The figurine was cleaned after the discovery, thus all organic traces which could have been dated with conventional methods were destroyed.
For this reason, any dating was controversial since the beginning and can only be done by comparisons with other figurines.
Thanks to these comparisons, it is now generally assumed that the Venus of Savignano belongs to the Gravettian culture and that it can be roughly dated back to 25,000–20,000 BP, although some sources tend to lean toward an earlier dating, up to c. 28,000 BP, and some sources favor a much later dating.

In his first study in 1925, Paolo Graziosi attributed the figurine to the Upper Paleolithic.
His conclusion was in contrast with the mainstream opinion at the time, when most of the Italian academics didn't recognize an Italian Upper Paleolithic, rather opting for a direct transition between the late Mousterian and the Neolithic periods.
Indeed, a group of archaeologists led by Ugo Antonielli, the Director of the Pigorini Museum, compared the figurine with others Venuses dated to the Neolithic, concluding that the Venus of Savignano must have been dated to the Neolithic too.

However, a subsequent analysis by other scholars in 1935 concluded that the figurine was "surely paleolithic".
Later, Paolo Graziosi made a stylistic comparison between the Venus of Savignano and other figurines such as the Venus of Trasimeno, the figurines from Balzi Rossi in Ventimiglia and the recently discovered (1940) Venus of Chiozza di Scandiano in Reggio Emilia; due to that, he again confirmed the Upper Paleolithic age of the figurine in his cross-presentation to Paleolithic art in 1956.
The figurine was cleaned after the discovery, thus all organic traces which could have been dated with conventional methods were destroyed. For this reason, any dating was controversial since the beginning and can only be done by comparisons with other figurines. Thanks to these comparisons, it is now generally assumed that the Venus of Savignano belongs to the Gravettian culture and that it can be roughly dated back to 25,000–20,000 BP, although some sources tend to lean toward an earlier dating, up to c. 28,000 BP, and some sources favor a much later dating.
In his first study in 1925, Paolo Graziosi attributed the figurine to the Upper Paleolithic. His conclusion was in contrast with the mainstream opinion at the time, when most of the Italian academics didn't recognize an Italian Upper Paleolithic, rather opting for a direct transition between the late Mousterian and the Neolithic periods. Indeed, a group of archaeologists led by Ugo Antonielli, the Director of the Pigorini Museum, compared the figurine with others Venuses dated to the Neolithic, concluding that the Venus of Savignano must have been dated to the Neolithic too.
However, a subsequent analysis by other scholars in 1935 concluded that the figurine was "surely paleolithic". Later, Paolo Graziosi made a stylistic comparison between the Venus of Savignano and other figurines such as the Venus of Trasimeno, the figurines from Balzi Rossi in Ventimiglia and the recently discovered (1940) Venus of Chiozza di Scandiano in Reggio Emilia; due to that, he again confirmed the Upper Paleolithic age of the figurine in his cross-presentation to Paleolithic art in 1956.
Venus of Savignano