There are certain things about the Old Stone Age you learn in high school—like the distinctions between Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic, and Upper Paleolithic periods. But for the real interesting prehistoric dirt, you’ve got to rely on the _floss.The oldest human statue (yet discovered), a female figurine, was recently found in a cave in south-western Germany. Standing a full 6cm tall, she’s carved from a mammoth tusk and dates from about 35,000 years ago.

Similar to the famous Venus of Willendorf, but predating her by, oh, just a little more than 10,000 years, the pendant is simple, like the Venus, with a serious emphasis on the vulva, breasts, and engorged belly. [Nature magazine has the rest of the scoop, so if you want to ogle the full-length, uncut video, it's available over at Nature.com.]

It’s unclear to me whether the head snapped off the figurine, like part of her left arm did, or was never created in the first place. But what is clear, however, is that humankind (or at least the ‘artist’ subset) has not evolved much at all since our prehistoric roots. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Just check out the below graffiti.

(graffiti photo courtesy of Flickr user The Joy Of The Mundane)