Were the Stone Age "Venus" figurines goddesses, or something else?

Nobody knows, and the very name is part of the problem. In 1864 the Marquis de Vibraye found an ivory figurine at Laugerie-Basse, in the Vézère valley, and called it "Venus Impudica", the "immodest Venus". The name stuck to over 200 small figures of women, mostly between 3 and 40 cm tall. Among them are the Venus of Willendorf, excavated in Austria in 1908, which is 11.1 cm tall and about 30,000 years old, and the Venus of Hohle Fels, found in 2008, at least 35,000 years old and the earliest known figurative art.

Many of these figures exaggerate the abdomen, hips, breasts or thighs, though many found examples do not. In the early twentieth century, scholars generally believed they showed an ancient ideal of beauty. Since then the readings have multiplied: religious figures, an expression of health and fertility, grandmother goddesses, even self-portraits by women. The word "Venus" is itself metaphorical, since no link exists to the Roman goddess, and critics note that the term reflects modern Western ideas rather than the beliefs of the carvers.

So the fair answer is: perhaps goddesses, perhaps not. The original meaning of the figurines is not known. What we have is a list of speculative proposals, and none has settled the question.