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Name : Lion Man
What it is : An pearl statuette depicting a half - human , half - lion
The statuette depicts a human and a lion and was found inside a cave in Germany.
Where it was found : Inside the drear chamber of a cave in Germany in 1939 .
When it was made:40,000 years ago
What it tell apart us about the past times : Carved out of a gigantic ivory , the 12 - column inch - tall ( 31 cm ) artefact would have been difficult to make . In fact , when research worker conducted an experiment days later using crank age tool , include patch of Flint River , they see it would have taken the artisan approximately 400 hour to complete , according to theBritish Museum .
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Since this would have been a good deal of sentence give to create a individual piece — especially hold out in the harsh conditions do by theice age — researchers think that the carving was likely used for ceremonial purposes . That ratiocination is buttressed by wear pattern found on the body , which show that the item was passed around from person to person . Therefore , the artifact is look at the oldest known grounds of religious feeling in the creation .
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For years , Lion Man was considered the oldest depiction of a therianthrope , or a part - human , part - animal figure . Therianthrope are " evidence for the power to imagine the existence of a supernatural being , something that does not exist in veridical life,“Adam Brumm , an archeologist at Griffith University in Australia , previously narrate Live Science . But now , new dated rock art in a cave in Indonesia shows an even older therianthrope , prove that humans conceive of human - creature mashups around 51,200 year previous .
The cave where the Lion Man statuette was observe was also litter with perforated arctic fox teeth and reindeer antlers , propose that the cave was used as a place to bear rituals .
