[Ostrogorski]

Originally Posted by Kalevi

If female gods of fertility, snake- and stone worshipping and labyrinths are "Middle-Eastern" or "signs of the desert", then the whole pre-Indo-European Europe should have been nothing but a huge desert. Venus-figures associated with female fertility were typical already in the Ice Age, and there's labyrinth-figures made of stones even in Finland.

Interesting. Of course, that's just my opinion based on some of my observations of the subject, so I don't necessarily have to be right in every case, but here's an information regarding the subject from wiki page Venus figurines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :

All generally accepted Paleolithic female figurines are from the Upper Palaeolithic. Although they were originally mostly considered Aurignacian, the majority is now associated with the Gravettian and Solutrean. In these periods, the more rotund figurines are predominant. During the Magdalenian, the forms become finer with more detail; conventional stylization also develops.

A number of attempts to subdivide or classify the figurines have been made. One of the less controversial is that by Henri Delporte, simply based on geographic provenance[3]. He distinguishes:

* the Venus figurines of the Pyrenees-Aquitaine group (Venus of Lespugue, of Laussel and of Brassempouy)
* the Venus figurines of the Mediterranean group (Venus of Savignano and of Balzi Rossi)
* the Venus figurines of the Rhine-Danube group (Venus of Willendorf and of Dolní Věstonice)
* the Venus figurines of the Russian group (Kostienki in Russia and Gagarino in Ukraine)
* the Venus figurines of the Siberian group (Mal'ta Venus, Bouret' Venus).

According to André Leroi-Gourhan, there are cultural connections between all these groups. He states that certain anatomical details suggest a shared Oriental origin, followed by a westward diffusion.[4].

The absence of such figurines from the Iberian peninsula is curious. Only few and rather dubious examples have been reported, especially at El Pendo and La Pileta. The so-called Venus of Las Caldas from a cave near Oviedo is a Magdalenian antler carving. Although some scholars see it as a stylised female body with an animal head, it is probably a decorated atlatl-type device.

Some of figurines are steatopygic which indeed isn't a European and certainly not Caucasoid trait. Generally, I belive that these figurines are either of middle eastern or of Neanderthal origin.

Originally Posted by Kalevi

Despite my rationalist standpoint, I can somehow subscribe to the symbolism used here. But instead of being only something specific to desert peoples, the things you call chtonic and Middle-Eastern are just an archaic form of spirituality and religious life.

Perhaps, perhaps not, who can tell? But the fact stays that certain traditions and religious practices are more characteristic for certain people than they are for other - chtonic cults for the near and middle easterners, animism for Africans, shamanism for Asians etc.