Issues

Cover: The Venus of Willendorf, a limestone figurine that is ∼11 cm high and dated 22,000-24,000 BC, was found in 1908 by the archaeologist Josef Szombathy near the town of Willendorf in Austria, and is now displayed in the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna. It is the most famous of a series of Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines found in middle Europe. Often described as mother goodness or as an amulet of fertility, it has also been heralded as the first example of obesity in human evolutionary history. Although it is unlikely that any human being who endured the fast and famines of the Paleolithic age would have had the chance to become obese, the figurine's enigmatic nature and round shape perfectly represent the mystery of why we are 'The obese species'. Image credit: Matthias Kabel; adapted under the GNU Free Documentation License.