Beautiful high-relief sculptures were sometimes made from the moist clay of the cave floor, as in a chamber in Le Tuc d'Audoubert, France, where two clay bison have leaned against a rock ledge for more than 15,000 years. Adolescent footprints preserved on the chamber floor suggest that this part of the cave may have been used for coming-of-age initiation rites.

Relief sculptures on the surfaces of rock shelters also feature animals, although some human forms have been discovered. The entire length of the shelter at Agles-sur-Anglin, France, is a deeply sculpted frieze. The subjects are mainly bison, horses, and ibex, but three female torsos are also carved here. On a large frieze of horses and bison at the Cap Blanc rock shelter in France's Perigord region, some of the most striking sculptures are carved nearly a foot deep into the stone.

What types of mobiliary art have been found?
The Magdalenians concentrated their best artistic impulses on the cave paintings, but the portable, or mobiliary, art they left behind is also skillful and beautiful. Like the decorations on the cave walls, the small sculptures depict animals such as the horse and ibex.

Tools created by these ancient hunters are commonly decorated with etchings and carvings. Bone awls were finely carved with figures and designs. Spear throwers were often made from antlers and etched with geometric patterns along the shaft. If the pattern at the top of an antler shaft suggested an animal form, the artist would carve it out to bring the suggested form to life.

Etchings of animals, made by skillful hands using sharpened flint, decorate the stone lamps that burned animal fat to light the dark caves. These small, handheld lamps allowed the Magdalenians to go deeper into the caves to create their paintings.

Credits: Hall of Bulls at Lascaux ,Clay Bison Sisse Brimberg/National Geographic Image Collection.

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