Stone-age dildo?

Got your attention, didn't I?

There were a few stories about this find back in mid-July but I didn't get a chance to read more about it until now.  Archaeologists excavating waterlogged river sediments near Motala in Östergötland, Sweden have been unearthing mesolithic bone and wood artifacts which are rarely preserved elsewhere (organic material typically rots away unless it's sealed off from oxygen).

A few weeks ago, the following object was found making news headlines around the world (Stone Age Carving May be Ancient Sex Toy, Stone Age Carving: Ancient Dildo?, and Stone Age Discovery: Ancient Sex Toy? to list only a few).  It certainly looks like a penis.

The object is carved antler measuring 10.5 cm (4 in) long by 2 cm (0.8 in) in diameter (the ruler above is in cm).  The artifacts are estimated to come from 4,000 - 6,000 BCE and I'm guessing the antler material will be radiocarbon dated to get a better fix on its age.  It's not the oldest phallic object discovered, in 2005 archaeologists unearthed a siltstone phallic object in Germany dating back some 28,000 years.  This object was also called a dildo in press releases.

Were these objects, in fact, sex toys?  I'm puzzled by the fact that the Motala antler phallus-shaped object looks like a circumsized penis. We wouldn't expect that in stone-age northern Europeans.  Let's look at it again and get a better perspective on its actual size.

This is not the picture they put in most of the news stories (they used the one next to the ruler that most readers, at least in this country, would think was in inches making it appear dildo-sized).  The object in the picture above doesn't look like a sex toy even though it obviously has a phallic shape.

We'll probably never know what these were used for but there may be more prosaic explanations.  Would people have been as eager to read news stories titled "Archaeologists unearth flint knapper tools"?  The German object bears scars of having been used to knap flint and was reassembled from 14 fragments.  The Motala antler phallus may have been used in flint knapping as well - a conclusion strengthened by seeing the entire object (with its broken tip).

Now it looks a little more like a tool, doesn't it?  One with a rounded knob to fit into your palm while you used the point to push flakes off flint arrowheads?

Some have speculated that it was simply a tent stake.  The people of the time probably lived in wood-frame wickiup-type structures draped with caribou (reindeer) skins.

Then again, maybe it had some ceremonial significance.  It could be the male ritual equivalent of the widespread Venus figurines found throughout Europe.

That's the challenge of archaeology.  Find objects and try to figure out what the hell they were.  Coming up with titillating explanations gets press and, perhaps, more research money (a precious resource in science).  While this find is interesting, I think it was definitely hyped up by the researchers.