Is the Lion Man a Woman? Solving the Mystery of a 35,000-Year-Old Statue

[icymist]

Archeologists have discovered previously unknown fragments of a figurine known as the "Lion Man," and are piecing it back together. Could the 35,000-year-old statue actually represent a female shaman? Scientists hope to resolve a decades-long debate.

Using a hand hoe and working in dim light, geologist Otto Völzing burrowed into the earth deep inside the Stadel cave in the Schwäbische Alb mountains of southwestern Germany. His finds were interesting to be sure, but nothing world-shaking: flints and the remnants of food eaten by prehistoric human beings.

Suddenly he struck a hard object -- and splintered a small statuette.

It was 1939 and Völzing didn't have much time. He had just been called up to serve in the military and World War II was about to begin. He quickly packed the pieces into a box and the excavation, which was being financed by the SS, was terminated on the same day.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,802415,00.html

[HopeHoops]

1. Doesn't look like a male lion to me.

[DocMac]

2. It looks like a female lion to me.

It has a streamlined face and no mane.

[JackCo]

3. I see female too

[StarsInHerHair]

4. the lion looks female to me also-I guess assuming male automatically because it was 1939

when the default for everything was male? But no mane=obviously female

[tama]

5. Duh

Shamanhood is not gender related. Of course there is great variety of customs between tribes and cultures to gender and social function of shaman, and it is also evident that strongest shamans are of both (or neither) sexes, e.g. biologically male but socially and/or spiritually female and vice versa.