There can be no doubt in my mind, that the well known, so called, Venus figurines, is a tribute to the mother as a god like entity. Men (and women presumably) worshiped the mother as the source of life, since that was where new human life sprang from. It does not follow whether or not the people of the paleolithic era understood how to connect sexual intercourse with baby-appearances (there were a natural 9 month "delay") but since such figurines have been found well into the bronze age, it seems likely that the figurine had become a traditional symbol or token carried by many different "societies" in Europe and Asia, even after they may have found out the rather un-god-like nature of inception. Maybe it even served as a sort of porn for men on long treks to hunt food for their tribe ! There are very clear similarities to "curves" of the figurines, that are usually very voluptuously big breasted and with huge "behinds". These are traits traditionally connected with fertility and male genes have converged towards those traits, by natural selection, because those were the kinds of women, best suited for carrying babies and keeping them healthy and safe.
This Venus figurine was found in 1925 in Moravia and is one of the earliest examples of ceramic ever found. Moreover there have been found the fingerprints of a child on it. I can imagine the curious stone age child, touching the still wet clay around his or her fathers kiln, before it would be burned at 400 degrees. The child's imagination would clearly be evoked by the beautiful figurine made by the grown ups and maybe wonder why it was so important for them to carry these around.
It seems to me that once a tradition has been embedded in "culture", it will stick there for thousand of years. The earliest known Venus figurenes may date as far back as more than half a million years, but still they were used until 4000 years ago, when civilization was at a high point in many areas of the world. This is a recurring theme in the "critique" of art. The fear of non-conformity to embedded rules in society, that manifest in its art. Only the most daring will dare challenge what everyone else considers the "right way".