A Woman's Spare Time

I feel like a chimp when Dr. O says that you aren't really human without a creative outlet.  If I lived during the Ice Ages I would not have been the one to take the time to carve a fertility image.  I think pre-historic me would use her "spare" time to sleep, find food, and tend the fire.  So, it is infinitely interesting to me that people did take the time to find a stone, create a carving tool, and carve out a pregnant woman.  The Natural History Museum here in Vienna houses the carving here, found in Willendorf, Austria, which would fit in the palm of your hand.  She is one of a handful of sculptures found across Europe (from France to Russia) that date back to around 25000 years ago-- the earliest depictions of the human form that we have. They all have accentuated "gender-features" , tiny arms, and no face or feat.  They do not stand up on their own. When I looked this Woman of Willendorf up online I came to a BBC website that explains our little lady here in terms of "peak shift"-- "In essence our brain is hard-wired to focus upon parts of objects with pleasing associations. So if you were an artist, the tendency would be to reproduce human figures with parts that mattered the most to you."-- and, in the Ice Age, fatness and fertility would have mattered greatly. 
I like to imagine someone holding her in her hand, wishing for a healthy pregnancy.  I would have done that in my spare time.