Robyn White is a Newsweek Nature Reporter based in London Robyn joined Newsweek in 2022 having previously worked at environmental publication LetsRecycle She has also worked on a range of consumer magazines at Damson Media focusing on pop culture She is a journalism graduate of Kingston University You can get in touch with Robyn by emailing r.white@newsweek.com either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content A missing fragment of a famous Ice Age figurine discovered 20 years ago has been unearthed presenting some puzzling questions for archaeologists During excavations at the Hohle Fels cave in Schelklingen, Germany, archaeologists uncovered a piece of an ivory figurine according to a statement released last week After closer inspection, researchers realized it was actually part of a famous ornament that was recovered in 1999 The figurine was at first believed to be a horse seems to depict an entirely different animal "We still cannot identify the animal species depicted with certainty but it could be a cave lion or a cave bear," team lead Professor Nicholas Conard from the Department of Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the University of Tübingen shows the typical pronounced bear hump at shoulder height and presents itself in a posture that could imitate the trotting gait of a bear." There have been many important archaeological finds at the Hohle Fels Most of the discoveries are early forms of prehistoric art It's part of a larger network of caves in the Swabian Jura Art and other discoveries from the caves suggest they provided shelter for Ice Age humans about 33,000 to 43,000 years ago Conard said Ice Age figurines in general tend to be difficult to identify "especially when they are preserved in such fragmentary form." "It therefore makes sense to look extra carefully for the missing parts of this animal in the years to come," he said Five pieces of this particular fragment have been recovered over the years There are several delicate features on the fragment including engraved line patterns on the side which appeared to show the animals shoulder and thorax "This figure shows us and our visitors like no other that the archaeological work is never finished," Dr managing director of the Prehistoric Museum in Blaubeuren also a branch of the Archaeological State Museum and a research museum of the University of Tübingen "It's fascinating to see the excavators at work there with magnifying glasses and tweezers and even more fascinating to realize that somehow nothing seems to be lost over this long Many unique animals lived during the Ice Age. Other than bears and cave lions, the period saw famous creatures such as the mammoth and saber-toothed cats roaming the land Finding these figurines can teach scientists more about notable species during that time Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground Newsletters in your inbox See all South Carolina Upstate basketball coach Eddie Payne has added four more building blocks as he tries to stack them up toward the top of the Atlantic Sun Conference The Spartans have signed a quartet of guards to go along with a young and talented frontcourt including a pair of transfers who sat out last season USC Upstate finished at the bottom of the league in 2010-11 but Payne has plans to move out of the basement and into some mid-level housing right away “I feel better than at any time since we turned Division I,” Payne said we can be competitive for our championship in a couple of years.” which lost point guard Josh Chavis and forward Mezie Uzochukwu to graduation has signed Mario Blessing (6-foot-2) from Schelklingen Germany; Adrian Rogers (6-4) from Alpharetta Ga.; to go along with early signee Ty Greene (6-2) of Knoxville “I think it's an improvement in our backcourt which was a real weakness for us last year,” Payne said “I just think it will allow us to play a little bit differently We'll be in better position to combine those guys with the ones we have returning in the frontcourt.” led the Spartans in scoring (14.4 points per game) and rebounding (7.2) They also had two other heavy contributors as rookies in 6-7 Babatunde Olumuyiwa (71 blocked shots) and 6-7 Ricardo Glenn South Carolina State) and 6-6 Rob Elam (East Mississippi College) will take the court for USC Upstate next season Blessing and Rogers will be the point guards and both have experience beyond that of average incoming freshmen Blessing helped his high school team to three straight national championships and also played in what is called a Pro-B league in Germany Rogers spent a season of prep school at Maine Central Institute “Blessing has played point against grown men Rogers played point for the last half of the year in prep school,” Payne said “They aren't true freshmen in a sense that they played against high-level competition a year out of high school Payne said he watched Blessing play last winter when his team was in the United States for tournaments in Florida and Tennessee Blessing also got in touch with former USC Upstate standout center Nick Schneiders who is playing professionally in his native Germany I just gave the kid Nick's number and said Miller helped Chamblee High School get to the Georgia state playoffs He ranked among DeKalb County's top 10 in points (15.3) assists (4.7) and 3-point field-goal percentage (46.6) Greene is a rising senior at Bearden High School where he averaged 16.3 points with 2.5 steals while shooting 48 percent from the floor 39 percent from behind the 3-point arc and 81 percent from the foul line Greene turned down an offer from Tulane to sign early with USC Upstate “You have to guard him because he can shoot it and he can shoot it deep,” Payne said “We've seen him do that on a variety of occasions He's also a really tough kid and very smart.” is an Upper Paleolithic figurine of a woman hewn from the ivory of a mammoth tusk that was found in 2008 near Schelklingen It is dated to between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago at the very beginning of the Upper Paleolithic which is associated with the earliest presence of Cro-Magnon in Europe This female figure is the oldest undisputed example of human figurative prehistoric art yet discovered In terms of figurative art only the lion-headed The discovery of the Venus of Hohle Fels by the archaeological team led by Nicholas J Conard of Universität Tübingen Abteilung Ältere Urgeschichte und Quartärökologie pushed back the date of the oldest known human figurative art establishing that works of art were being produced throughout the Aurignacian Period The Swabian Alb region of Germany has a number of caves that have yielded many mammoth-ivory artifacts of the Upper Paleolithic period Approximately twenty-five items have been discovered to date These include the Löwenmensch figurine of Hohlenstein-Stadel dated to 40,000 years ago and an ivory flute found at Geißenklösterle This mountainous region is located in Baden-Württemberg and is bounded by the Danube in the southeast it rises to the higher mountains of the Black Forest This concentration of evidence of full behavioral modernity including figurative art and instrumental music among humans in the period of 40 to 30 thousand years ago speculates that the bearers of the Aurignacian culture in the Swabian Alb may be credited with the invention the earliest religious practices as well.Within a distance of 70 cm to the Venus figurine Conard’s team also found a flute made from a vulture bone.Additional artifacts excavated from the same cave layer included flint-knapping debris worked bone and carved ivory as well as remains of tarpans The remarkably early figurine was discovered in September 2008 in a cave called Hohle Fels (Swabian German for “hollow rock”) near Schelklingen by a team from the University of Tübingen led by archaeology professor Nicholas Conard approximately 20 m (66 ft) from the entrance and 3 m (10 ft) below the current ground level Nearby a bone flute dating to approximately 42,000 years ago was found the oldest known uncontested musical instrument reproduction… [it is] an extremely powerful depiction of the essence of being female” has suggested that—by modern standards—the figurine “could be seen as bordering on the pornographic” Anthropologists from Victoria University of Wellington have suggested that such figurines were not depictions of beauty but represented “hope for survival and longevity within well-nourished and reproductively successful communities” reflecting the conventional interpretation of these types of figurines as representing a fertility goddess The figurine was sculpted from a woolly mammoth tusk that has broken into fragments with the left arm and shoulder still missing It is estimated that “tens if not hundreds of hours” would have been necessary to carve the figurine which may have allowed it to be worn as an amulet Neil Patrick is one of the authors writing for The Vintage News Join 1000s of subscribers and receive the best Vintage News in your mailbox for FREE Caves in the Swabian Alps in Baden- Württemberg Germany have been the resting place of many artifacts of the Upper Palaeolithic Period Around 25 mammoth-ivory figurines and other items have been found These include the figure of a lion-headed man and an ivory flute found at Geißenklösterle  Some of these are as much as 30000 years old The most important of these artifacts is perhaps the figurine named the Venus of Hohle Fels The small sculpture was carved from mammoth ivory and depicts a woman It was discovered in 2008 in a cave near Schelklingen called Hohle Fels next to an ivory flute similar to the one found at Geißenklösterle The figurine and flute have been dated from between 35,000 and 40,000 years making the flute the oldest musical instrument yet discovered They were discovered by a team from the Universität Tübingen Abteilung Ältere Urgeschichte und Quartärökologie The Venus of Hohle Fels is significant too in being the oldest known representation of a human being if we discount the lion-headed man Lowenmensch The Venus comes from the early Aurignacian epoch of the Upper Palaeolithic (Stone Age) Venus figures from the Palaeolithic have been found throughout Europe there is a ring allowing it to be worn as an amulet and Conrad speculates that the Venus was a fertility symbol and suggests that she represents a religious practice New Zealand propose that the proportions of the figurine are deliberately exaggerated to express the desire for ‘survival and longevity within well-nourished and reproductively successful communities’ Here is another interesting read from us: The Wawel Dragon Statue in Kraków breathes actual fire on demand, when a text message is received. In the cave there were also pieces of worked ivory so the cave would appear to have been an at least temporary settlement Ian Harvey is one of the authors writing for The Vintage News