Engraving of a horse's head

About 40,000 years ago, early human creativity achieved a new dimension with the manufacture of the first sculptures and pictorial works. While the Neanderthals never developed any form of visual art, people now decorated cave walls and cut small figures out of bones and ivory. These representations expressed an early form of religion, centred on hunting magic, totemism, and the veneration of a mother or fertility goddess. Both realistic and abstract representations appeared, with Ice Age animals as the commonest subjects.