Small female figures, the so-called Venus statuettes, appear for the first time in the Upper Paleolithic Period. In some cases they are very schematically formed, and it is often difficult or impossible to recognize female attributes. In other cases, however, they are naturalistic representations of corpulent women whose secondary sexual characteristics (their breasts and buttocks) were given special prominence, though their faces, feet, and arms were almost completely neglected. Such strong emphasis on the anatomical zones that are related to the bearing of children and nourishing them easily conveys to one the idea of female fertility. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily true of all these small figures.

Ethnological analogies with present-day primitive phenomena offer the equally plausible view that such figures were regarded as the representations of the abodes of spirits whose function was to help and protect, and especially during hunting. They also may have been conceived, among other things, as mothers or rulers of the animals, goddesses of the underworld, helpers during hunting and donators of game, and as sovereigns of the land and other regions and of natural forces, including that of fertility.

No known direct continuum connects these earlier Paleolithic figures to similar ones of the early Neolithic and later periods. In settlements and shrines of these later periods are found large numbers of female figurines of widely differing types. They may have been representations of deities and symbols or, perhaps, votive offerings, somehow connected with female fertility. This can be safely assumed for figurines that show an obvious indication of fertility or are connected with children, and even more for shrines containing figures with sculptured pairs of breasts, and figures on the walls of women in childbirth. Not all female figures can, however, be understood merely as fertility symbols; rather, in many cases they are assumed to be house gods or representations of ancestors, and, especially when appearing in graves, as substitutes for the bodies of maids, wives, and concubines. An appearance of a large number of smaller figures suggests a votive or magical usage.

Shamanism, sorcery, and magic

Shamanism is a rather variable and highly stratified complex of practices and conceptions; characteristic among these are the use of ecstasy, the belief in guardian spirits (who are often in animal form, with the function of helping and guiding the dead on their voyage to the beyond), and beliefs concerning metamorphosis (change of form) and travelling to the beyond. Pictures from the Upper Paleolithic Period indicate the existence at that time of ecstatic practices and of beliefs in protective and helping spirits, which assume the form of birds and other animals. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether shamanism existed in fully developed form at that time. Also, in the course of prehistory, objects appear that may well have belonged to the paraphernalia of shamanism. Noisemaking objects (to drive away evil spirits) are often found in the material remains of the Iron Age and probably are connected with shamanism.

Recent studies stress the religious character of shamanism, though in practice it is related to sorcery and magic. Shamanism is not to be identified with sorcery and magic if they are understood as attempts to manipulate the supernatural through certain human techniques, in contrast with religion, in which man approaches higher beings (gods) in an attitude of supplication. Magic or sorcery thus appears as the opponent of true religion and gains importance when religion declines or is overwhelmed. In fact, magic and sorcery may take over cultic forms and rob them of their religious meaning when this occurs. For these reasons, it is often difficult to decide whether prehistoric phenomena were of religious or magical character.

Magic also can be practiced to a large degree without the use of material objects, and it is, therefore, as hard to grasp archaeologically as true religion. In the interpretation of the art of the Upper Paleolithic, scholars have given great importance to magic because, for example, missiles (spears and arrows) were drawn on the pictures of animals. This has been interpreted to mean that an effort was made to ensure and compel the success of hunters through magical action. But this interpretation is highly speculative, and it remains uncertain what these drawings mean. It is just as difficult to decide whether or not other pictures, sculptures, abstract symbols, amulets, and similar objects were used to make magic in this and later periods.