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A tiny, 12,000-year-old clay sculpture of a goose on the back of a woman may depict an animistic ritual involving a gander mating with a human.

The sculpture, which is just 3.7 centimetres tall, was collected in 2019 at an archaeological site called Nahal Ein Gev II near the Sea of Galilee, but its significance wasn’t recognised until 2024.

Nahal Ein Gev II was inhabited by a group of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers called the Natufians, who had established permanent settlements in the region. The Natufians are regarded as immediate predecessors of the agricultural Neolithic communities that went on to plant crops and domesticate animals throughout the Middle East.

While, to the untrained eye, the elements of the figurine can be hard to distinguish, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem says he is “100 per cent confident” that it is a goose on the back of a woman.

“When I took this small block of clay out of its box, I immediately recognised the human figure and then the bird lying on its back,” says Davin. “I then understood that I held in my hand an exceptional piece, both in terms of the subject depicted and the quality of the modelling, created 12,000 years ago.”

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Older engravings and paintings of animal-human interactions exist, as do older hybrid animal-human carvings, such as the 40,000-year-old that was found in Germany. But Davin says the object is the “earliest human-animal interaction figurine” ever discovered.

Geochemical tests revealed that the figurine had been heated to around 400°C. The artist had meticulously modelled the clay with a considerable understanding of both anatomy and how light and shadow would accentuate the scene being captured by the artist, says Davin.

He and his colleagues don’t think the figurine is portraying an objective reality, such as a female hunter carrying a dead goose over her shoulder. Davin says the goose is depicted naturalistically in the posture of a gander in mating position.

“We interpreted the scene as the depiction of the imagined mating between an animal spirit and a human,” he says. “This theme is very common in animistic societies across the world in specific situations such as erotic dreams, shamanistic visions and myths.”

The researchers also identified a fingerprint on the figurine, most likely made by the artist. Its small size meant it must have belonged to either a young adult of either sex or an adult female.

at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, who wasn’t involved in the study, thinks there is another possible interpretation of the figurine. “Thinking about growing up in Canada and Canadian geese, [it] reminded me of how they attack when they are angry,” he says. “When you turn and run, they will fly up and attempt to land on your back to peck your head or neck.

“It may be that a story about a woman being attacked by a goose was represented rather than an intimate encounter, but we will never really know the exact meaning.”

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