Magdalenian

The Magdalenian epoch appears in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex as one point in a comparison of prehistoric images of sexed bodies. The contrast with the earlier Aurignacian period does not establish a complete account of prehistoric society; it offers material evidence whose changing forms invite questions about how gender was represented and interpreted.

Prehistoric representations

The discussion reports that the Aurignacian period produced numerous statuettes of women with emphasized sexual characteristics, as well as separately depicted vulvas. Male statuettes were very rare, and representations of the male organ were absent. By the Solutrean and Magdalenian epochs, female effigies had disappeared from this pattern of finds. A small number of vulva representations remained in the Magdalenian, but phalluses had become abundant.

What the contrast suggests

The sequence makes the Magdalenian significant not as a date for a specific narrated event but as evidence in an argument about historical change. Its archaeological images differ from those associated with the Aurignacian period: the earlier emphasis on female figures gives way to scarce vulva images and numerous phalluses. The passage reports this contrast without claiming that the objects alone explain the social arrangements or beliefs of the people who made them.

Place in the book’s argument

Across The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir challenges accounts that treat femininity as an immutable essence and instead examines how women’s circumstances have been constituted historically. The Magdalenian comparison belongs to that broader inquiry: material representations are presented as historically variable, not as proof of a timeless feminine nature. The evidence is limited to a brief account of the surviving figurines and images, so its significance lies in the change in representational pattern rather than a fully reconstructed prehistoric culture.