The statuette, which some archaeologists suspect served as a fertility charm, immortalizes a body too thick to quit. The 30,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf is a famous pocket-size figurine carved by a Western European civilization during the Upper Paleolithic. Digging deep for ancient backsidesįor as long as humans have been making art, they’ve been thinking about bodacious butts. Here are a few of the ways our bums factor into scientific understanding, lifesaving medicine, and the future of engineering. The organs nestled behind those cheeks also have a massive influence on our health and wellbeing. The fat that sits atop it affects how we feel whenever we sit or lie down. That said, the gluteus maximus does more than just keep us on our feet. “The butt is an essential adaptation for the human ability to run steadily, for long distances, and without injury,” Radke writes. Research increasingly suggests that more massive muscles in the vicinity of the buttocks make for faster sprinting and better running endurance too. The curved pelvic bone that gives the butt its prominence likely developed as our weight moved upward and our muscular needs shifted. So why did our ancestors develop such a unique cushion? Evolutionary biologists’ best guess is that our shapely rears help us walk upright. But none pack anything close to the same proportions as us. Many other creatures have muscle and fat padding their backsides, and some even have butt cheeks.

A booty is, in fact, a unique feat of evolution: Out of any species, humans have the most junk in their trunks. Unlike with a knee or an elbow, Radke argues, when it comes to the tuchus, we’re far more likely to think about form than function-even though it features the largest muscle in the human body.įor all the scrutiny we spare them (outside of when we’re trying on new jeans) our butts aren’t mere aesthetic flourishes. Radke goes on to explain that our feelings about our hindquarters often have more to do with race, gender, and sex than with the actual meat of them. “Butts are a bellwether,” writes journalist Heather Radke in her 2022 book Butts: A Backstory. Few muscles in the human body carry as much cultural clout as the gluteus maximus.

Heather radke butt