One of the most studied objects in human history is just 4.4 inches tall. This episode examines the Venus of Willendorf, an oolitic limestone figurine tinted with red ochre, carved roughly 30,000 years ago and pulled from the earth on August 7, 1908, near Willendorf in Lower Austria. We meet the three scholars who got the credit and the laborer named Varan who actually found it, and explain how archaeologists date a stone object by carbon-dating the charcoal, bone, and plant matter in the same soil layer.

We unpack why the figure has no face and no feet, why the name Venus is a 19th-century projection by classically educated European men, and why many scholars now prefer the neutral title Woman of Willendorf. We explore the hypothesis from Catherine McCoid and LeRoy McDermott that the figurine's exaggerated proportions match a woman's view  ...