
This small sculpture (Fig.1)
in ivory of mammuth ( extinct hairy Elephant ) cm 14.8 high (cm
5.2 the female figurine; cm 9.6 the men), found in a Palaeolithic
site (evolved Gravettian, about 21,800 years ago) at Gagarino,
Ukraine, is a very rare example of two human beings joined together by
the neck, with the whole body. Palaeolithic lithic tools
are part of material culture, while the sculpture, as art, in every
time, even today, is part of the spiritual culture. Each palaeolithic sculpture,
and also this, has been produced for rites of cult and, compared with
today, is a work of religious type. This sculpture from Gagarino
represents a pregnant woman (it shows the belly of pregnant woman; no
feet, as all paleolithic Venus), generally called "Venus",
and, united by the neck, the figure of a man of greater size, but
with less care in workmanship. The union of the two heads
is certainly connected to the bifrontism of previous eras, which
continues until the historical and current ages in equatorial
Africa.