Archaeologists excavating in the famous prehistoric Hohle Fels cave in Germany have uncovered two bird figurines carved from mammoth ivory. ‪‪The thumbnail-size carvings add to the existing ‬‬evidence that ice age humans had a sophisticated artistic sense 40,000 years ago.

"The figurines demonstrate that the earliest artists were skilled ivory-carvers, who could depict delicate motifs in miniature form," Nicholas Conard, an archaeologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany and director of excavations at Hohle Fels, said in a July 29 statement.

When the birds were found in 2025, they were lying just 5 feet (1.5 meters) from each other in a layer dating back 40,000 years, according to the statement. The sculptures bring the total number of bird figurines from Hohle Fels up to three; a small water bird was found there in 2001.

Hohle Fels was occupied by early Homo sapiens during the Aurignacian period of prehistory (43,000 to 28,000 years ago), following the decline and disappearance of Neanderthals from Europe. At that time, humans launched a creative explosion, creating the world's first musical instruments, jewelry and small sculptures. The Venus of Hohle Fels, a 41,000-year-old statuette of a woman with exaggerated breasts and buttocks discovered in the cave in 2008, is generally considered the oldest figurative sculpture in Europe. Archaeologists have also found figurines of animals and an ivory rope-making tool at Hohle Fels, a German name that means "hollow rock" in English.

At roughly thumbnail-size, the two new bird carvings are significantly smaller than the figurines found previously at Hohle Fels. Despite their tiny dimensions, "the carvings are not highly stylized but instead include many specific and unique features," Conard said. "The artist has recorded detailed observations that allow us to consider which kind of bird is represented and what the bird could be doing."

One bird appears to be lying on the ground, possibly brooding over its eggs. This position suggests the bird is a ptarmigan, a game bird that is related to chickens and grouse and whose bones have been discovered in the prehistoric layers at Hohle Fels. The second bird has spread wings that are suggestive of flight or posturing in courtship, according to the statement. This bird may also be a ptarmigan, or possibly a bird of prey.

The two tiny ptarmigans raise many new questions about early humans in Europe, Conard said. They are among the earliest evidence of modern humans in Europe, suggesting art was a major feature of early human life. Archaeologists do not know what meaning the carvings held for the Aurignacian people who lived at Hohle Fels, but the objects may have been personal talismans or a symbol of a specific group of people.

Hohle Fels is unique among ice age cave sites because, to date, it is the only one with bird figurines. This may reflect people's keen observations of the natural world around them.

"Our region and landscape have always been the home of a vast range of birds," Stefanie Kölbl, managing director of the Museum of Prehistory and Ice Age Art, said in the statement. "Their calls signaled warnings, and the residents of the region often used their hollow bones and even mammoth ivory to make flutes that produced magical sounds."

The figurines are on display at the Museum of Prehistory and Ice Age Art in Blaubeuren, Germany, through April 4, 2027.

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Using laser scanning technology to peer beneath the dense canopy of the Amazon rainforest, archaeologists have discovered hundreds of ancient earthworks that were made by a complex, enigmatic society over two millennia ago, a new study finds.

This ancient civilization, called the Aquiry, arose 2,500 years ago in Brazil. Based on the large number of earthworks, called geoglyphs, the Aquiry may have had 3 million people before the society collapsed, the researchers suggested in the study.

"The cultures and societies that composed the Aquiry shared a common worldview and constructed ceremonial centers in a variety of monumental geometric forms, characterized by deep ditches and high outer embankments, commonly known as Amazonian geoglyphs," Martti Pärssinen, an archaeologist at the University of Helsinki, told Live Science in an email.

In the new study, published Wednesday (July 29) in the journal Nature, Pärssinen and co-authors presented findings from their survey of nearly 1,740 square miles (4,500 square kilometers) of Amazonian rainforest, which revealed 396 new geoglyphs and allowed them to approximate the geographical extent of the Aquiry civilization.

Pärssinen has been investigating geometric earthworks in Brazil's Acre state for more than two decades. In a 2021 study, he officially introduced the name Aquiry for the multicultural ancient civilization, named after the Acre River, which flows from Peru and Bolivia through the present-day states of Acre and Amazonas in Brazil. Aquiry means "river of caimans" in the language spoken by the Indigenous Arawakan people.

Because of the dense canopy of trees in the rainforest, archaeological investigation in the area has been limited. Most of the evidence for the Aquiry civilization comes from lidar and airborne laser scanning of monumental geoglyphs that were constructed between 600 B.C. and A.D. 850, according to the study. People lived in multifamily longhouses around the earthworks, and they farmed crops like maize and squash.

"According to native oral traditions, the Aquiry centers were built to foster relations among communities" and with significant otherworldly beings, Pärssinen said. These centers also served as venues for gatherings and political decision-making, and they enabled chiefs to display their generosity, he added.

To date, archaeologists have identified around 1,700 known geoglyphs in the area. But the researchers think the total is significantly higher, with more than 20,000 Aquiry earthworks waiting to be found in places that haven't yet been surveyed. And based on an estimate of 300 people needed to build and maintain each geoglyph on average, the researchers estimated that the Aquiry civilization likely peaked at 1.25 million to 3 million people between A.D. 100 and 300.

Similar geoglyphs dating to between 200 B.C. and A.D. 500 have been found in Peru. Known as the Nazca Lines, these earthworks are shaped like animals, humans, plants and fantastical figures, in addition to having geometric motifs. The Nazca were an interconnected regional society of precolonial farmers who were able to survive in a forbidding geographic region, but they lived roughly 1,050 miles (1,700 kilometers) from the Aquiry.

"The Nazca geoglyphs represent a different phenomenon and were probably unrelated to the Aquiry civilization," Pärssinen said. "Nevertheless, in both cases, the straight roads and lines, as well as the geometric forms and motifs, are best appreciated from the air."

The presence of thousands of geoglyphs in the southwest Amazon region is leading archaeologists to rethink assumptions about precolonial civilizations and urban development — but it's also bringing up questions about the fate of the Aquiry.

"We do not know why the geoglyphs were suddenly abandoned between A.D. 850 and 950," Pärssinen said. "The available evidence points to a relatively rapid collapse" that may be related to the disappearance of other major precolonial powers, he said, "including the Classic Maya in Central America and the Tiwanaku and Wari civilizations in the Andes."

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