The Swimming Reindeer is a 13,000-year-old Magdalenian sculpture of two swimming reindeer conserved in the British Museum. The sculpture was made in what is now modern-day France by an unknown sculptor who carved the artwork from the tip of a mammoth tusk. The sculpture was found in two pieces in 1866, but it was not until 1904 that Abbé Henri Breuil realised that the two pieces fit together to form a single artwork of two reindeer swimming nose-to-tail.
The 13,000-year-old Swimming Reindeer sculpture
The Mammoth spear thrower
Rampant Hyena carving found at Abri de la Madeleine, also in France
The male reindeer is on the left, the female is to the right.
The Magdalenian cultures are later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in western Europe. They date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years ago. It is named after the type site of La Madeleine, a rock shelter located in the Vézère valley, commune of Tursac, in France's Dordogne department.
Magdalenian cave painting
Antler carving, France, 15,000 BC
Lascaux cave painting
Lascaux cave painting