Figure 3: Head fragment of a figurine from Grimaldi, Italy (left)  strikingly resembling the immature cap of an A. muscaria (right).

Figure 2. Amanita muscaria primordium (left) strikingly resembling Venus of Willendorf (right).

On the other hand, several years ago, after reconsidering the Willendorf Venus in light of various pictures I had by then seen of immature stages of the psychotropic Amanita muscaria mushroom, I could not help but suspect that the figurine had been sculpted to personify, as strange as it then seemed, the particular stage of an A. muscaria appearing on the left in Figure 2. More precisely, it was apparent that the figurine's strange coif was designed to personify the characteristically knotted cap of a young A. muscaria; the figurine’s steatopygia was designed to personify the A. muscaria's bulbous primordium; the figurine's strangely slender, segmented and handless arms were designed to personify the dentate ring the A. muscaria's ruptured veil leaves on the mushroom's stem; and the red ochre on the figurine was intended to color it the most common color A. muscariae caps display.

In addition, there were adequate grounds for inferring that the knotted cap of the immature A. muscaria on the right in Figure 3 (above) strikingly resembled the pocked head fragment of a figurine from Grimaldi, Italy (Figure 3, left), as well as the head of the Willendorf Venus, because the Grimaldi head, too, had been sculpted to personify an A. muscaria cap.

It then also became apparent that the figurine from Bedeilhac, France, on the right in Figure 4 (below), strikingly resembled the primordial A. muscaria to its left, because the figurine had been sculpted to personify a virtually identical A. muscaria primordium.

Figure 4: Figurine from Bedeilhac, France (right) strikingly resembling A. muscaria primordium (left).

The completely pocked figurine on the right in Figure 5 (below) had been sculpted to depict a young A. muscaria primoridium completely covered by studs, like the one on the left in the same figure. 

Figure 5

The figurine from Chiozza di Scandino, Italy, on the right in Figure 6 (below) strikingly resembled the Horse Chestnut primordium to its left, because the figurine had been sculpted to personify a virtually identical primordium.

Figure 6: Left: Horse mushroom primordium.Right:  anthropoid female figurine from Chiozza di Scandino, Italy.

The predynastic Egyptian figurine on the left in Figure 7 (below) displayed a conspicuous basal cleft, because it had been sculpted to personify an A. brunnescens, or "cleft foot" mushroom, like the one on its right. 

Figure 7: Left: Predynastic Egyptian figurine with conspicuous basal cleft identical to that of the A. brunescens, or "cleft foot" mushroom.

The series of so-called seated figurines from Moravia in Figure 8 strikingly resembled the Quilletta mirablis primordium on the far right in the same figure, because the figurines had been sculpted to personify such a primordium.

Figure 8: Left: Series of four so-called seated figurines fashioned from mammoth metacarpal bones. Right: Quiletta mirablis primordium.

And the flat-headed Cannanite figurines on the left and in the center of Figure 9 (below) had been sculpted to personify a cluster of psilocybes, like the one shown growing from a cake of growth media on the right in the same figure. (Click here for more identifications.)

Figure 9: Left & Center: Canaanite figurines strikingly resembling cluster of psilocybes on cake of growth media.

It was then also apparent that neither the above nor any other prehistoric, anthropoid figurines had ever been identified as personified mushrooms, because our modern minds tend to identify mushrooms by their umbrella shape, whereas prehistoric artists were personifying the mushrooms' primordial features. Although the reason for this is still unclear, it seems that the practice may be analogous to the extant, tribal practice of using the features of chrysalyses to classify insects .(Levi-Strauss, 1966)