The Lion Man - making a replica from the Aurignacian layers of the Hohlenstein Stadel cave in Southern Germany using authentic tools. Perhaps this hybrid helped people to come to terms with their place in nature on a deeper, religious level or in some way to transcend or reshape it.Īn experiment by Wulf Hein using the same sort of stone tools available in the Ice Age indicate that the Lion Man took more than 400 hours to make: Distinct from other animals through their use of tools and fire, humans were nonetheless dependent on some animals for food while needing to protect themselves from predators. Lion Man is made from a mammoth tusk, the largest animal in the environment of that time and depicts the fiercest predator, a lion, now extinct, that was about 30 centimetres taller than a modern African lion and had no mane. Obviously, the story involved humans and animals. It is impossible to know what that story was about or whether he was deity, an avatar to the spirit world, part of a creation story or a human whose experiences on a journey through the cosmos to communicate with spirits caused this transformation. The wear on his body caused by handling suggests that he was passed around and rubbed as part of a narrative or ritual that would explain his appearance and meaning. © Ulmer Museum.įound in a cave in what is now southern Germany in 1939, the Lion Man makes sense as part of a story that might now be called a myth. The oldest known evidence of religious belief in the world. Stadel Cave, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, 40,000 years old.

Ice age live a mammoth adventure part 2