Archaeologists excavating in the famous prehistoric Hohle Fels cave in Germany have uncovered two bird figurines carved from mammoth ivory. The thumbnail-size carvings add to the existing evidence that ice age humans had a sophisticated artistic sense 40,000 years ago.
"The figurines demonstrate that the earliest artists were skilled ivory-carvers, who could depict delicate motifs in miniature form," Nicholas Conard, an archaeologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany and director of excavations at Hohle Fels, said in a July 29 statement.
When the birds were found in 2025, they were lying just 5 feet (1.5 meters) from each other in a layer dating bac...
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