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 Chapter 36

S ou theast E u rope a n
Neolithic Fi g u ri ne s
Beyond Context, Interpretation, and Meaning

Doug Bailey

36.1 Mise-​en-​S cène

In 2008, Adam Crnobrnja’s team found a remarkable assemblage of figurines at Crkvine,

Stubline (Serbia), a Vinča phase D2 site (4600 bp) (Crnobrnja 2011; Crnobrnja et al.
2009; Milenković 2007). Under a burnt wall were forty-​three clay anthropomorphs
(Figure 36.1). Distributed in eight groups, the figurines are almost identical in shape
and size. Hastily made of local clay, the surfaces of some bear traces of makers’ fingers.
Ranging from 4 to 5.5 cm tall, they have little decoration or modelling. Faces are pointed,
eyeless, and resemble bird-​beaks as much as human heads (Figure 36.2); none have arms
or legs. Stout bodies stand on oval bases. A shallow hole, at a 45-​degree angle, is in each
right shoulder. Sticks once stuck out of these holes. All figurines share these character-
istics, except for a larger one (7 cm tall), more carefully finished, with rounded head and
shoulders, modelled clothing on its front, with a covering of fine slip (Figure 36.3).
The collapsed wall preserved eight figurine groups; the largest contains ten, including
the taller one. Around this central group were seven smaller groups: three groups of six
figurines, three groups of three, and one figurine on its own. Most unusual are eleven
miniature clay tools (Figure 36.4). The tools would have fitted onto shafts protruding
from the figures’ shoulder holes; tool, shaft, and figure represent a person carrying an
axe or mallet on its shoulder. With smoothed surfaces and precise shaft-​holes, the tools
copy those used at Stubline: two types of hammer-​axes, three of pick-​axes, three spheri-
cal objects (perhaps mallets or scepters), one tool with a vertical blade, and two utensils
similar to pick-​axes.
The building with the tool-​figurines is one of Stubline’s smaller structures (c.9 × 5 m),
made of post-​and-​daub construction with clay-​covered walls and packed earth floor

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 Fig. 36.1 Southern group of clay figurines and miniature shaft-​hole tools from Building 2008/​
1 in situ at the Vinča D site at Crkvine Stubline, Serbia; scale is in centimeters. (Photo: copyright
Adam Crnobrnja)

Fig. 36.2 Profiles of heads and shoulders of several, smaller clay figurines from Building 2008/​1
at the Vinča D site at Crkvine Stubline, Serbia, showing holes for wooden tool shafts. For scale see
Figure 36.1. (Photo: copyright Adam Crnobrnja)

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 Southeast European Neolithic Figurines    825

Fig. 36.3 Largest and three of the smaller clay figurines from Building 2008/​1 at the Vinča D site
at Crkvine Stubline, Serbia. For scale see Figure 1. Drawing copyright Adam Crnobrnja.

Fig. 36.4 Miniature clay shaft-​hole tools from the Vinča D site at Crkvine Stubline, Serbia. For
scale see Figure 36.1. (Drawing: copyright Adam Crnobrnja)

(Crnobrnja 2009; Crnobrnja et al. 2009; Crnobrnja and Simić 2011). Building contents
were preserved in situ. Thirty-​eight of the tool-​figurines were in the building’s north-
eastern corner on a clay platform (50 cm on a side), in front of an oven opening, and next
to a pit filled with ash and pottery. The remaining tool-​figurines were within 1 m of the
platform. Fragments of vessels fill the oven that faces the room’s centre. Fifteen loom-​
weights and an unused whetstone were at the oven’s southwest corner (Crnobrnja et al.
2009: 15).
At the base of the room’s western wall is a rectangular, clay receptacle: 1 m long, 0.5
m wide, and 10 cm deep. On one side was a spouted bowl; on another two large vessels,
a bowl, and a circular clay object (20 cm diameter). South of the receptacle was a clay
cone. Its surface had been wrapped with cloth while wet, the intended use interrupted
by the house’s destruction. The excavators identify the receptacle as an ‘altar’, its surface
repaired many times (Crnobrnja et al. 2009: 16); likely it related to clay working and the
wrapped clay, ready raw material. If clay was worked in this building, then perhaps the
tool-​figures were a product: playthings or ceremonial objects. In the building’s northern
half were a stone-​and-​clay quern; a clay relief figure (20 × 40 cm) identified as a bucra-
nium (though it resembles the tool-​figures’ faces); and burnt wooden shelving and a

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 826   Doug Bailey

6.5 sq. m. pottery spread. The building’s southern half contained another oven and a
large vessel containing burnt cereal half-​buried in the floor.
The excavators interpreted the assemblage carefully, avoiding reconstructions of god-
dess cults, and proposing that the tool-​figurines reflect roles people played in a com-
munity that had a vertical social stratigraphy (Crnobrnja 2011: 141). They draw analogies
between the figurines and tools, and the locations of tools above the right shoulders of
skeletons in the contemporary Gomolava cemetery (Borić 1996: 81; Crnobrnja 2011)
Stubline is an excellent example of work on Neolithic figurines, carefully excavated
from well-​preserved contexts, sensibly considered by archaeologists with open minds
about function and symbolism. Regardless of whether one agrees with the interpreta-
tion of social hierarchy, of the gender of the figurines as male, or of the identification of
individual figures’ social roles, the fact remains that Stubline is one of the best examples
of recent work on figurines: superb contextual information, exceptional preservation,
precise excavation, and balanced assessment of meaning.
The lesson of Stubline, however, is that we cannot determine if the tool-​figurines
were children’s toys, ritual votives, or, as the excavators argue, an ‘unambiguously sym-
bolic representation of individuals’ recording social structure (Crnobrnja 2011: 140).
None of these suggestions moves beyond an anecdote, the proposed explanations never
more than possibilities without means of confirmation. If this is the case, how do we
engage figurines from similarly secure (or, more usually, poor excavation contexts) from
Neolithic southeastern Europe?

36.2 Introduction

This chapter reviews recent work on figurines from Neolithic southeastern Europe and
suggests an alternative approach. Without rejecting Stubline work or the hundreds of
contemporary sites, another direction is proposed that will open up new ways of think-
ing. It is proposed that we abandon searches for explanation and for meanings of figu-
rines as pieces of the past. The alternative is to work with figurine material in the present,
disarticulated from prehistory, and to make new work that recognizes figurines’ posi-
tion in the present. Let us begin by reviewing the limitations of current work.

36.3 Anecdotal Explanation

Anecdotal interpretations of figurines suggest function and meaning in ways that can-
not be assessed for accuracy with the evidence available. Thus the Stubline excavators
suggest that the tool-​figurines illustrate social hierarchy surpassing the household
level: figurines revealed a hierarchic structure in which individuals played particular
roles (Crnobrnja 2011: 139–​40). This may have been the case, but no amount of analysis

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 Southeast European Neolithic Figurines    827

can confirm that the tool-​figurines represent that social structure or those roles. The
well-​formulated Stubline interpretation and its social perspective are no stronger than
the proposal (also anecdotal) that the largest figure is a bird-​goddess and the tool-​figures
are celebrants in aviarian revelry of cultivation and land blessing. Anecdotal explana-
tions are common. My own early writings are examples: the suggestion that Bulgarian
figurines signalled the emergence of the individual in society (e.g. Bailey 1994). Two
trends in anecdotal interpretations have had particular influence: fragmentation
analysis and archaeomythology. Both remain popular, both suffer from self-​limiting
restrictions of anecdotal work, and both deserve examination before we consider more
substantial interpretations.

36.3.1 Fragmentation and Breakage Analysis

John Chapman and Bisserka Gaydarska (Chapman 1999, 2000; Chapman and Gaydarska
2007; Gaydarska et al. 2007) have focused on intentional breakage of Neolithic figurines.
Many archaeologists have noted that fragmentary figurines outnumber complete ones
(Bacvarov 2005; Becker 2007, 2010, 2011; Biehl 2006; Gheorghiu 2005; Loze 2005, 2009;
Milenković and Arsenijević 2009; Nanoglou 2005; Naumov 2010a; Petrović and Spasić
2009; Porčić 2012; Spasić and Vignjević 2011; Srejović 1968; Tasić 2011; Tringham and
Conkey 1998). Not all authors follow Chapman and Gaydarska’s programmatic state-
ments, though some do (e.g. Porčić 2012: 810). Regardless, the fragmentation argument
has attracted great attention.
The argument makes four proposals: Neolithic people intentionally broke figu-
rines (Chapman 2000: 68–​79; Chapman and Gaydarska 20007: 138; Gaydarska et al.
2007: 180); breakage altered the status (i.e. gender, identity) of the resulting fragments
(Gaydarska et al. 2007: 71); people gave broken parts to other people (Chapman and
Gaydarska 2007: 138); and fragment-​giving connected people. Though Chapman and
Gaydarska argue at length, unconvincingly, that the proposals reflect Neolithic action
and belief, each proposal itself is an anecdotal explanation.

36.3.1.1 Intentionality of breakage
Great efforts have been made to prove intentional breakage of figurines. Chapman
(2000), Chapman and Gaydarska (2007), Gaydarska et al. (2007), and Gheorghiu
(2005) refer to experiments that break modern figurine replicas, and compare modern
break patterns with Neolithic ones. Gheorghiu and Budes found that replicas did not
break accidently when struck by other objects or dropped on a floor, unless the floor was
stone-​paved. They concluded that it is not possible to identify types of fractures unam-
biguously associated with deliberate or accidental fracture (Chapman and Gaydarska
2007: 8).
Chapman and Gaydarska argue that figurines with many breaks were intention-
ally fractured (Chapman and Gaydarska 2007: 13). They base their work on over 500
figurines from the Bulgarian Karanovo VI culture site of Dolnoslav, which had special

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 828   Doug Bailey

status as a figurine ‘accumulation place’ (Chapman and Gaydarska 2007: 112–​42). Some
96 per cent of the Dolnoslav figurines are broken, some up to five times (Gaydarska
et al. 2007: 176). The authors read multiple breaks as ‘fragmentation chains’: each break
celebrates a connection (an ‘enchainment’) with the figurine owner (Gaydarska et al.
2007: 138). Breaking figurines required fragmentation skills possessed by special people
(‘figurine knappers’) using special tools to meticulously perform the break (Gaydarska
et al. 2007: 142). The fragmentation argument also looks for figurine refits to reveal
fragment exchange among people, households, and communities, and to reflect ‘inter-​
household enchainment’: separate people holding fragments of the same figurine are
enchained in social relationships (Chapman and Gaydarska 2007: 9). Peter Biehl makes
a less eccentric contribution to fragmentation studies (2006: 201). He argues against
searching for simple answers about what a fragment or a breakage act meant. For Biehl,
breakage is the transformation of material from whole to incomplete, and he assumes
that destruction was a communicative act (Biehl 2000, 2003, 2006: 201).
In all this, discussion reduces to determining the intentionality of the break. Biehl sug-
gests ‘fragmentation rules’ (Biehl 2006: 203): the criterion is whether a break occurs at a
figurine’s weak (e.g. the neck) or strong part (e.g. the hips). Goce Naumov suggests that
breakage reveals methods of manufacture; particular methods allow particular parts
to break easily (Naumov 2010a: 229). Stratos Nanoglou questions this approach: that
a figurine breaks at its weakest point does not prove that it was made to be so broken
(Nanoglou 2005: 143). In his study of 281 figurines from Gradešnica-​Krivodol culture
sites, Biehl shows that only female figurines (those with breasts and vaginas) were delib-
erately broken (Biehl 2006: 204). For these examples, breakage was not a random act.
Biehl teases out patterns in the data using clear criteria, and then identifies a subset of
broken figurines as being intentionally broken.

36.3.1.2 Meaning of breakage
Chapman and Gaydarska, and Biehl, suggest that breaking a figurine changes the status
or identity of the resulting fragment(s). Figurines preserve or lose their gender after a
break (Gaydarska et al. 2007: 178). Gaydarska and colleagues argue that an aim of figu-
rine fragmentation was to change its gender (Gaydarska et al. 2007: 176): three of the
female Dolnoslav fragments were transformed into one female and one ungendered
fragment; seven other female fragments were transformed into one female fragment
and one or two fragments without gender information; and one hermaphrodite figu-
rine was transformed into one hermaphrodite fragment and one ungendered fragment
(Gaydarska et al. 2007: 178).
It is difficult to understand what Gaydarska is proposing; maybe when a figurine
breaks (intentionally or unintentionally), not all fragments bear gender-​identified
imagery: an arm fragment from a figurine with breasts becomes ungendered. Equally
unconvincing is Chapman and Gaydarska’s argument that breaking a Hamangia cul-
ture figurine alters its gendered identity; does breaking off the elongated neck (its phal-
lic shape associated with maleness) divide the male from female part (Chapman and
Gaydarska 2007: 62)? Biehl’s work on breakage is more convincing: a whole figurine has

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 Southeast European Neolithic Figurines    829

one meaning, a fragment another. Regardless of what fragment meaning might have
been, many excavators (e.g. Srejović 1968; Tringham and Conkey 1998) agree: complete
and broken figurines were deposited differently: fragments are discarded; completes
remain in use.

36.3.1.3 Problems with breakage

Proposals for intentional fragmentation, for enchained connections of individuals, or
for objects’ gender transformation find no independent supporting evidence. Even if
some breakage was intentional, it is unlikely that all fragmentation was. Having said
that, once an object broke apart, it probably took on new functions in new ways and
meanings. Uncertain is whether the fragment is best described as trash or something
more socially constitutive (e.g. enchainment). In sum, the statements about figurine
breakage are anecdotal: beyond assessment or evaluation. A positive result of fragmen-
tation discussions, however, is the recognition that figurines, their meanings, and uses
changed through the object’s life-​phases. Objects and fragments were reused in many
ways, taking on ranges of meanings.
The question of figurine fragments may be blander than many will stomach: discard
patterns of broken figurines (outside buildings and in rubbish pits) represent objects
beyond their primary function. This does not downplay the importance of rubbish and
the symbolic significance of its deposition. Rather, it recognizes that people throw away
stuff that is no longer useful (particularly if broken). Almost all material from Neolithic
sites is broken: pottery, flint, bone, stone, antler, fired-​clay building materials, inter alia.
For figurine fragments it is wiser to follow Bisenija Petković and Miloš Spasić’s argu-
ment that figurines were broken and thrown away after use; with discard, the objects lost
their initial significance (Petrović and Spasić 2009: 39). Thus Wolfram Schier argues that
the fragmented clay mask from Uivar might have been destroyed perhaps to prevent the
misuse of it and any powers it had in its primary use (Schier 2006). Nenad Tasić argues
in the same sense for the secondary use of a figurine fragment (as a pestle) at Vinča
Belo Brdo, suggesting that special meanings the figurine once had disappeared when
the object was broken (Tasić 2011: 5). Working on Bulgarian figurines, Valeska Becker
reaches the similar balanced conclusion (Becker 2010, 2012): breaking an object killed
both it and whatever meaning or value it originally had. In analysis of the Crkvine figu-
rines, Spasić and Vignajević found that all but one figurine had been broken, but no
evidence that any had been used again (Spasić and Vignjević 2011: 179). In contrast to
Chapman and Gaydarska, these other approaches recognize the significance of break-
age but they do not plunge into unassessable, anecdotal statements of meaning and
function.

36.3.2 Goddesses, Matriarchy, and Fertility

The other major anecdotal interpretation of Neolithic figurines invokes matriarchy and
beliefs in divinities. Richer in examples, deeper in history, and with a greater following,

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 830   Doug Bailey

the approach’s main tenets are the following: that sexualized (or gendered) visual mate-
rial culture is a direct proxy for power relations; that figurines are found in cultic or
religious contexts; that Neolithic society had a dual (male/​female) sexual demographic;
that Neolithic communities depended on crop fertility; and that most Neolithic figu-
rines represent female bodies. A strong body of work has illuminated the approach’s
shortcomings and unsupported assumptions (e.g., Bailey 1996, 2005; Biehl 1996, 2006;
Meskell 1995, 1998; Ucko 1962, 1968). Though it is unnecessary to repeat those argu-
ments, it is worth noting the critique’s basis, and it is useful to recognize the approach’s
position within the discipline of archaeomythology (i.e. the home of Gimbutasian
mother goddess and cultic interpretation). Finally, it is of interest to examine how and
where the goddess/​matriarchy tradition continues to thrive in archaeology.

36.3.2.1 Archaeological problems with the matriarchy/​goddess approach

Archaeologists have attacked the assumptions of Marija Gimbutas’ highly influen-
tial work (Gimbutas 1974, 1982, 1989, 1991). A prime target is the assumption that a
predominance of female imagery reflects social, political, and spiritual dominance of
women. Damning is the recognition that no one-​to-​one connection exists between
frequencies of gendered or sexual imagery and locations of political or spiritual
power; abundant female figurines do not equal female leadership, authority, or divin-
ity. Historic and ethnographic studies suggest that representations of female bodies
emphasizing breasts and pudenda likely refer to objectifications of women and not to
their supremacy. Archaeologists now recognize that representations and material cul-
ture in general (and visual images in particular) have powers to maintain, contest, or
subvert political power.
A second target is the matriarchy/​goddess approach’s circular reasoning: figurines are
religious because they are found in shrines; buildings are shrines because they contain
figurines. This reasoning is unacceptable. Increasingly precise artefact mapping and
recovery techniques provide accurate records of figurine distribution across contexts
(garbage pits and rubbish dumps), and variation in figurine preservation (most are bro-
ken). Better understandings of figurine association and deposition reveal as simplistic
(and erroneous) the circular reasoning of figurine–​shrine–​figurine.
Rather than venerated objects of religion, ritual, and cult, figurines are more likely to
have been more mundane objects of daily life. By focusing on figurines in action (e.g.
acts of breakage), Biehl (2006), Chapman (2000), and Chapman and Gaydarska (2007)
have moved the debate well beyond acceptance of direct connections between figurines
and religion and cult. Others question cultic interpretations (Crnobrnja 2011; Naumov
2010a: 235; Tripković 2009: 22) and seek explanation in terms of social hierarchy and struc-
ture (Crnobrnja et al. 2009; Crnobrnja 2011), gender (Mina 2008), or more nuanced under-
standings of the co-​presence of the profane and the sacred (Crnobrnja et al. 2009: 21).
More dangerous are Gimbutas’ assumptions about prehistoric societies. No evi-
dence exists that Neolithic society was based on two genders (male and female) or that
Neolithic sexualized identities were static, stable, or homogenous. More likely, human
identity (sexual, political, social, or otherwise) was fluid and dynamic. Biehl argues this

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 Southeast European Neolithic Figurines    831

for Bulgarian figurines (2006: 211 n.7). Chapman and Gaydarska (2007: 57–​8) do so
with androgynous and gender-​neutral figurines, showing in their Dolnoslav work that
many figurines have no traces of either male or female bodies. Ilze Loze’s Latvian work
documents genderless figurines (Loze 2005). Milenković and Arsenijević (2009) do the
same with Vinča material, as do Petrović and Spasić (2009: 38). The most significant
work on gender and figurines is by Stratos Nanoglou (2005, 2010), who suggests that
the representation of a phallus does not demand a binary social categorization of bodies
(Nanoglou 2010: 215).
In addition, recent work has shown that the Neolithic shift to food production was
a more gradual process than earlier archaeologists thought (Bogaard 2004, 2005).
As archaeologists no longer believe intensive agriculture was the primary basis for
Neolithic food acquisition, there is no need for a fertility-​based belief system such as
mother-​goddessism in this period (Hansen 2000–​2001, 2011; Hansen’s other publica-
tions have much to offer [e.g. Hansen 2004–​2005, 2005, 2007, 2013]).
Furthermore, Gimbutas’ claim that almost all figurines are female is invalid. While
many figurines have female body parts (breasts and pudenda), the majority have neither
shape nor surface decoration that is female; some are male with penises, testicles, or
beards. More intriguing are examples that refer to male and female bodies (e.g. a phallic
neck with breasts and pudendum). Most intriguingly, figurines that have neither male
nor female parts are as numerous as those that are clearly female. Analysts recognize that
Neolithic human representations are not limited to the female form. Well-​documented
studies by Sven Hansen (2011), Biehl (2006), and Nanoglou (2005, 2010) prove the inac-
curacies of Gimbutas’ assumptions of female dominance in representation. The con-
sequences of this representational reality include Robin Hardie’s arguments about the
role of male imagery and emotion (Hardie 2007). Indeed, most current discussions
include both male representations (e.g. C. Lazarovici 2005; Lazarovici and Lazarovici
2009) and, more significantly, substantial portions of figurine assemblages that lack
sexually explicit imagery (Bailey 2005; Milenković and Arsenijević 2009; Mina 2008;
Petrović and Spasić 2009: 37). In sum, for Neolithic southeast European figurines, a
range of bodied forms is represented (male, female, hermaphrodite, asexual); earlier
claims for a dominance of the female are bankrupt.

36.3.2.2 Archaeomythology as a home to the goddess approach

While Gimbutas-​inspired goddess/​matriarchy interpretations no longer have author-
ity within critical archaeologies, they retain legitimacy in the discipline of archaeo-
mythology. Figurines play an important role in archaeomythological scholarship; it
is an error to dismiss that discipline or its engagement with the material. Joan Marler,
founder, President, and Executive Director of the Institute of Archaeomythology, has
detailed the methods, theories, and potential of archaeomythology (Marler 2000),
noting that Gimbutas developed archaeomythology to broaden prehistoric archaeo-
logical interpretation (Gimbutas 1989, 1991). Archaeomythology supplements archae-
ology with mythology, ethnology, folklore, historical linguistics, comparative religion,
and historical documentation (Marler 2000). For Marler, five assumptions inform the

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 832   Doug Bailey

discipline: cosmologies of the sacred are the core of early cultures; a culture’s sacred
beliefs and practices change slowly; modern and historic cultures contain oral, visual, and
ritual traditions originating in prehistoric and ancient societies; and cultural symbols fol-
low a ‘grammar or syntax of a meta-​language’ that transmits ‘constellations of meanings’
and share ‘inner coherences’ (Marler 2000: 1; citing Gimbutas, 1989: xv). Finally, ancient
languages contain cultural information which linguistic paleontology can recover. In the
context of twenty-​first-​century archaeology, archaeomythology’s core assumptions have
significant (insurmountable) problems. For example, the belief that cultural symbols are
homeostatic and conservative finds little support in current archaeological and anthro-
pological thought. More simply, archaeomythology is not an archaeological practice: it
argues about modern, historic and prehistoric societies and it uses archaeological mate-
rial, but it does not study those societies with archaeological methods or theories.
Archaeomythological impact on archaeological teaching and research is limited, if
present at all (see Spretnak 2011). This disarticulation of archaeology and archaeomy-
thology is the core of the archaeological assault on the Gimbutas-​goddess school (by
Bailey, Biehl, Meskell, Ucko, and others), and the vehemence of the archaeomythologi-
cal reaction to it (Spretnak 2011). Fundamentally, differences of approach, aims, objec-
tives, methods, and interpretations set one discipline against the other and will not be
resolved. Nor should they be. What remains significant about archaeomythology for a
discussion of Neolithic figurines is that the discipline holds figurines at its core. One
example will suffice.
Adrian Poruciuc’s Prehistoric Roots of Romanian and Southeast European Traditions
(2010) studies ancient religion, cult, and myth in terms of female figures; it is a key
source for students of ancient myth (Dexter 2010b: ix). The book’s aim, however, is not
to study figurines; it is to study myth and religion. Poruciuc deploys figurines as evi-
dence in discussions of faith and belief. Though his work is not archaeological, Poruciuc
claims the presence of a goddess-​centered culture, and he does so with misguided refer-
ences to the dominance of female figurines: ‘twenty times more female figurines than
male figurines have been excavated from Neolithic European sites’ (Poruciuc 2010: 4;
emphasis original). Though not inaccurate in terms of male versus female representa-
tions, Poruciuc gives an unbalanced view of the material, neglecting figurines lacking
genitalia (i.e. sexless, genderless, or asexual figurines).
Many of Poruciuc’s archaeological citations are out of date or do not range beyond
Gimbutas’ work. His goals include disproving the claim that woman are powerless and
secondary (i.e., that this second rank is a natural, historical phenomenon) (Poruciuc
2010: 186), and rebalancing the world with feminine energy. For Poruciuc, figurines
prove the presence and strength of that energy, but they are not the primary focus of his
investigation; he scoops them up and their now erroneous interpretations from other’s
work, mainly Gimbutas’.
Works like Poruciuc’s hit difficulties when they imitate archaeology. The title
Prehistoric Roots of Romanian and Southeast European Traditions suggests an archae-
ological investigation and interpretation. In the book’s forward, Miriam Dexter’s lan-
guage does the same: Poruciuc is ‘excavating the treasures of the Romanian folksong . . .

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 Southeast European Neolithic Figurines    833

[so] one may better understand the different strata of folk material’ (Dexter 2010b: vi;
emphases added); he ‘excavates’ Romanian folk carols (colinde) for myths, folk memo-
ries, and cultural information (Dexter 2010b: viii). Some claims are explicit: modern (or
historic) folk songs have prehistoric roots (Dexter 2010b: viii), names in the songs ‘date
to the prehistoric age’ (Dexter 2010b: vii), and songs carry material ‘dating back to the
early Neolithic’ (Dexter 2010b: viii).
It is easy (though misguided) to critique Poruciuc’s (and Dexter’s) claims to connect
200-​year old carols with the distant Neolithic, or to object to Marler’s arguments and
conclusions. While most archaeologists would deny archaeomythological proposals
that meanings could have lasted unchanged for over 7,000 years, the same archaeologists
easily elide two or three millennia; is seven millennia to be ruled out of play? Colleagues
studying the Palaeolithic draw comparisons and conclusions over tens of millennia.

36.3.2.3 Continued promotion of the matriarchy/​goddess approach

For archaeomythologists and a few archaeological studies, figurines remain representa-
tions of goddesses: their discovery marks cultic, ceremonial, and religious activities. The
strongest archaeological voices proclaiming goddess interpretations are local southeast
European specialists. In work on Albanian figurines, Rudenc Ruka suggests that inter-
pretations focus on what the figurines represent: fertility divinities, reproduction, and
matriarchal society (Ruka 2006: 60–​1). Petrović and Spasić (2009: 37) understand the
Great.Mother as the principle deity of the Serbian Neolithic. Sanev argues that Neolithic
craftsmen [sic] equated the female body with the mother of god in Macedonia (Sanev
2006: 173), identifies a Bird Goddess at Anzabegovo (Sanev 2006: 182), and sees house-​
models as Great.Mother sculptures of Great Goddess rituals (Sanev 2006: 183).
Writing about Cucuteni-​Tripolye figurines, Gheorghe and Cornelia Mantu Lazarovici
recognize over a hundred Cucuteni-​Tripolye signs in terms of sacred messages used in
cult ceremonies (G. Lazarovici 2003, 2009). The Lazarovicis use these signs to decipher
Neolithic religious life and propose a belief system based on a pantheon dominated by
the ‘Great Goddess, mistress of life and death’ represented by the tree of life or a column
of snakes or fishes (C. Lazarovici 2005: 145–​6). At Propodunja, C. Lazarovici sees house-​
models as evidence for ‘the rite of cultic grinding’ (Lazarovici and Lazarovici 2008: 9).
For the Lazarovicis, these sites contain cult complexes; locations of cult objects within
settlements define religious centres; figurines are part of the ‘sacred inventory’ of com-
munal sanctuaries and home shrines (C. Lazarovici 2005: 146).

36.4 Reactions to Anecdotal

Explanation

Recent interpretative work on figurines takes a more critical view. The best analyses
mesh precise excavation with social science research, particularly on gender and the

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 834   Doug Bailey

politics of representation. Probably Neolithic figurines functioned as portraits, toys,

teaching aids, religious objects, or all of these. More important, figurines played funda-
mental roles in subconscious constructions of individual and group identities, particu-
larly as the body emerged as the primary vehicle for expressing difference (specifically as
defined by sexual body parts), and hence of the common connection of gender-​to-​body
in Western society from prehistoric to modern times.

36.4.1 Conduits of Communication
Most accept that figurines had symbolic meanings, though they do not plunge into
the anecdotal specifics of the goddess or breakage interpretations. Biehl stresses the
function of figurines as ‘communication conduits’ (Biehl 2006: 199). Each artefact
(figurine or other) is made according to a code system; archaeologists investigate the
system by focusing on objects’ chronological, material, and ideological attributes (Biehl
2006: 203). Study of all attributes uncovers the object’s ‘hidden, symbolic ‘language’ and
the communication system’ (Biehl 2006: 203). Analysis deciphers the codes that arte-
facts transmit and the meaning objects carry (Biehl 2006: 203). Repetitions of design
and production (including symbols) illustrate a collective communication system
(Biehl 2006: 203). Having focused on communicative capacities, however, Biehl then
reverts to anecdotal claims that figurines functioned in ‘exchanges’ between individuals
and the supernatural (Biehl 2006: 207).

36.4.2 Signals for Identity, Status, and Social Structure

Others see figurines as windows onto Neolithic identities and statuses. Differences in
figurine decoration and form represent individuals’ social contexts and interest groups
(Chapman and Gaydarska 2007: 141). Diversity in figurine form and decoration at
Dolnoslav was a metaphor for a community’s interest-​and kin-​groups: figurine diver-
sity equals social diversity. Deposition of particular figurines in particular places marks
completions of communities’ key social processes (Chapman and Gaydarska 2007: 135).
Ruka examines figurine production methods to reveal social statuses of figurine users
in Albania (Ruka 2006: 64). Loze suggests that we should see different Latvian figu-
rines as representations of different groups of people (Loze 2005: 162). Naumov suggests
that differences in figurine modelling and decoration relate to social statuses of people
(Naumov 2010a: 229). Tripković argues that differences in figurine decoration allow us
to see ‘the personalization of the older and dominant household residents’ (Tripković
2009: 22, fi
­ gure 7). Crnobrnja makes the same argument for the larger of the Stubline
tool-​figurines (Crnobrnja et al. 2009). In an attempt to open thinking, it is suggested
here that we think of figurine production, display, use, and discard with theories of
social stereotyping (Bailey 2007); in-​groups created and decorated figurines based on
(subconscious) understandings of their differences from other people (i.e. out-​groups).

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 Southeast European Neolithic Figurines    835

In these simple associations, however, none of these efforts is substantially distinct

from Gimbutas’ proposals that female figurines represent peaceful, egalitarian kinship
societies.
Svend Hansen writes about figurines and status at Pietrele, suggesting a connection
between bone figurines and elevated status (Hansen 2011: 4). Maria Mina allocates
high status to seated figures in the Aegean, noting that these are most often male fig-
ures (Mina 2008: 227). Crnobrnja and colleagues suggest that the arrangement of the
Stubline figurines and their associations with tools reveal social structure and hierar-
chy at the group level, beyond the individual or household (Crnobrnja et al. 2009: 91;
Crnobrnja 2011: 139–​41). Nanoglou takes a more sophisticated position, arguing that
figurines do not reflect identity, because Neolithic communities experienced identity
differently from how we do today (Nanoglou 2008b: 8–​9): the relationship of figurine to
society is not one of representation but of constitution (Nanoglou 2005: 147).

36.4.3 Formal Description and Comparison

There is much to criticize in reading social structure and identity from figurine deco-
ration, size, or deposition. Most attempts are anecdotal; each is just as unassessable as
are cultic explanations. One reaction to anecdotal explanations is to restrict analysis
to description and comparison across regions and through time. The call for detailed
description is common (e.g. Andreescu 2002, 2007; C. Lazarovici 2005; Mina 2008,
Ruka 2006: 64; Sanev 2006: 173; Spasić and Vignjević 2011; Tasić 2011: 2). While formal
description is a basis for interpretations of patterns in shape and surface treatment (e.g.
Biehl 2006; Mina 2008; Nanoglou 2009a), too many experts limit their work to static
comparison of chronological and geographic trends. At one end of the chronologic
spectrum, archaeomythologists trace deep and ranging connections of symbols, signs,
and meanings (e.g. Poruciuc’s study of folk songs’ Neolithic roots). Dexter (2010a) sees a
continuation of (female religious) symbolism from Neolithic to recent times; meanings
of prehistoric bird-​goddesses figurines ‘were remembered’ in later cultures.
Hansen’s studies trace shared features of figurines at supra-​regional levels and com-
pare Neolithic to Palaeolithic material (Hansen 2001, 2011). My own work (Bailey et al.
2010) juxtaposed prehistoric Europe and Japan with modern Barbie Dolls and bonsai
trees: a comparative breadth and depth rivalling archaeomythologists. Earlier research
(Bailey 2005, 2007) worked Neolithic material through recent or modern concepts such
as miniaturization (e.g. Bailey 2005).
Comparison of figurines between neighbouring regions and contingent phases
is a common approach, particularly for local specialists who know the material best.
Lazarovici’s work on Cucuteni-​Tripolye figurines establishes similarities and differ-
ences with contemporary Neolithic and groups (C. Lazarovici 2005: 152). Loze com-
pares Latvian objects with similar southeast European ones (Loze 2005). Milenković
and Arsenijević compare Vinča figurine phases to illustrate a shared tradition through
time (Milenković and Arsenijević 2009). Mina compares successive phases within the

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 836   Doug Bailey

Neolithic, and with the Neolithic and the early Bronze Age, arguing that some artefacts
continued unbroken between these periods (Mina 2008: 233). Nanoglou’s arguments
run comparisons of periods and regions: Early and Later Neolithic Thessaly (Nanoglou
2005, 2006, 2008a, 2008b); Thessaly and Balkan regions to the north (Nanoglou 2009a);
and Neolithic with the Early Bronze Age (Nanoglou in press). This broad comparative
approach allows (perhaps necessitates) statements which otherwise might not be cred-
ible. Is there value to a statement that identifies, for example, increased standardization
of postures among figurines from two successive periods?
The comparative method is common for archaeology (and art history and archaeomy-
thology), particularly when a discipline’s aim is to explain long-​term change. Common
use of the method to study figurines, however, is not a satisfactory means to examine
figurine function or meaning. Practised though comparison, archaeology ignores spe-
cific individuals making particular decisions in local contexts of meaning and intent. In
opposition to large-​scale comparison, Chapman and Gaydarska (2007) and Nanoglou
(2006: 156, 170) devote attention to local apprehensions of figurines. Nanoglou argues
that there is no ‘generic Neolithic individual’ (Nanoglou 2009a: 283); we need to attend
to local worlds of the past in different places and at different times.

36.5 Critical Engagement

and Deeper Meanings

Calls for local apprehension move us into richer engagements with figurines and peo-
ple who made, used, and discarded them. While discussions have long referenced
gender and female social, political, and spiritual power, only recently have they aban-
doned direct reading of gender from sexually specific body parts (breasts, penises, labia,
beards). No longer can analysis ignore the social, material, and political constructions
of sexuality and gender. Hansen (2001), Milenković and Arsenijević (2009: 345), and
Mina (2008) make explicit this position, and Chapman and Gaydarska focus on ways in
which figurine fragments came to be gendered or how gender changed.
Stimulating discussion comes from Stratos Nanoglou (Nanoglou 2005, 2006, 2008a,
2008b, 2009a, 2009b, 2010, 2012a, 2012b, 2015, in press). He argues that sex and gender
may not naturally have been part of every person’s background or experience (Nanoglou
2005: 146), that gender may not have been a structuring principle in the past (Nanoglou
2010: 215), and, more radically, that when represented, genitals may have been part of a
discourse outside today’s concepts of gender (Nanoglou 2005: 146).
Nanoglou’s approach to Thessalian Neolithic figurines moves into fresh, nuanced
realms. Central is the proposal that processes by which a person constitutes themselves
are located in specific moments of connections among people, material, and animals.
Each articulation is unique (2009a: 284–​5). Different people constitute realities (and
their essences within those realities) differently. For example, Nanoglou distinguishes

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 Southeast European Neolithic Figurines    837

different articulations-​for-​being in different regions of southeastern Europe. During the

Early Neolithic, to the north of Thessalian Greece, a close connection between images of
animals and people existed; these are the images that constitute community and iden-
tity. To the south, in Greece, different sets of articulations existed: a landscape of active
figures with bodies always in action (2009a: 287). People and other entities (animals,
plants, stones, artefacts) converged on scenes of engagement where figurines would
have evoked certain responses (conscious or not) from people (2008a: 219, 287).

36.5.1 Materiality of Figurines
Other important work focuses on the materiality of figurines. Chapman and Gaydarska’s
(and Biehl’s) work on breakage, and recognition that some figurines afford breakage, are
examples. Biehl suggests that important differences may have existed between the use
of clay and bone figurines: bone figures were worn on the body and not given to inten-
tional breakage (Biehl 2006: 205, 211 n12). Hansen discusses links between bone figures,
early metallurgy, and elevated social status at Pietrele (Hansen 2011). Schier writes of the
intrinsic value of loam: a material of symbolic relations to earth, crops, or both (Schier
2006: 330). I have examined the consequences of making, holding, and seeing minia-
ture representations (Bailey 2005, 2014c), with effects that empower figurine makers
and handlers, and take them into other worlds. Similar is Nanoglou’s suggestion that
representing a form in miniature brings it into a position that people can understand
(Nanoglou 2015).
Nanoglou asks: ‘through which discourses people, animals, plants or things come to
materialize as subjects, objects, of an other category?’ (Nanoglou 2008a: 314). His scenes
of engagement suggest that particular figurine qualities (e.g. clay) focused community
members’ negotiations of relationships (2008a: 219). Different materials used to repre-
sent the body (and how they were used—​to form pendants or pots) would have had
different effects on people, particularly as they understood themselves as embodied
entities (Nanoglou 2008a: 315, 2009a). Clay and stone were both used to represent the
human form, but each was used in a different way; their deployment would have had
different consequences. For Early Neolithic Thessaly, stone pendants would have been
worn on the body, while people would have carried figurines and anthropomorphic
pots (Nanoglou 2008a: 317).
Pots and the figurines were independent elements in the community. Stone pen-
dants, on the other hand, were associated with bodies: parts of the bodies that wore
them (Nanoglou 2008a: 317). Clay images of the body (in figurine or pot form) could
stand for themselves in ways that a pendant could not (Nanoglou 2008a: 317); pendants
were indices of different practices (Nanoglou 2005: 144). Nanoglou illuminates dif-
ferences between working clay and stone, distinguishing between ‘active-​clay-​figures’
and ‘part-​of-​the-​bodies-​that-​wear-​them-​stone-​pendants’ (Nanoglou 2008a: 318–​19).
Clay figurines were made of several parts; stone objects of one and, thus, embodied
cohesiveness. Pendants and figurines/​pots were different (not interchangeable) classes

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 838   Doug Bailey

of objects, utilized in different contexts, enabling the constitution of different sub-

jects. Engagement with clay figurines focused on negotiations of relationships among
community members; engagement with stone pendants related to specific persons
(Nanoglou 2008a: 318–​19).
Nanoglou takes the distinction between stone and clay one step further (Nanoglou in
press). He views material as an analytical concept. The use of clay or stone would have
stimulated Neolithic questions about what one was made of. Nanoglou refers to using
stone to form separate (or detachable) heads placed at the top of clay figurine bodies
(i.e. acrolithic figures). He argues that stone conveys a special property (residing in the
head), which would have distinguished these figures from those of clay (Nanoglou in
press). Thus, some humans were of a substance different from other humans, animals,
and houses (Nanoglou in press). The introduction of stone as a material to create human
forms would have expanded the miniature world to include new entities: working the
human form in stone, Neolithic people would have changed the form of their world
(Nanoglou in press).
In separate discussions, Nanoglou examines specifics of materiality of representa-
tion, arguing against the assumption, common in anecdotal explanation, that represen-
tations mirror prehistoric reality (Nanoglou 2009b: 157). Representational objects are
not merely manifestations of a community’s behaviour; they are the very objects that
create behaviour through endless ‘performative articulations’ (Nanoglou 2009a: 284–​5).
Nanoglou elevates materialization as a rearticulation of a form (e.g. the human body)
into a different materiality (Nanoglou 2009b: 158). Rearticulations can create pecu-
liar materialities: an object may be easy to handle, to hide, to break, to carry around,
to assemble, and to disperse (Nanoglou 2012a: 283). With these terms, Nanoglou looks
again at the materializations of phalli (as pendants or on vessels) in early Neolithic
Thessaly (Nanoglou 2010: 221), suggesting that their material character allows them to
be brought along or left behind: to be invoked at will (Nanoglou 2010: 221).
At a broader level, Nanoglou calls to break up the generic category of figurine (even
of human representation). Depending on the materials used and action-​performance
engaged in, one type of representation (e.g. the human figure) does not necessarily con-
tain one type of use, one effect, or one meaning in its local context. Nanoglou recog-
nizes active objects in performative scenes of engagement: active objects with agency
(Nanoglou 2015). As such, figurines had the power to intervene (Nanoglou 2005: 146),
disrupt, and reshape existing frameworks of community and individual sociality.
Much current figurine work discards simplistic morphological identifications
of male and female, instead drawing attention to figurines as the body made mate-
rial. My writing, starting from the conclusion of Prehistoric Figurines: Representation
and Corporeality (Bailey 2005), examines figurines as body manifestations, and runs
through discussions of corporeality (Bailey 2008; see also Naumov’s 2010a, 2010b dis-
cussion of corporeality and his other important work on Macedonia material and fig-
urines in general [Naumov 2009a, 2009b, 2014a, 2014b; Naumov and Čausidis 2011]),
stereotypes and stereotyping (Bailey 2007, 2008), and the effects of rhetorical illusion
(Bailey 2007). I have argued that ancient, historic, and contemporary understandings

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 Southeast European Neolithic Figurines    839

of the body as the primary organ for expressions of being, essence, and identity rest on
the gradual (3,000-​year) creation, display, and discard of Neolithic anthropomorphic
figurines (Bailey 2012).

36.6 Beyond Meaning:

Making New Work

In the work reviewed, from Gimbutas-​inspired archaeomythology, through Chapman

and Gaydarska’s object breakage, to Nanoglou’s constituted worlds and scenes of artic-
ulation, the reader never obtains a clear understanding of what anthropomorphic
figurines meant or how they functioned. None of our investigations breaks the bound-
aries of the anecdotal. What are the consequences of this failure? How do we release
the potential of these objects? We need to transcend attempts to uncover function and
meaning. We need to release the restraints of standard archaeological reasoning, and
work in a more creative world.
I have argued for an art/​archaeology in which we use fragments of the past (e.g. figu-
rines) to create new work that looks to the present and the future, and fully disarticulates
with the past (Bailey 2014a). Examples include Mike Pearson and Michael Shanks’ thea-
tre/​archaeology (2001, 2014), Aaron Watson’s graphics of British monuments (Watson
2005), Alfredo Gonzalez-​Ruibal’s contemporary visual productions, Bjornar Olson’s
engagement with a post-​Socialist mining town (Andreassen et al. 2010), and my work
on scales of archaeological time (Bailey 2015), conflicted valuations of periods of the
past (Bailey 2014b), and the emergence of the body (and not the ground) as the centre of
our sense of being (Bailey 2013).
Similar art/​archaeology work using Neolithic figurines is less well established. A first
attempt was the forematter in Prehistoric Figurines (2005), five manipulations of figu-
rine images: a Warhol-​esque, four-​fold repetition of a figurine head, each retextured
(Figure 36.5); a distortion of a bone figurine twisted surrealistically; fingers holding
half a dozen fragments; a muddy hand gripping a bone figurine behind a person’s back;
and a close-​up of a figurine head and shoulders held in a hand.
In later work I explored the tactility of figurines by taking photographs of figurines
held in unusual ways, hands covering figurine detail (particularly faces and heads), and
displeasing specialists and museum technicians who preferred standard display proce-
dures (Figure 36.6; appeared in Bailey 2008, pp. 10–​12; Bailey et al. 2010: pp. 8, 50, 91,
150). It is tempting to write now that the intention was clear from the outset of these
modern altered representations: to provoke thinking about tangibility as I would later
write about as cheirotic apprehension (Bailey 2014c). To suggest there was a plan when
those images were made in 2003 and 2004 would be arrogance of hindsight. My inten-
tion was to make non-​standard representations in order to make new work (out of old)
and to affect the reader in unexpected ways.

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 840   Doug Bailey

Fig. 36.5 Untitled forematter image of Neolithic Balkan figurine (from Bailey 2005: iv).
(Photo: copyright Doug Bailey)

Manifestations of creative potentials of making new work with old figurines include
Japanese photographer Kuwashima Tsunaki’s images (Figure 36.7; Bailey 2010b; Bailey
et al. 2010: 13, 84, 95, 118, 137). Though of prehistoric Jōmon figurines (or dogū), the
images treat a prehistoric figurine as canvas, medium, and stimulation to create some-
thing new and unrelated to the culture of its first creation. Kuwashima photographed
the dogū, then made prints in negative, thus creating striking work; light glowing out of
figurine interiors—​from eyes, mouths, noses, and waists. The dogū are alive (are agents)
and have an energy that I could not imagine before. These are original articulations that
only emerged through the photographer making new work out of old.

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 Southeast European Neolithic Figurines    841

Fig. 36.6 Hamangia culture (5200-​ 4500 bp) clay figurine from southern Romania.
Height: 20 cm. (Photo: copyright Doug Bailey)

Another example comes from more work with Jōmon dogū (Figure 36.8). I asked
the British performance-​artist Shaun Caton to react to encountering dogū, and then to
make new work based on his reactions. The results were unusual, unexpected, and stun-
ning. First, Caton made graphic works of crayon on paper (Figure 36.8; see also Bailey
et al. 2010: pp. 31, 89, 153; Bailey 2010). In these images, the dogū dance and loom, glow
and dim, advance and recede. None are fully or accurately portrayed, yet all are alive
and engage the viewer in unique, unexpected, and provocative ways. Next, Caton wrote
about the dogū, again in non-​traditional ways that caused me to think in ways and with
images previously not imagined:

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 842   Doug Bailey

Fig. 36.7 Negative print of Middle Jōmon Period (2500–​1500 bp) dogū by Kuwashima Tsunaki
(from Bailey et al. 2010: 118). (Photo: copyright Kuwashima Tsunaki)

Figurines spiraling upwards on an unsteady axis, spin slowly, and are “born” from
the heaving earth. There is a curious mechanical clacking sound. I look out into a
field and see hundreds, maybe thousands, of figurines popping up from the topsoil,
stained by dampness. Brackish voices begin to merge in one loud unmmmming
choir. At this point I realize that none of these figurines has ever been discovered.
They revolve like spinning tops and return to the ground where they lay hidden, their
voices becoming fainter as they disappear down dark “funnel” holes’ (Caton 2010).

In all of Caton’s work, I was left unsure, unsettled, but stimulated in new and uncom-
fortable manners.
Caton and Kuwashima’s work was part of a project that I directed with Simon Kaner
at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (SCVA) at the University of East Anglia in the
UK. In the project I made two strong shoves to provoke new insights and reactions
to figurines. The first was an exhibition in which we planned to juxtapose the con-
temporary and the prehistoric, the Balkan and the Japanese: assemblages of modern
and ancient objects in the same vitrines; popular culture, such as Barbie Dolls next
to ethnographic and museum-​loaned artefacts. The exhibition failed to meet these
plans, unexpectedly, when the SCVA refused to allow popular culture into their formal
exhibition space.

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 Southeast European Neolithic Figurines    843

Fig. 36.8 We are Fragments of an Unknown History (2010). Crayon on paper, by Shaun Caton
provoked by his observations of from the Jōmon dogū (12,500–​300 bp) (from Bailey et al.
2010: 31). (Drawing: copyright Shaun Caton)

Where the exhibition was watered down, the book that accompanied the show
exceeded expectations (Bailey et al. 2010) (Figure 36.9). The goal was to make a book
that was more mediation on excavation and figurine/​dogū interpretation than it was a
monograph comparing two great traditions of prehistoric art. We titled the book sarcas-
tically, A Comparative Study of Jōmon Dogū and Neolithic Figurines, to attract traditional
scholars expecting a traditional comparative approach but who would find something
different. We made the book as if a museum archive tray or an excavation trench, that we
filled with jumbled disarticulated images, objects, interviews, comments, art, artefact,
sarcasm, soft pornography, 1970s television paraphernalia, and précis of figurine histo-
riographies. The result was a non-​linear, non-​narrative, anti-​conclusion. Readers had to
wrestle with their own understanding, appreciation, and engagement with the figurines
and dogū.
In all of these works, both those drawn together for the Unearthed book and the other
modern work that exploits, reacts to, and consumes figurines, the intention is to move
beyond searches for function, interpretation, and meaning. Almost anything goes —​
anything except closed, definitive statements that lock objects into explanations of past

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 844   Doug Bailey

Fig. 36.9 Cover for Unearthed: a Comparative Study of Jōmon Dogū and Neolithic Figurines
(Bailey et al. 2010). (Illustration: copyright Doug Bailey and Jean Zambelli)

behaviour, action, function, or meaning. One unexpected result is immensely satisfy-

ing. Just as we are starting to release our articulations with figurines from the confines of
meaning, we may be stumbling upon a truer connection to those Neolithic people who
made, handled, broke, and threw way these objects. Perhaps Neolithic figurines from
southeastern Europe existed in the past exactly as they do in the current art/​archaeol-
ogy work: as evocations, provocations, and objects of admiration, fear, wonder, and
bewilderment.

36.7 Conclusion

In all of these approaches, from the anecdotal to the new work, figurines serve the pur-
pose of each particular excavator, analyst, and interpreter. In this sense the purposes
to which Marija Gimbutas and Joan Marler put figurine material from Neolithic Greek
sites (i.e. to create a European past in which the position of woman is illuminated and
promoted) is little distinct from the ways that Chapman and Gaydarska exploit the figu-
rine fragments from Dolnoslav (i.e. to work a set of anthropological proposals through

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 Southeast European Neolithic Figurines    845

a set of material). In the same way, my use of photography and graphic design, and those
of Kuwashima and Caton, are nothing more (or less for that matter). My intention has
been to use material and surrounding ephemera in order to make new works. These
new works loop back, it is suggested, to connect in some obscure way with the Neolithic
material: both new art/​archaeology work and the original figurines were in play, at play,
and of play.

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