A 14,000-year-old engraved reindeer antler is possibly the first piece of early human art ever found. The specimen was uncovered in the 1800s and has been in the vast collections of the Natural History Museum. Its scientific importance, and clues as to how it was made are only now being revealed, scientists report today.
Natural History Museum scientists have pieced together the antler's history. It was found between 1830 and 1848 in Neschers, France, by local village priest Jean-Baptiste Croizet. There are no known records of early human artwork finds before this time and so it is the first, or one of the first, discoveries of Stone Age portable art.
The engraving shows part of a figure of a horse, and was made by stone age people (modern humans) towards the end of the last ice age. Although these people were hunter-gatherers, living before agriculture and domestication of animals had begun, they were nevertheless skilled technicians and artists.
In the 1800s very little was known about the early history of humans, especially the fact that our species had been around for many hundreds of thousands of years, along with relatives such as the Neanderthals. So the significance of discoveries like the Neschers antler largely went unrecognised at the time.
The Neschers antler at the Museum is a story of lost and found. It was acquired by the Natural History Museum (then the British Museum) in 1848 as part of a larger collection for £440, which at today's value would be about £25,500. In 1881, the Museum became independent from the British Museum and the antler was moved to the new building in South Kensington.
A year later the antler was put on display and mentioned in a Museum gallery guide, but its scientific importance was not recognised. It was eventually returned to the storerooms and all but forgotten until 1989 when it was rediscovered by mammal curator Andy Currant and placed in secure storage.
Despite this, it again remained unstudied and forgotten until an audit of possible worked bone and antler in the fossil collections began in 2010-2011. This was when its scientific importance became apparent and finally, over 160 years after its discovery, a full scientific description is now being published.
Museum human origins expert Prof Chris Stringer, part of the research team says, 'The remarkable story of this forgotten specimen shows how careful study and detective work can belatedly give an important relic the significance it deserves'.
The Lost and found paper is published in the Journal of Antiquity and the antler 3D and micro-CT scanning is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Thanks to coldrum for the link. Read more at: phys.org/news.
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