Is It Art? You May Have to Ask a Neanderthal Critic.

In 2019, a team of archaeologists climbed a steep, rocky hill in central Germany and burrowed inside the collapsed entrance of the Unicorn Cave, named as such because people in the Middle Ages once scoured it for unicorn bones. Today it is famous for its animal fossils.

Over the course of about a month, they excavated an area of just 16 square feet, pulling out of the brown dirt dozens of ancient mammal bones. Most were unremarkable, either the remains of bears who had once used the cave to hibernate, or the butchered castaways from carcasses hunted by Neanderthals tens of thousands of years ago.

But one specimen, a 2-inch-long foot bone of a giant deer, stood apart. It was carved with six thick rectangular notches, in a distinct chevron pattern.

Read more at The New York Times, July 2021.