthropomorphs at Lascaux, Hornos de la Peña and Altamira (copies by H. Breuil).

 

 

FIGURE 5. Phallic anthropomorph on a disc fragment at Mas d’Azil

 

As we have pointed out, among these male motifs representations of the male sex organ are fairly common. They are found from Portugal to Italy, and in the two countries with the highest concentrations of remains of Palaeolithic art, Spain and France. Most of the images concentrate on the shape of the penis, but the scrotum appears in some exemplars at Addaura, the bovid man of Gabillou, the copula at Abri Murat and the enigmatic man-stage or ‘god’ of Trois Frères, which displays the process of animalisation of the human form (fig. 6). Though less clearly, a scrotum is in evidence in the ape-faced character engraved on a boulder at Mas d’Azil. In all these cases, the scrotum is set apart from the groin region and the penis, represented as a small pouch or bag.

 

FIGURE 6. Hybrid phallic representations at Trois Frères (copy by C. Begöuen)

 

The morphology of the penis can also be analysed with regard to the presence or absence of the prepuce. This feature is difficult to assess, because minor formal variations at the tip of the penis need not reflect anatomical realism. It is more common for the art not to indicate the glans: sometimes the tip is tapered (in the so-called ‘copula’ of Murat, the scene at Lascaux, subject 109 at Gabillou, Addaura, subjects 34 and 39 at La Marche, Laugerie-Basse, Tuc d’Audoubert, Gourhan, the ‘small bison’ of Trois Frères and Les Combarelles, inter alia), and sometimes rounded (at Mas d’Azil, the headless man of Pergouset, the ‘grotesque’ of Lourdes, Altamira and Sous-Grand-Lac). The markedly pointed shape of some phalli suggests severe phimosis. Explicit references to the uncovered glans is rare, but is in evidence in the so-called ‘god’ of Trois Frères, subject 60 at La Marche, Ribeira de Piscos, the ‘small shaman’ of Lascaux, Enlène and Saint-Cirq. Some of these exemplars could serve as the basis for speculation that the foreskin is absent, suggesting possible practices of Palaeolithic circumcision or, at least, an undisputable culture of foreskin retraction. It can nonetheless be assumed that circumcision must not have been the cultural norm because, as pointed out, there is a striking presence of phimotic penises. Furthermore, some representations – like the engraved penis at the Fronsac cave, mentioned above – show a redundant foreskin despite being erect.

The use of limestone formations to aid representation of the penis is another very rare graphical phenomenon. Two examples are documented at the French cave of Le Portel. The artist used two outcrops (in the shape of a penis) the contour of two human representations, thus producing two figures with erect penises. This is evidence of the adoption for use of natural morphology and of interaction between the artist and the support. Moreover, this particular representation implies that in the artist’s mind the phallic form is of decisive significance with respect to the human form.

The penis is erect in most of these engravings and paintings17. Twenty-five to thirty cases of phallic characters are known so far. The predominance of erect figures may be construed in various different ways. The most straightforward view could relate to fertility: a consequence of an erection is ejaculation, which leads to insemination and potential reproduction. They could also be viewed as elements of virility. Some scholars even go further and see these figures as symbols of male domination of fellow humans and the environment (explaining some associations of phallic humans with animals), but this seems implausible, because, if this were so, the number of such images should be considerably greater.

 

PHALLIC REPRESENTATIONS AND SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR IN THE UPPER PALAEOLITHIC

One of the features of Palaeolithic art is that expressive and narrative elements are almost wholly absent: this is true of animal and human motifs alike18. There is a wide variety of stances among animal representations, including fight scenes, urogenital contact or fluid sniffing, pre-mating and copulation, maternal care, suckling, grazing and other everyday activities. Some human figures have been drawn in association, thus composing reproductive and sexual scenes viewed as a creative act. The artistic evidence with references to erect penises and provide insights into sexual behaviour is very scant. The artwork is classified by various kinds of behaviour, as outlined below.

 

Copulation

Coition is the culmination of the process whereby two individuals join sexually. Before penetration, the couple undergoes a phase of arousal and sexual tension; in the male, arousal is expressed as erection of the penis, and in the female by the opening of the labia majora and vaginal secretions. Human group images of the Upper Palaeolithic show attitudes relating to intercourse.

On a wall of the French cave of Les Combarelles19 there was engraved a panel containing three human motifs dating from the recent middle Magdalenian. In connection with the two larger figures (fig. 7), the possibility has been put forth that the art represents a pre-mating scene. A figure with a wide, dangling belly and broad buttocks seems to stand on all fours; behind, a clearly male figure with a voluminous thorax and moving upper limbs has his erect penis aimed at the former figure. The shape of the buttocks and belly suggest the first figure is female, while the position of the woman and the stance of the male figure, together with his erection, make it plausible that the scene depicts a moment prior to penetration. The erotic and sexual nature of the composition is evident, and copulation appears to the be the most immediate consequence of the figures’ respective stances.

 

FIGURE 7. Pre-coital scene at Les Combarelles (copy by C. Barriere)

 

In addition to the Les Combarelles scene, there are examples where penetration has been consummated. Several views have been expressed regarding plate 39 of the La Marche site (middle Magdalenian)20 (fig. 8B). Some scholars see it as a fight between a human and a bear, while others speculate that the scene represents sexual intercourse. This second theory – which we regard as plausible – proposes that the image shows two humans face to face. The figure on the right has a large, erect member, with an indication of the glans, and the penis is positioned in correspondence with the pubic area of the other figure. There is no indication of the sex of the second figure, but the linked stance of both characters, the erection evident in the clearly male personage and the face-to-face position make it highly likely that the figure on the left is female. The scene would then be one of face-to-face coitus, with the characters’ embrace favouring penetration. It has even been suggested that the composition represents a coital positional of the ‘flowering tree’ kind, whereby a direct and deep penetration is achieved through the male’s raising one of the female’s legs up around one hip21.

In the Los Casares22 cave in Guadalajara province, Spain, there is a further rare example of parietal art, where anthropomorphic figures are drawn somewhat like caricatures. There is a panel of engravings where there have been discerned two mammoths – one a merely partial figure – and two anthropomorphs. One of these two, with a pointed head, has a large, wide penis with glans aimed at the belly of another anthropomorphic figure with a bulky abdomen and buttocks (fig. 8A). The two figures are linked by their upper limbs. This scene of face-to-face copulation has been regarded as an example of hierogamy – sacred sexual intercourse offered up to an animal deity23, a mammoth in this case.

 

FIGURE 8. Scenes of face-to-face coitus at Los Casares (A) and La Marche (B) (copies by J. Cabré and L. Pales)

 

The face-to-face position is not the only one represented. There exists a fragmented plate from Enlène showing a coitus scene. The composition is incomplete: two human figures in a position of fronto-dorsal copulation. The lower character is on all fours, and has long hair falling over the face. The other figure kneels and performs penetration in the position known as “the offering”21. The absence of clear sexual characteristics prevents explicit recognition of each figure’s sex, but male-female identification can be established on the basis of a traditional conception of sexual relations and to a subtle dimorphism.

Alongside these naturalistic representations of intercourse, Palaeolithic groups may have sought to exemplify coition in symbolic form. The association between the pubic area and vulva/penis may indicate coitus itself, beyond the male/female distinction. This is evidenced not only in remains of the Magdalenian period, but also in the earliest stages of the Upper Palaeolithic. The main example of these earliest moments is at Laussel24, where the sculpted fragment of a glans displays the shape of a vulva on one of its faces. The existence of blocks engraved in the shapes of a vulva and penis at Laugerie-Haute25 has been interpreted as an implicit reference to intercourse. For the Magdalenian period, such references are found at the caves of Bédeilhac, Fronsac and La Madeleine, among others. Graphical references to male and female sex organs appear at all these sites.

Also notable are the associations among male and female signs proposed by Leroi-Gourhan, which would compose coupled signs12. This interpretation appears overly audacious, and would only be justified if one were to accept a symbolic value beyond the purely formal aspect of the represented motifs.

 

Masturbatory gestures and supports

Masturbation is a form of sexual experience. Some social sectors view masturbation as a deviant and in some way reprehensible practice, but it is an undoubted complement of sexual life. Self-masturbation is characteristic of puberty, and is even an act inherent to the sexual life of some couples. Stimulation, arousal and orgasm are intimately linked to masturbation. Palaeolithic groups left a number of references to the practice, as discussed below.

At a late Magdalenian level of the Enlène cave26 there was retrieved a sandstone plate containing two human likenesses. Though the document can be read in different ways, in its basic aspect it contains a male representation with a sex organ of exaggerated size. Underneath are two vertical lines which, given that the penis is erect, could represent streams of ejaculation. Facing this figure – which is headless, probably through breakage – is another incomplete figure which has been speculated to be female despite the absence of confirming evidence. The character has a long, wide-palmed hand placed in the abdominal area and just above the sex organ of the first figure. The composition is markedly erotic. Though some scholars have construed the scene as pre- or post-coital, we think it likely that it is more explicit: the erection and ejaculation of the male figure with an outsized penis and the position of the second figure’s hand could be depicting male masturbation.

Though masturbation is not represented graphically, the expression of the Magdalenian man of rock 2 at Ribeira de Piscos27 explicitly refers to ejaculation. The piece shows a long, broad penis, in which the glans is distinct and the foreskin appears to be absent, as mentioned above (fig. 9). From here there issues the line which might represent the ejaculation of semen. The pleasure such an act might be supposed to bring about is reflected in the figure by the mouth being notably open; the curved, sinuous lines rising from the man’s head could be construed similarly. The absence of any other kind of human representation on this rock leads one to conjecture that the pleasure could be the consequence of an individual’s onanistic practice.

 

FIGURE 9. Anthropomorph in the act of ejaculating, Ribeira de Piscos (CNART copy)

 

Masturbation has also been read into the Laussel Priapus17 cited above, ascribed to the Gravettian period (fig. 3). The Priapus, as described earlier, is a limestone block sculpted as a male form with an outsize penis. In addition to its markedly phallic nature, the flexed position of the upper left limb, aimed at the penis, has been construed as indicating masturbation. The position of the hand is in no way explicit, however, so it is thought unlikely that this image depicts masturbation.

Finally, some researchers have interpreted some objects as being closely tied to masturbation. Besides use of the hand and other parts of the body, artificial instruments for masturbation have frequently been created and used throughout history. The so-called ‘batons of command’ are regarded as exceptional artefacts of portable art because of their singular features. A number of different purposes have been ascribed to them28 – tent pegs, sceptres symbolising power and social status, totemic objects, magic wands, bone straighteners, etc. In relation to the subject-matter of this paper, some writers have remarked on their phallic shape and possible use as dildos. Batons of command can in no way be interpreted solely as instruments for female masturbation or anal sex, but it must be admitted that the shape of some of them would allow for such uses.

 

Bestiality

Human sexual activity with animals is an infrequent practice. Many myths and taboos relate to this sexual behaviour. The prevalence of bestiality in our own society is uncertain, but it cannot be ruled out; conversely, it seems unlikely to be widespread.

In the Palaeolithic corpus there is only one image at Penascosa27, in which a goat figure is associated with a schematically depicted man with a large penis and scrotum (fig. 10). The close spatial link of the two characters leads one to suppose the piece clearly portrays bestiality. The difficulty with this scene lies in whether or not the figures are contemporary. The animal likeness is indisputably Palaeolithic, but the same cannot be said with certainty of the human likeness. Its style suggests it was created at a later stage. If so, it is not a properly Palaeolithic composition, but post-Palaeolithic; the artist who engraved the man made use of the goat image made at least 6,000-7,000 years before.

 

FIGURE 10. Bestiality scene at Penascosa (CNART copy)

 

Other sexual situations

Some images of the Upper Palaeolithic depict sexual elements of uncertain meaning. Whether one seeks ethnographical points of reference or seeks to discern experiences of individuals or social groups, it is impossible accurately to decipher all pieces of artwork.

One of these difficult pieces is plate 60 of the French site of La Marche (fig. 11). Some scholars see it as a dramatic composition where the sexual role could be significant20. Focusing on the sexual aspects, the character on the left – standing, with a very naturalistic face – has a long penis, probably without a foreskin, with the glans and the edges of the meatus being clearly depicted. This figure – with arms raised, and open mouth and hands – is associated with a second, who is close to a kneeling position, with arms outstretched before it and open hands. There has recently been discerned a partial female likeness – headless and with large breasts – in the upper part of the scene. Looking at the morphology of the breasts and the relationship of the trunk and the legs, she is probably on all fours. The meaning of this scene is wholly unknown.

 

FIGURE 11. Sexual scene of uncertain meaning at La Marche (copy by L. Pales)

 

Also singular and difficult is the composition at the Italian site of Grotta dell’Addaura29 (fig.12). On the walls of the cave, besides engraved cattle and horses, there are sixteen human figures, several being distinctly male through their being portrayed with sex organs. The highlight, however, is a composition of two male figures with erect, very pointed penises apparently resting on a fictitious ground in a forced position. Around these personages were engraved nine human likenesses. At least seven have flaccid penises, and some have scrota. Some of the figures – those at the top of the composition – have both arms raised, while the rest have only their left arm raised. The scenic relationship among the figures seems clear, through their being grouped and their similarities of form and posture. Most scholars accept that this is a composition, but interpretations of the piece have been divergent. Some regard it as an acrobatic scene of gymnastic exhibition. Others explain it as picturing two rival groups. Some discern an initiation rite centred on virility; the initiates would probably be young men represented by the two figures at the centre and taking a different stance from the rest. Others perceive a dramatic scene of human sacrifice or execution by strangling, whereby the central characters would be the prisoners and the surrounding characters would be performing a dance. There is no shortage of different interpretations, therefore. What seems clear is that sexual aspects play a major role in this scene.

 

FIGURE 12. Sexual scene, Grotta dell’Addaura

 

We have so far discussed human behaviours, but compositions also exist linking male sexuality and the animal world15. The relationship between erect men and animals is not amply portrayed, but is nonetheless well documented in various examples, such as the Lascaux Shaft scene, in which a man with an erect phallus faces a bison with its intestines hanging out and wounded by a spear (fig. 13), the phallic figure of Mas d’Azil, where an erect man appears to be facing an animal which has been thought to be a bear, but of which only one supposed limb remains, and the hunter of Laugerie-Basse, whose weapon is aimed at a bovid. The relationship erect man/animal/weapon, clearly depicted in two of these three cases, could symbolise power over the animal, i.e., virility as a symbol of strength.

 

FIGURE 13. Shaft of Lascaux scene (photograph by P. Vidal)

 

CONCLUSIONS

Sex is a constant throughout the history of humankind. Palaeolithic images of phallic male figures are not widespread. This scant representation is linked to the rare presence of the human figure in the artistic corpus of the Upper Palaeolithic. Several explanations have been proposed, but it is very likely that the answer is connected with the zoocentric nature of Upper Palaeolithic societies, with rare references to the anthropomorphic. As in other culture, human likenesses may have been conditioned by religious or cultural considerations.

Most male phallic figures in the Palaeolithic imaginary are of the Magdalenian period. The stratigraphic context of portable artefacts, however, allows us to assert that some images are far older, such as the penises of Laugerie-Haute, Laussel, Sergeac and the Priapus of Laussel. The date is unknown of the coital composition at Los Casares, though some scholars place it towards the beginning of the Magdalenian. From the Magdalenian period (16,000-10,000 BC) onward, the artistic evidence provide expressive and narrative images of sex as reproduction, pleasure and probably play. Thy undoubtedly reflect a varied sex life. Sensual love and sexual appetite are innate to humanity. It could be said that their sexual practices were, at least since that time, similar to our own.

Based on a diachronic reading of the available information, and taking account of female image, it can be said that over the 30,000 years of the Upper Palaeolithic there were changes on sexual behaviour, or at least in the “graphical exposure” which people accorded to sex. The earliest images related almost exclusively to reproduction, whereas others express a more actual view of sexual relations and sexuality, tied not only to reproduction but also to enjoyment, pleasure and sexual exploration.

 

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Dr. M. García Díez

E-mail: marcosgarcia@inicia.es

(Manuscript received on August 31, 2005