''Bison Licking Insect Bite'' is a prehistoric carving from the

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories ...

, found at

Abri de la Madeleine The archaeological site Abri de la Madeleine (Magdalene Shelter) is a rock shelter under an overhanging cliff situated near Tursac, in the Dordogne ''département'' of the Aquitaine région of southwestern France. It represents the type site of t ...

near

Tursac Tursac () is a commune in the Dordogne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. '' Abri de la Madeleine'' is the site of Magdalenian prehistoric finds. Population See also *Communes of the Dordogne department The follow ...

Dordogne Dordogne ( , or ; ; ) is a large rural departments of France, department in south west France, with its Prefectures in France, prefecture in Périgueux. Located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region roughly half-way between the Loire Valley and ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, the

type-site In archaeology, a type site (American English) or type-site (British English) is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hall ...

of the

Magdalenian Magdalenian cultures (also Madelenian; ) are later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in western Europe. They date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years before present. It is named after the type site of Abri de la Madeleine, a ro ...

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 Saint-Germain-en-Laye () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris, from the centre of Paris. Inhabitants are called ''Saint-Germanois'' or ''Saint- ...

, but has been transferred to the expanded National Museum of Prehistory in

Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil (; ) is a former commune in the Dordogne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It was created in 1973 by the merger of two former communes: Les Eyzies-de-Tayac and Sireuil. On 1 January 2019, it wa ...

that opened in 2004, not far from its findspot. It is a carved and engraved fragment of a

spear-thrower A spear-thrower, spear-throwing lever, or ''atlatl'' (pronounced or ; Classical Nahuatl, Nahuatl ''ahtlatl'' ) is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in Dart (missile), dart or javelin-throwing, and includes a Plain bearing, b ...

made of

reindeer The reindeer or caribou (''Rangifer tarandus'') is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, taiga, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only re ...

antler. It depicts the 10.5 cm figure of a

bison A bison (: bison) is a large bovine in the genus ''Bison'' (from Greek, meaning 'wild ox') within the tribe Bovini. Two extant taxon, extant and numerous extinction, extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American ...

, of the now extinct species

steppe wisent The steppe bison (''Bison'' ''priscus'', also less commonly known as the steppe wisent and the primeval bison) is an extinct species of bison which lived from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene. During the Late Pleistocene, it was widely dist ...

(''Bison priscus'') with its head turned around and showing its tongue extended. It is thought the spear-thrower was broken into roughly its present shape before the carving was made from the fragment, hence the need to show the turned-back head of the animal in order to fit the existing structure."Collections", National Museum of Prehistory
in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil (in French)

References

External links

''Bison Licking Insect Bite''
Archaeological discoveries in France Prehistoric art in France Art of the Upper Paleolithic Sculptures of bison Bone carvings {{France-archaeology-stub