Archaeology breakthrough as world's oldest human sculpture discovered after 12,000 years
A 12,000-year-old figure of a woman has been discovered near the Sea of Galilee.
Archaeologists have uncovered what is believed to be the world’s oldest sculpture showing a human interacting with an animal - a tiny 12,000-year-old clay figure of a woman carrying a goose on her back. The miniature artwork, less than two inches tall (5cm), was discovered in a prehistoric Natufian settlement overlooking the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel.
The sculpture shows a crouching woman who appears to support a live goose rather than a hunted bird, suggesting a symbolic rather than practical scene. The Natufians, who lived as humans began shifting from nomadic foraging to early settled communities, saw geese as both a vital resource and a spiritual symbol. They provided meat, feathers and bones for tools and decorative ornaments and are thought to have represented an intimate bond between people and the natural world.
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“The figurine captures a transformative moment,” said Prof Leore Grosman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “It bridges the world of mobile hunter-gatherers and that of the first settled communities, showing how imagination and symbolic thinking began to shape human culture.”
The figurine was unearthed in a semicircular stone structure used for burials and ceremonial activities at the Late Natufian site of Nahal Ein Gev II, a large village occupied for several centuries. Remains of a goose were also found at the location.
Microscopic and chemical tests revealed traces of red ochre pigment on both the woman and the goose, as well as a preserved fingerprint believed to belong to the artist. The clay was deliberately fired at around 400C - making it one of the earliest known examples of intentional clay firing for art or technology.
Researchers say the sculpture, dating to roughly 10,000BC, represents the dawn of storytelling, symbolic expression and mythmaking long before the rise of agriculture or organised religion.
“This discovery is extraordinary,” said lead author Dr Laurent Davin. “Not only is it the earliest figurine showing human-animal interaction, but it’s also the oldest naturalistic depiction of a woman ever found in south-west Asia.”
Previous finds at the same site included pebble carvings of human faces reported in 2017.
This incredible discovery comes as a gold pocket watch, once owned by one of the Titanic's wealthiest passengers, is expected to sell for more than £1 million, 113 years after the ship sank. The 18-carat Jules Jurgensen timepiece belonged to Isidor Straus, co-owner of New York's world-famous Macy's department store. He perished alongside his wife, Ida, in April 1912.
