Tiny 13,000 year-old Chinese bird figurine is the country's oldest known artwork.

A tiny carving of a bird, found in a discarded pile of soil, has now been declared the oldest work of art ever found in China. The figure is at least 13,000 years old, and hints at an original artistic tradition in the region.

Roughly 12 millimetres tall (half an inch), this dainty figurine pushes back the origins of animal sculptures in East Asia by more than 8,500 years: from the New Stone Age, when humans began to settle down and farm, to the Old Stone Age, when hunter-gatherers reigned.

"The Lingjing figurine is the only Palaeolithic three-dimensional object carved in burnt bone and representing a bird standing on a pedestal," an international team of researchers writes in a new study describing the find.

"It is also the only Palaeolithic carving for which, thanks to its exceptional state of preservation, the final stages of manufacture could be documented in detail." 

Birds, and especially 'perching birds', are a common theme in ancient Chinese art from the Neolithic, or the New Stone Age, when early humans were gradually becoming more settled and had more time for leisure.

This new discovery, however, suggests carving was a creative pastime in this region long before that. Analysing the figurine and surrounding material at four different research institutions around the world - including China, France, Japan and the US - scientists now think it was made between 13,400 and 13,200 years ago, just a few hundred kilometres from where modern Beijing now sits. Read the free article.