Bison Licking Insect Bite

Bison Licking Insect Bite is a prehistoric carving from the Upper Paleolithic, found at Abri [de la Madeleine] near Tursac in Dordogne, France, the type-site of the Magdalenian culture, which produced many fine small carvings in antler or bone.
Created sometime between 20,000 and 12,000 BP, it was formerly in the National [Archaeological Museum (France)|Musee des Antiquites Nationales], St. Germain-en-Laye, but has been transferred to the expanded National Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil that opened in 2004, not far from its findspot. It is a carved and engraved fragment of a spear-thrower made of reindeer antler. It depicts the 10.5 cm figure of a bison, of the now extinct species steppe wisent with its head turned around and showing its tongue extended. It is thought the spear-thrower was broken into roughly its present shape before the carving was made from the fragment, hence the need to show the turned-back head of the animal in order to fit the existing structure.