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LiveScience
LiveScience
Laura Geggel

Missing 'body' of ice age animal carving finally found — but nobody knows what the animal is

We see a pieced together animal carving against a black background. It has a long neck, a curved back and legs on either side.

Archaeologists in Germany have discovered the missing piece of an ice age carving deep in a cave. But the new addition of the ivory carving, originally thought to depict a horse, has actually complicated matters: Now, researchers aren't sure if it portrays a cave lion or a cave bear.

Researchers previously found the head of the 35,000-year-old figurine in the cave Hohle Fels in the mountainous Swabian Jura region in the southern part of the country. The cave, which translates to "hollow rock" in German, is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is well known for its Upper Paleolithic (about 50,000 to 12,000 years ago) artifacts. At the time, the carved head was the first known ivory carving from the cave.

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