13,500-Year-Old Miniature Bird And The Shrouded Mystery Behind

Archaeology experts from Lingjng, Henan, China has recently discovered a miniature bird sculpture made from burnt bone, dating back 13 millennia and thought to be the earliest art piece ever discovered.
According to scientific records, man-made statues have appeared since the Upper Paleolithic period (50,000 to 12,000 years ago), the presumably earliest being a lion-headed human sculpted out of mammoth tusk discovered in German caverns, aging around 35,000-40,000 years.
With the new discovery, scientists believe that sculpture might have independently developed in East Asia at the same time.

Source: YouTube

The 2 cm-long bird is exceptionally persevered, having a short neck, rounded bill, long tail, and a pedestal for standing up. A team of archaeologists led by Prof Francesco d’Errico at the University of Bordeaux, France was credited with the discovery.
Believed to depict a ‘passerine’, a various class of birds consisting of sparrows, finches and thrushes, for example, the figurine underwent microscopy and X-ray analysis before being concluded to have been sculpted out of a mammal limb bone previously blackened by heating.
Scientists had meticulously recreated the carving process, deploying 4 separate skills, including gouging, abrading, scraping and incising.

Source: YouTube

“Our analysis reveals that the Lingjing artist has chosen the appropriate techniques and applied them skillfully to faithfully reproduce the distinct anatomical features of a passerine,” they write.
“The style of this diminutive representation is original and remarkably different from all other known Paleolithic avian figurines.”
The sculpture is supposed to date back 13,500 years ago, more than 8,500 years older than any other animal figurines discovered in East Asia.
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