Dating back 13,000 years, a miniature bird figurine carved from a burnt bone has become the oldest known Chinese and East Asian three-dimensional artwork.
These works are the first examples of prehistoric humans three-dimensionally representing the world around them.
Singing bird
The figure is in the form of a songbird on a pedestal. ORUsing radiocarbon dating on discovered burned animal remains (including a bone with anthropogenic groove marks also seen on the bird carving), the authors were able to estimate the age of the bird figure and associated bone material to be between approximately 13,400 and 13,200 years.
Found in the paleolithic site of Lingjing, in Henan (China), the study of its discovery is described in A study carried out by Zhanyang Li, from Shandong University, and colleagues which has been published in Plos One:
This discovery identifies an original artistic tradition and takes the representation of birds in Chinese art back more than 8,500 years.
Depictions of birds are a theme in Chinese Neolithic art, with the oldest example of a jade songbird dating back to approximately 5,000 years. The figure differs technologically and stylistically from other specimens found in Western Europe and Siberia, it could be the missing link that traces the origin of Chinese statuary art to the Paleolithic.
–
The news
This miniature bird figurine has become the oldest Chinese work of art
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.