A small clay figurine from a village in northern Israel captures a woman and a goose in a mating posture, marking the earliest known artwork of a human-animal interaction.
Dating back to around 12,000 years ago, just before the dawn of farming societies, the object shows a bird mounting a woman’s back in a scene that researchers interpret as mythological rather than literal. This discovery, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, hints at early animistic beliefs where humans and animals shared spiritual connections, and it previews artistic techniques that would flourish in later eras.
While images of humans interacting with animals are scarce in Paleolithic art, mostly limited to hunting scenes in European caves or engravings, such depictions become more common in the Neolithic period of Southwest Asia, often tied to shamanistic or spiritual ideas.
This clay figurine comes from the Late Epipaleolithic site of Nahal Ein Gev II, a settled community on the banks of the Ein Gev stream near the Sea of Galilee. There, archaeologists unearthed the figurine in the fill of a special-purpose building that once held burials.
Laurent Davin
Laurent Davin and team examined the 37-millimeter-tall figurine through various analyses, including its clay composition, fingerprints left during shaping, and traces of red pigment. They determined it was crafted from local clay, molded by hand – possibly by a young adult or woman – dried, and then heated to around 400 degrees Celsius, perhaps in a fireplace.
The figurine portrays the goose with a long neck curved forward, its beak near the woman’s cheek, and wings spread over her shoulders, mimicking the stance of a male goose during mating. The woman leans forward, her arms at her sides, with features like a triangular pubic area and impressions for breasts that may have held perishable decorations such as feathers or berries.
“This object is both the earliest naturalistic representation of a woman in Southwest Asia and the earliest figurine to depict a human–animal interaction,” the researchers note. They add that “notably, the depicted interaction is not related to hunting but presents a mythological scene between a human and a bird that is consistent with an animistic belief system.”
Citations
Laurent Davin et al. A 12,000-year-old clay figurine of a woman and a goose marks symbolic innovations in Southwest Asia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Published online November 17, 2025. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2517509122
