Hohle Fels Cave Venus Figurine

I've now looked at the actual article in Nature that gave rise to yesterday's news reports. Here's the full reference:

Conard, Nicholas J. (2009). A Female Figurine from the Basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels Cave in Southwestern Germany. Nature Vol. 459, pp. 248-252. (doi:10.1038/nature07995).

It looks like a nice article. Some of the graphics showing the stratigraphy are very interesting. The figurine is carved of ivory and is about 6 cm long. Its very early date is significant: ca. 35,000 Cal bp. This is much earlier than the other Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines, which are generally Gravettian, about 5000 years later. Conard lists a large number of 14C dates from the Middle Paleolithic and Aurignacian levels of the cave, which, although not perfectly consistent, present a pretty clear picture of the antiquity of the find.