CARVED IVORY BIRDS FROM HOHLE FELS CAVE:

Hohle Fels ('hollow rock') cave. Internet image, public domain.

For many years excavations have been underway at theh caves of the Ach Valley of the Swabian Jura, near Schelkiingen in southwestern Germany. These sites, particularly the caves Hohle Fels and Geissenklosterle, have produced an amazing number of carved ivory, antler and bone figurines along with other artifacts.

Interior view of Hohle Fels ('hollow rock') cave. Internet image, public domain.

“The cave site of Hohle Fels was occupied during the Aurignacian period of prehistory (43,000 to 28,000 years before present), when early humans – thrived in Europe following the disappearance of the Neanderthals. These groups created an explosion of art, some of which had never been seen before in human history, including so-called Venus figurines, musical instruments, elaborate jewelry and cave paintings. Much of this art involved drawing and carving animals that the Aurignacian people would have seen on a day-to-day basis.” (Killgrove 2025)

Ivory sculpture of a water bird from Hohle Fels ('hollow rock') cave. Internet image, public domain.

Carved ivory figure from Hohle Fels cave ('Venus of Hohle Fals'). Internet image, public domain.

Sculptures recovered from Hohle Fels include a small bird assumed to represent a water bird, animal figurines, a therianthrope known as the Lion Man, a flute (made from a vulture’s femur) and the famous Hohle Fels Venus. “The Hohle Fels bird is not the oldest figurative sculpture in Europe. That title has been taken by another discovery from the same cave in 2008: the Venus of Hohle Fels, a sculpture of a woman with exaggerated breasts and thighs, which was created 41,000 years ago.” (Killgrove 2025) On 18 July 2026 I published an article on RockArtBlog with the title “CLAVIFORM, VENUS OR STEATOPYGIA?” which questioned the enlarged buttocks seen on Paleolithic Venus figures and in some rock art, suggesting that it might represent the phenomenon of steatopygia.

Vulture femur flute from Hohle Fels cave. Photograph from LiveScience.

Does this collection of work represent the beginning of figurative sculpture in Western civilization? Ewen Calloway suggest just that. “The entire collection of ivory carvings at Hohle Fels suggests that something very new was happening around 40,000 years ago in the south German mountains, as the people who created the Aurignacian culture invented types of figurative art and music akin to what we have today.” (Killgrove 2025)

These carvings strike the modern eye as extremely interesting, as if we have not changed that much in the period between their creation in the Aurignacian and now. “There’s something magical about these pieces,’ says Nicholas Conard, an archeologist at the University of Tubingen in Germany, who has led the excavation of Hohle Fels since the late 1990s. Conard argues that the artistic capabilities on display at Hohle Fels and nearby caves mark a shift in cognitive and cultural sophistication that might have helped these humans to flourish in ice-age Europe, when other groups vanished. He now hopes to test this theory by collecting ancient DNA from the Hohle Fels cave sediments.” (Callaway 2026) This would, at least, allow him to determine whether the carvings were made by modern humans, or our predecessors in Eutope.

Newly discovered ivory sculpture of birds from Hohle Fels ('hollow rock') cave. Photograph by Ralf Ehmann, Universitat Tubingen, sharpened with chatGPT.

Newly discovered ivory sculpture of a bird from Hohle Fels ('hollow rock') cave. Photograph by Ralf Ehmann, Universitat Tubingen, sharpened with chatGPT.

Newly discovered ivory sculpture of a bird from Hohle Fels ('hollow rock') cave. Photograph by Ralf Ehmann, Universitat Tubingen, sharpened with chatGPT.

Now, new discoveries at Hohle Fels have made the news. During the  2025 field season, Alexander Janas, an archeologist at the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment in Tubinge, Germany, discovered two more miniature bird carvings thought to resemble ptarmigans. “This week, Janas and his colleagues announced their latest treasures: a pair of tiny bird figurines carved from mammoth ivory, and vulture bone flute fragments, discovered during the 2025 field season. The artifacts were unveiled at the Museum of Prehistory and Ice Age Art in Blaubeuren, Germany, on 29 July.” (Callaway 2026) These two new birds are indeed tiny, measuring 2 – 3 cm. each.

And, as I said above, we immediately find these birds charming. They are cute. What else might be waiting to be discovered?

NOTE: Some images in this column were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below. Additionally, some of the quotations I have included have had citations removed from their text. These can also be acquired from the original texts.

REFERENCES:

Callaway, Ewen, 2026, 40,000-year-old birk carvings provide clues to how ice age humans flourished, 29 July 2026, Nature 655 (online), 1120-1122. Accessed online 29 July 2026.

Killgrove, Kristina, 2025, Hohle Fels water bird: The oldest depiction of a bird in the world, 31 March 2025, LiveScience (online), https://www.livescience.com. Accessed online 29 July 2026.

 

CROATIAN CAVE ART IS THE FIRST KNOWN IN THE BALKANS:

Romuald's Cave, Croatia. Internet image, public domain.

A recent discovery has provided “the first evidence for Upper Paleolithic figurative rock art from the Balkan region. These findings expand the geographic distribution of Upper Paleolithic rock art beyond the limits of Western Europe, contribute to filling the ‘rock art gap’ in an understudied research area and illuminate the geographic complexity of early symbolic behavior and its implications for understanding the Upper Paleolithic cultural mosaic.” (Ruiz-Redondo et al. 2019) The mystery has been that humans (and pre-humans) certainly lived there so where is the art that they decorated caves with farther north and west?

Bison, Romuald's Cave, Croatia. Photograph by Ruiz Redondo, figure 3, page 302.

Cave art was unknown in the Balkans and this project wanted to look into that. “The study’s author Aitor Ruiz-Redondo, and archeologist at the University of Southampton in the U.K., started looking for cave art in the region as part of a French-funded project. Ruiz-Redondo and his colleagues surveyed more than 60 prehistoric caves and rock shelters across Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia; Romualdova Cave was one of just two sites that had clear evidence of Paleolithic rock art.” (Gannon 2019) Not only did they demonstrate admirable patience and tenacity, I find it interesting that their efforts are reportedly French-funded.

Photograph of the ibex, vertical lines, and triangular element by Ruiz Redondo, figure 4, page 303A.

Tracing of the ibex, vertical lines, and triangular element by Ruiz Redondo, figure 4, page 303B.

People lived there, people traveled there, so why had no art been discovered? “While these discoveries have significantly modified previous assumptions on the origins of art, important gaps remain in our understanding of Pleistocene symbolism. In particular, there are entire regions that have yielded very little evidence concerning the rock art of anatomically modern humans. The Balkan Peninsula represents one of these regions; no Upper Paleolithic rock art has been discovered in the area between the sites of Fumane in Italy and Coliboaia in Romania - a distance of approximately 1000km— with the exception of the non-figurative engravings at Badanj Cave in Bosnia-Herzegovina and a possible Paleolithic painting at Sela’cka 3 in Serbia. A number of hypotheses could explain this gap. It could be argued, for example, that while the Upper Paleolithic groups in this area created symbolic objects (including portable art and personal ornaments), they did not develop a rock art tradition. Moreover, geological and environmental conditions may explain the absence of rock art in Central and Eastern Europe.” (Ruiz-Redondo et al. 2019:298) All over the world ancient peoples had cave and rock art traditions, so it makes little sense to me to say that maybe “they did not develop a rock art tradition.”

The survey of Romuald's Cave turned up a total of 44 red-painted images divided into four panels, including two badly preserved anthropomorphs, one of which appears to have an erection. (Wikipedia)

One factor, of course, is that you do not usually find what you are not looking for. “In comparison to Western Europe, the lack of a well-established regional research tradition is an important factor in explaining the absence of Upper Paleolithic rock art sites in the area. This may explain, for instance, why fewer than 50 Upper Paleolithic sites have been discovered in the combined area of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro (approximately 210 000km2), whereas 235 sites have been documented in the French region of Dordogne alone - an area 23 times smaller (approximately 9000km2). The disparity in the number of rock art sites is surprising, as the Balkans were probably one of the main routes into Europe for anatomically modern humans. (Ruiz-Redondo et al. 2019:298) So why no more remaining art, humans leave traces behind everywhere they go?

Panel with anthropomorphs, Photograph by Ruiz Redondo, figure 5, page 304A. (image sharpened with chatGPT)

"Although the precise chronology of the Romualdova Pe’cina art remains unknown, its discovery represents a milestone among recent developments in the study of Paleolithic art. This cave contains the first evidence of figurative Upper Paleolithic rock art on the Balkan Peninsula. Hence, these paintings enlarge the geographic distribution of European rock art significantly, once again calling into question the traditional paradigm that assumes Upper Paleolithic cave art to be a Western European phenomenon. The discovery establishes the presence of figurative rock art in South-eastern Europe, illuminating the symbolic culture of Upper Paleolithic Balkan populations and the potential links between them and Western European groups. While this research modifies our perception of the Upper Paleolithic cultures that inhabited the Balkans, these advances constitute only a small step towards understanding the implications of the spread of Upper Paleolithic rock art, and the cultural links between Western Europe and the Balkan Peninsula.” (Ruiz-Redondo et al. 2019:310)  This discovery adds fuel to the old saying that every answer you find raises at least two new questions.

Panel with anthropomorphs, Tracing by Ruiz Redondo, figure 5, page 304B. (image sharpened with chatGPT)

“The presence of Paleolithic figurative art here raises several archaeological questions: could this art have originated independently, outside of Western Europe, or could it represent cultural diffusion from West to East? Do its particular features support the existence of close links with South-west European populations? Future research in the Balkans will contribute further information to address these questions. Additional research at Romualdova Pe’cina will be conducted to refine the chronology of the rock art and determine its chaîne operatoire. In the meantime, this discovery provides new data to reignite the debate about the spread of Upper Paleolithic parietal symbolism, and serves to emphasize the need for further archaeological exploration of long-neglected areas: the terra incognita of Paleolithic rock art.” (Ruiz-Redondo et al. 2019:310)

The author of the paper, Aitor Ruiz-Redondo who is associated with the University of Bordeaux and the University of Southampton, concluded “While this research modifies our perception of the Upper Paleolithic cultures that inhabited the Balkans, these advances constitute only a small step towards understanding the implications of the spread of Upper Paleolithic rock art, and the cultural links between Western Europe and the Balkan Peninsula. The presence of Paleolithic figurative art here raises several archaeological questions: could this art have originated independently, outside of Western Europe, or could it represent cultural diffusion from West to East? Do its particular features support the existence of close links with South-west European populations? Future research in the Balkans will contribute further information to address these questions.” (Ruiz-Redondo et al. 2019:310)

Discovery of new rock art is always of great interest, even more so in a region where it had been unknown before. We look forward with great interest to their future conclusions.

REFERENCES:

Gannon, Megan, 2019, The First Cave Art from the Balkans May Date Back 30,000 Years, 11 April 2019, LiveScience online, https://www.livescience.com/65209-cave-painting-discovered-croatia.html. Accessed online 27 July 2026.

Ruiz-Redondo, Aitor, 2019, Expanding the horizons of Paleolithic rock art: the site of Romualdova Pe’cina, Antiquity, 93, 386,  297-312. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.36. Accessed online at Academia.com on 28 July 2026.

Wikipedia, Rumuald’s Cave, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romuald's Cave. Accessed online 28 July 2026.

 

REDISCOVERED LATE UPPER PALEOLITHIC IMAGERY IN A CAVE IN BRITAIN:

 

Bacon Hole cave, Gower Peninsula, South Wales. Photograph from Nash et al., 2026, figure 2.

The oldest cave art in Britain has been essentially rediscovered in Bacon Hole cave, on Gower Peninsula in South Wales. First seen in 1912 by Henri Breuil and Professor William Sollas they were called the first Paleolithic cave art in Britain. This was, however, dismissed by skeptics and subsequently ignored and all but forgotten, until recently. The painted marks have been looked up again and reexamined by scientists (Arnold 2026). Records of the cave painting, however, still existed.

 

The first photograph of the panel, taken in 1913 by W.L. Morgan. From Nash et al., 2026, figure 6.

“Following the rediscovery of the painted panel in 2022, the First Art team, in collaboration with dating specialists from the University of Southhampton, conducted two expeditions to Bacon Hole in 2023 and 2024. Both visits were commissioned by the National Trust and scheduled outside the bat hibernation season (October to April). The primary aim of these visits was to create a photographic record of the wall sections within the eastern side chamber, focusing particularly on the area surrounding the painted panel.” (Nash et al. 2026) The painting was rediscovered in September 2022. The international team of scientists conducted pigment analysis looking for organic residues, and collected samples from calcite flows for Uranium-Thorium dating on a vertical painted surface within a side chamber. (Nash et al. 2026) It is, perhaps, of note that the investigation occurred outside of bat hibernation season. This may have been done out of consideration for the wildlife, but my guess would be that it was prompted by the range of viruses carried by bats.

 

The panel as photographed (left) and then processed with dStretch (right). From Nash et al., 2026, figure 9.

The teams did a quite complete job of studying and sampling the paint as well as the calcite layers on the cave wall. “In addition to the photographic survey, the painted surfaces originally discovered by Breuil and Sollas in 1912 were sampled to establish potential minimum and maximum date ranges. A total of twelve samples (six from each expedition) were collected. These included samples for both dating purposes (calcite overlapping pigments) and pigment geochemical analysis. The latter aimed to identify potential organic and inorganic binders using Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy and Micro-Raman analysis.” (Nash et al. 2026)

 

The samples taken for Uranium-Thorium dating revealed a range of dates with the oldest being 15.7 ka (at a 95% confidence level). (Nash et al. 2026) Other dates came back from more recent eras, such as the Bronze Age.

Locations sampled on the panel. From Nash et al., 2026, figure 10.

The conclusions of the teams back up the original estimates by Breuil and Sollas. "Based on the evidence gathered from the two fieldwork visits, we concur with the original interpretation proposed by Breuil and Sollas in 1912 - that the horizontal lines (or streaks) represent anthropogenic activity. The painted lines are arranged horizontally and are equidistant from one another, indicating a deliberate and structured patternn. Furthermore, the hematite used to produce the ten lines likely derives from a single source, probably located at the rear of the side chamber" (Nash et al. 2026).

Bacon Hole also has a wide range of images, scribbles and initials from since the time of the original painting (see Nash et al. below).

REFERENCES:

Arnold, Paul, 2026, Britain’s oldest cave art may have been rediscovered in Bacon Hole cave, 2 June 2026, The Gist (Phys.org online). Accessed online 2 June 2026.

Nash, George H. et al., 2026, Rediscovered Late Upper Paleolithic Painted Imagery at Bacon Hole, Gower Peninsula, South Wales, Quaternary (online), Vol. 9, No. 3, 26 May 2026, https://doi.org/10.3390/quat9030043.  Accessed online 2 June 2026.