Editing Sculpture (section)

====Europe====
The earliest undisputed examples of sculpture belong to the [[Aurignacian culture]], which was located in Europe and southwest Asia and active at the beginning of the [[Upper Paleolithic]]. As well as producing some of the earliest known [[cave art]], the people of this culture developed finely-crafted stone tools, manufacturing pendants, bracelets, ivory beads, and bone-flutes, as well as three-dimensional figurines.<ref>P. Mellars, Archeology and the Dispersal of Modern Humans in Europe: Deconstructing the Aurignacian, ''Evolutionary Anthropology'', vol. 15 (2006), pp. 167–82.</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e75T03MIp3sC&pg=PA211|page=211|title=History of Humanity: Prehistory and the beginnings of civilization|year=1994|author=de Laet, Sigfried J.|publisher=UNESCO |isbn=978-92-3-102810-6}}</ref>

The 30&nbsp;cm tall [[Löwenmensch figurine|Löwenmensch]] found in the Hohlenstein Stadel area of Germany is an [[anthropomorphic]] lion-human figure carved from [[woolly mammoth]] ivory. It has been dated to about 35–40,000{{nbsp}}BP, making it, along with the [[Venus of Hohle Fels]], the oldest known uncontested examples of sculpture.<ref>Cook, J. (2013) ''Ice Age art: arrival of the modern mind'', The British Museum, {{ISBN|978-0-7141-2333-2}}.</ref>

Much surviving [[prehistoric art]] is small portable sculptures, with a small group of female [[Venus figurines]] such as the [[Venus of Willendorf]] (24–26,000{{nbsp}}BP) found across central Europe.<ref>Sandars, 8–16, 29–31.</ref>  The [[Swimming Reindeer]] of about 13,000 years ago is one of the finest of a number of [[Magdalenian]] carvings in bone or antler of animals in the [[art of the Upper Paleolithic]], although they are outnumbered by engraved pieces, which are sometimes classified as sculpture.<ref>Hahn, Joachim, "Prehistoric Europe, §II: Palaeolithic 3. Portable art" in [[Oxford Art Online]], accessed August 24, 2012; Sandars, 37–40.</ref> Two of the largest prehistoric sculptures can be found at the [[Trois Frères|Tuc d'Audobert caves]] in France, where around 12–17,000 years ago a masterful sculptor used a spatula-like stone tool and fingers to model a pair of large bison in clay against a limestone rock.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mBrvazPDFoYC&pg=PT36|title=Gardner's Art through the Ages: The Western Perspective, Volume 1|page=36|author=Kleiner, Fred|year=2009 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-0-495-57360-9}}</ref>

With the beginning of the [[Mesolithic]] in Europe figurative sculpture greatly reduced,<ref>Sandars, 75–80.</ref> and remained a less common element in art than relief decoration of practical objects until the Roman period, despite some works such as the [[Gundestrup cauldron]] from the [[European Iron Age]] and the Bronze Age [[Trundholm sun chariot]].<ref>Sandars, 253−57, 183–85.</ref>