Tiny carvings show early humans artistic

Australian Herald Wednesday 17th December, 2003

Some of the oldest human carvings ever found are provide evidence that earliest humans were actually accomplished artists.

Three tiny figurines carved from ivory mammoth tusks were discovered in the Hohle Fels Cave, south of Ulm, Germany, by Nicholas Conard of the University of Tubingen, New Scientist magazine reported.

Instead of a gradual evolution of skills, the first modern humans in Europe were in fact astonishingly precocious artists, Anthony Sinclair, of the University of Liverpool, wrote in the journal Nature.

New Scientist said one of the carvings depicts a bird extended in a headlong dive into water; another shows the head of large animal, probably a horse; and another is that of a character with a human body and a feline head, which may indicate shamanism.

None of the figures are longer than one inch (two centimeters) and are estimated to be 30,000 to 33,000 years old.