Bison Licking Insect Bite

Bison in carved antler, National Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil

Bison Licking Insect Bite is a prehistoric carving by an unknown artist of the Upper Paleolithic, found at Abri de la Madeleine near Tursac in Dordogne, France, the type-site of the Magdalenian culture, which produced many fine small carvings in antler or bone.

Created sometime between 20,000 and 12,000 BP (15,000 BP according to the museum), it was formerly in the Musee des Antiquites Nationales, St. Germain-en-Laye, but has been transferred to the expanded National Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil that opened in 2004, not far from its findspot. It is a carved and engraved fragment of a spear-thrower made of reindeer antler. It depicts the figure of a bison, of the now extinct species steppe wisent (bison priscus) with its head turned around licking itself as if bitten by an insect. It is thought the spear-thrower was already broken into roughly its present shape when the carving was made from the fragment, hence the need to show the turned-back head of the animal.[1]

See also

References

  1. "Collections", National Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil (in French)

External links


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