Two Bird Figurines from German Cave Simulate Prehistoric Flight
A simulation of a moment never seen in nature
Two small bird figurines discovered in Hohle Fels Cave in 2025 have been interpreted as simulating a scene that has never been observed in the natural world of the Ice Age. One carving shows a bird with its wings stretched wide, as if mid-air. The other depicts the same kind of bird at rest. The figurines resemble ptarmigans, a type of bird in the grouse family, which are relatives of the pheasant. These poses—one in motion, one still—may capture a moment no human eye saw. The bird with outstretched wings has been suggested to appear caught between flight and landing. Its companion remains motionless, possibly intended as perched. Together they form a pair that researchers say is without precedent in known prehistoric art. The cave’s cold interior may have preserved these delicate objects for millennia.
The counterargument that has not yet been refuted
Archaeologist Alexander Janas works for the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment in Tübingen. He emerged from Hohle Fels Cave during a European June heatwave. Outside the cave, the shade temperature reached 35 °C. Inside, the mercury read only 9 or 10 °C. Janas described the cool interior as “wonderful.” This stark temperature difference is central to a counterargument about the figurines’ survival. Alexander Janas and his colleagues propose that the cold, stable microclimate inside the cave is the sole reason the carvings lasted. Without that stable cold, Janas and his colleagues argue, the figurines would have decayed long ago. But this claim has not yet been refuted. No one has demonstrated that the same objects could have perished in warmer soil. The counterargument remains unanswered.
The open question this finding raises
The two bird figurines raise an open question that the discovery itself cannot answer: why were they made? They are small and finely carved from material that the cold preserved. They were found in a cave already famous for Ice Age objects. But the purpose of a ptarmigan with wings spread and one at rest is not explained by the find. Did they represent a hunting scene, a story, or a ritual offering? The discoverers, from the Senckenberg Centre, offered no interpretation in the initial announcement. The purpose of these carvings remains unknown, a limitation that underscores how much of Ice Age symbolic life is still beyond our reach