Willendorf II

The open-air Palaeolithic site of Willendorf II lies in a gravel terrace beside the Danube near Krems in Lower Austria. Excavations show two main layers: one from about 40 000 years ago with Aurignacian stone tools, and another from 30 000–24 000 years ago with Gravettian tool types. Archaeologists working here have reconstructed how hunter-gatherers camped on the riverbank, knapping flint and shaping bone points. The site is best known for the small limestone figurine discovered in the Gravettian level. Known as the Venus of Willendorf, this 11-centimetre sculpture of a woman with exaggerated features now resides in Vienna’s Natural History Museum. It is one of the earliest and most complete representations of the human form from Ice Age Europe. Researchers such as Maria Teschler-Nicola and Erik Trinkaus have studied the figurine and related human remains from the same layers. Visitors today walk a short path from the Danube cycle trail to a fenced area marking the dig. Interpretive panels explain the Aurignacian and Gravettian finds, while a life-size replica of the Venus stands beside the original excavation trench. The surrounding gravel plain and riverine woods give a sense of the landscape that Ice Age people knew.