University of Tübingen Team Finds Unique Otter Figurine in Hohle Fels Cave
Mammoth, bison, wild horse, cave lion and cave bear – more than 30 figurative art objects from the Late Paleolithic period have already been discovered in the caves of the Swabian Alb during archaeological excavations. The majority depict impressive animals that are typical of the Ice Age steppe landscape. Archaeologists have now recovered the body of a figurine made of mammoth ivory from the Hohle Fels World Heritage Cave near Schelklingen, which confirms the assumption that Ice Age ivory art was more diverse than long suspected. The team led by Professor Nicholas Conard from the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the University of Tübingen interprets the find as an otter and presented the figure as the “Find of the Year” on Thursday at a press conference in the Prehistoric Museum in Blaubeuren (urmu). “The Ice Age art finds in the region already include figures of two fish and a water bird,” says Professor Conard, “and the new piece shows that people at that time were much more concerned with aquatic animals than we previously thought. After all, carving such a piece out of ivory requires a lot of work and detailed knowledge of the appearance and characteristics of the animal depicted.”
The ivory figurine is scientifically described in the current issue of the specialist journal Archaeological Excavations in Baden-Württemberg, published by the State Office for Monument Preservation in Baden-Württemberg. The figure was recovered from deeper layers of the Paleolithic cultural stage of the so-called Aurignacian period. It therefore comes from the same time horizon as the famous Venus figure and the flute from the Hohle Fels and is almost 40,000 years old, i.e. it was created at a time when the first anatomically modern humans arrived in Europe. In contrast to other figurines, the current find does not have any decorative scratched patterns. At 5.9 centimeters long, 1.5 centimeters high and half a centimeter wide, it has an elongated but stocky shape and a short, tapering tail. The animal’s legs are very short, but its neck is very long. The head is broken off and missing. “In recent years, after careful searching, we have repeatedly succeeded in piecing together fragments of finds to their original appearance,” says Professor Conard, describing the hope that the head can still be found: “Such missing parts fuel our expectation of digging them up somewhere in the sediment of the cave or of finding them among the recovered and not yet selected finds. In this way, we could complete the figure and identify it conclusively.”
The shape of the headless ivory figure is so unique that it confirms the scientists’ decision to move away from the previously popular interpretation that only large or dangerous animals were considered worthy of artistic representation in Ice Age hunter-gatherer societies. “We don’t know today what could have fascinated people about an otter back then, but they certainly observed how agilely it moves in the water, how caringly it raises its young and what a clever fish hunter it is,” says Dr. Stefanie Kölbl, managing director of the urmu, where the find is now on public display. “The fact that the ensemble of ivory animals has now grown to include a new, obviously smaller species of animal gives room for new considerations about the symbolic content of Ice Age art.”
The urmu is located in the middle of the Stone Age caves, which were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2017: “Caves and Ice Age Art of the Swabian Alb”. The Museum of Paleolithic Art and Music in Baden-Württemberg and the Research Museum of the University of Tübingen explains the Ice Age life of hunters and gatherers on the edge of the Swabian Alb 40,000 years ago. The most prominent exhibit is the original “Venus of Hohle Fels”.