Page 1 The Social Symbolism of Horns There are so few people who pay any serious attention to design as a cultural document, in a deeper, more significant sense, with a historical view, that I feel my existence is justified—or will be eventually. Carl Schuster The antlers and horns of animals have served a symbolic function from the earliest times. I will summarize the existing evidence and expand it using the researches of the American art historian, Carl Schuster (1904-1969), who collected and analyzed a number of related symbols, including Y- posts, two-headed figures, and shaved sticks. In this way, I hope to get at the basic ideas that lie behind the various manifestations of the symbolism of horns. Prehistoric Evidence Figure 1: “Venus of Laussel” Abri de Cap Blanc, Dordogne, France One of the earliest images of a horn is part of a limestone bas-relief found in the Dordogne region of France and dated between 29,000 B.C. and 22,000 B.C. The “Venus of Laussel” depicts a faceless woman holding a bison horn in her right hand with her left hand resting on her stomach or womb. 1 Her body type and facelessness are typical of many Paleolithic images of woman. The horn appears to be notched, a common feature of many Paleolithic mobiliary objects. Traces of red ocher have been found on the sculpture, which is about 18 inches in height. The image is suggestive enough to have generated a lot of speculation about its meaning. Alexander Marshack and others have claimed that there are 13 notches on the horn and these may relate to the number of moons or menstrual cycles in a year. 2 Another suggestion is that she is drinking from the horn and it represents a kind of cornucopia, an idea we find in later periods. Or perhaps she is pouring liquid on herself. A last suggestion is that the horn is a wind or percussion instrument and that she is engaged in some kind of performance. No one has speculated about the red ocher but it may be significant since tribal groups in New Guinea and Australia rub it on decorated stones and churingas to make them “bleed”; a way of giving them life. 1. Female figurines very similar to this one but lacking the horn are found in Neolithic times. See Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess, pp. 140-43. 2. I have addressed the work of Alexander Marshack and speculations about Paleolithic man’s knowledge of numeration in a paper I posted on Academia.edu and elsewhere on the Web, “Lunar Calendars or Tribal Tattoos?”