Child Fingerprints on 15,000-Year-Old Clay Figurines

Why were the archaeologists examining this clay?

The Natufians were hunter-gatherers who formed some of the Levant’s first permanent settlements about 14,000 years ago. The team’s starting question was whether this culture made clay art before farming began in the region.

The researchers had not set out to find children’s artwork. The fingerprints added a new line of evidence about who made the clay figures.

Could the figures have carried stories?

The figurines’ purpose remains unclear. Most measured less than 2 centimeters long and showed no signs of intense use, so the team doubts they were treated as precious heirlooms.

Davin suspects the figures may have represented stories, drawing a parallel with children drawing Disney characters today. He said: “Maybe the idea is that the role of children here is not necessarily to learn to make figurines, but more to learn the story behind them.”

What did earlier discoveries show about children and art?

Children’s roles in prehistoric art and culture remain poorly understood because direct evidence of their involvement is hard to find. In recent decades, researchers have identified only a handful of objects made by children.

• Tibet: Rock art about 200,000 years old bears child-sized handprints.
• Czech Republic: Clay sculptures about 30,000 years old carry child-sized fingerprints.

Archaeologist Steven Dorland of Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, called the Natufian evidence “fascinating.” He said: “It demonstrates how much researchers can learn from broadening their focus beyond adult males.”

Dorland has used pottery to study how skills passed between generations among Indigenous societies in the Great Lakes region. He has also studied children’s fingerprints on some of those artifacts.

What can the evidence—and its limits—tell us?

The strongest conclusion is that women and children touched, and probably made, many of the surviving figurines. A shared human torso suggests that an adult and child handled the same small object.

The fingerprints alone cannot establish what the figures meant or whether a particular adult was teaching, collaborating or simply holding the clay. The figurines’ small size and limited use leave their role unresolved, so claims about lessons or stories remain hypotheses rather than settled facts.

For Davin and his colleagues, the important shift is to include children and women in the study of prehistoric making. That means asking not only who left the marks, but also what adults and children may have passed between them.