A 12,000-year-old clay figurine found at the Natufian site of Nahal Ein Gev II near the Sea of Galilee may be the oldest known portrayal of close interaction between a human and an animal, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Excavators uncovered the 3.7-centimeter object in 2019, but its importance only became clear in 2024. The sculpture shows a squatting woman with a goose stretched across her back. The artist modeled the bird’s beak and wings and the woman’s anatomy, then fired the piece and painted it with red, white, and black ochre. Microscopic examination indicated firing at about 400 °C, marking early use of pyrotechnology.

Researchers found a fingerprint on the back. “By measuring the ridge of a fingerprint, it is possible to identify whether the person was a child, a young adult, a woman, or an adult man. In this case, we understand that the person was either a young adult or a woman,” said Laurent Davin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “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,” Davin added.

The study interpreted the scene as symbolic. “A real goose would not adopt this kind of position on a woman, and therefore we understand that this is an imaginary scene, rather than a real one,” said Davin.

Geese dominated local subsistence, providing food, feathers, and ornamentation. The figurine came from a semi-circular structure linked to burials and rituals; charcoal from a nearby grave dated between 12,630 and 12,041 years ago.

Other clay figures at the site depict humans or animals separately, but none combine them. “They marked a big change in the Levant because there was an explosion of symbolic practices associated with the Natufian culture,” said Davin.

Paul Taçon of Griffith University said the scene might represent an aggressive goose attack rather than intimacy, according to New Scientist. Leore Grosman, who directed the excavation, viewed the piece differently. The woman and a goose figurine bridge “the world of mobile hunter-gatherers and that of the first settled communities, showing how imagination and symbolic thinking began to shape human culture,” said Grosman, Live Science reported.

“The woman and the goose reflect the beginning of the way in which imagination, spirit, and art connected to human creation. This is a living message — created thousands of years ago — about the deep connection between humans and the nature around them,” said Davin.

Written with the help of a news-analysis system.