Lower Paleolithic feline head sculpture from the French Pyrenees is predictive of ceramic art in Czech Republic tens of thousands of years later

Feline head sculpture, Henri Valentie find, Pyrenees range, France

Mr. Valentie writes: "Here is a feline head found in the Pyrenees at 1200 m altitude in context of Lower Paleolithic tools. The dimensions are 34/22/8cm. All around has been retouched."

The tool context would suggest an age of greater than 300,000 years for this sculpture. While it may be dismissed as too crude by some, we must remember the mainstream art and archaeology establishments do not think early humans such as Homo erectus or Homo heidelbergensis were capable of or made even crude figurative art.

Ken Johnston illustration of the right eye and the mouth of the lion which are both heavily worked. The lion nose appears to have nostril indents. The left eye of the lion is not depicted in order to realize a "right eye open, left eye missing" motif which is seen on human face mask sculptures as well as a few lion head sculptures including ones from Oregon and Ohio. This Lower Paleolithic depiction may be seen as predictive of this art motif which extended to more recent Upper Paleolithic times.

Reproduction of a ceramic lion head from the Dolní Věstonice Museum in Czech republic. This lion head is also depicted as having a right eye but the left eye is expressed as a blank space- or as missing. This demonstrates the persistence of this art motif from Lower to Upper Paleolithic contexts. The ceramic lion head is about 30,000 years old.