This sculpture is one of two pebbles found in Courbet Cave at Montastruc, Midi-Pyrénées in France where they stood out as distinctive and deliberately collected. Although the shape has been modified, the pebble can still be seen - as it was in the Late Magdalenian period - as a sculpture that recognized the essential aspects of the female body.

British Museum.

The most widely-spread and best-known Palaeolithic culture, which started around 17,000 years ago and ended around 11,000 years ago. Its name derives from the La Madeleine site in Dordogne, France. Some of the high points in cave art in all its forms - sculpture, black drawings, polychrome painting, modelling and engraving - are to be found in this period.

Source: Dr Jean Clottes

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