On the other hand, it is quite likely moreover that these statues were fertility statues for given the circumstances of the times when due to policies uncertainties as well as situations of health and socio-economic difficulties, death of women during childbirth was rampant, as well as miscarriage and other pre and post natal incidents common. Primitive people, before the days of scientific and empirical resigning, turned to nature as their explanatory factor. The word was unpredictable and frightening; the forces of nature, in the shape of gods and other powerful figures, all-omnipotent and the precursors of positive and negative events. Possibly, as means to escape from their fears and uncertainties and as instruments of achieving their desires, humans sculpted their supplications in tangible form, and abstract wishes, therefore, took the form of carvings.

It is in this way that the word 'fetish' comes from the Latin word 'factitious' meaning 'not true' or 'artificial'. The images were contrived and conceptual abstractions but this doesn't mean that they...

To carry or to bring forth. In this way, the female bodily forms most conducive to 'bringing forth' were emphasized.
Most historians, if not all, ascribe purpose of these figures to reproductive aspect. This seems likely, since the design of emphasizing certain female forms to the contrast of others was universal, rather than local, and since this coincided with huge rates of casualty during childbirth. On the other hand, it is just as likely that calling them fertility idols is a misnomer since they could have served a wide range of other purposes too including female health in general and simply dolls that served to both entertain and inform the young girl.

* complete citations

References

Gardner, Art through the Ages, 1991

Stokstad, M. Art History