Swimming Reindeer: Ice Age Sculpture in Mammoth Ivory

The Swimming Reindeer is a small sculpture carved from the tip of a mammoth tusk about 13,000 years ago, showing two reindeer swimming one behind the other. Found in 1866 at the rock shelter of Montastruc in south-west France, it is now in the British Museum and is regarded as one of the finest surviving works of Ice Age art. It captures, with striking accuracy, a moment from the seasonal migrations on which Magdalenian hunters depended.

Background: art in the Late Magdalenian

The sculpture belongs to the Magdalenian, the last major culture of the Upper Palaeolithic in western Europe, which flourished from roughly 17,000 to 12,000 years ago. Magdalenian people produced cave art at sites such as Lascaux and Niaux, but also many portable objects: engraved bones, carved spear-throwers and pierced batons.

Portable art like the Swimming Reindeer could be carried from camp to camp. It was often made from the materials hunters had at hand, especially antler, bone and ivory.

Discovery at Montastruc

Montastruc is a rock shelter on the banks of the Aveyron river near Bruniquel, in the Tarn-et-Garonne department. In 1866 an engineer, Peccadeau de l’Isle, dug there during work in the area, possibly connected with the building of a railway line. He found a rich collection of Magdalenian tools and carvings, including a spear-thrower decorated with a mammoth.

The reindeer carving was found in two separate pieces. For many years they were not recognised as belonging together. The British Museum acquired the Montastruc finds in the 1880s, and the two fragments were eventually joined, a match often credited to the prehistorian Henri Breuil in the early 20th century.

What the sculpture shows

The piece is about 20.7 centimetres long. It shows two reindeer, a female in front and a larger male behind, with their bodies stretched out, heads raised and antlers laid back along their backs. Their legs are stretched out along the line of the bodies, the posture of animals swimming rather than walking.

The carver made clever use of the tusk. Its natural taper becomes the line of the two bodies, and the curved tip forms the head and antlers. Details such as nostrils, eyes and the markings of the coat are finely engraved.

Specialists have noted that the coats and antlers suggest autumn. At that time of year reindeer in western Europe migrated between summer and winter grazing, crossing rivers on the way. The male’s antlers are in full growth and the female’s antlers are smaller, as they are in real reindeer, the only deer species in which females also grow antlers.

Reindeer and Magdalenian hunting

Reindeer were the most important prey of many Magdalenian groups in France. They provided meat, fat, hides for clothing and tents, sinew for thread, and antler and bone for tools. Animal bones from sites in the region show that reindeer were often hunted in large numbers.

River crossings were good places to hunt, because swimming herds were slow and vulnerable. A carver who watched reindeer swim, perhaps while waiting to hunt them, could observe exactly how they held their heads and bodies. The sculpture is therefore both an artwork and a record of close knowledge of animal behaviour.

The purpose of the object is unknown. It may have been a decorative item, part of a tool such as a spear-thrower, or an object with symbolic meaning. There are no holes for suspension or obvious signs of use. Because the carving is fragile and finely finished, many specialists think it was not an everyday tool but an object made to be looked at and handled with care. Its small size would have made it easy to carry as groups moved between seasonal camps.

Fame and display

The Swimming Reindeer has become an icon of the British Museum’s prehistoric collections. It was featured in Neil MacGregor’s BBC radio series and book A History of the World in 100 Objects in 2010, and was a centrepiece of the museum’s 2013 exhibition Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind, curated by Jill Cook.

It is often compared with other Ice Age carvings such as the Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, which is much older, and with the many images of reindeer and woolly mammoths in cave art.

Timeline

• c. 17,000-12,000 years ago: Magdalenian culture flourishes in western Europe.
• c. 13,000 years ago: The Swimming Reindeer is carved from a mammoth tusk.
• 1866: Peccadeau de l’Isle excavates at Montastruc and finds the carving in two pieces.
• 1880s: The British Museum acquires the Montastruc collection.
• Early 20th century: The two fragments are recognised as one sculpture and joined.
• 2010: The carving appears in A History of the World in 100 Objects.
• 2013: It is shown in the British Museum exhibition Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind.

Why it matters

The Swimming Reindeer shows that Ice Age hunters were also skilled, observant artists who could turn a piece of ivory into a lifelike scene. It links the art of the period directly to the animals and seasons that shaped daily survival at the end of the last Ice Age.