Figurine raises dating issues: scientist claims ivory carving is oldest known figurative art.

Some women have mysterious pasts, but a few have mysterious prehistories. Archaeologist Nicholas Conard of the University of Tuibingen in Germany has found one such lady. She's carved out of ivory, boasts exaggerated sexual features and fits in the palm of his hand.

Conard says the discovery, reported May 14 in Nature, demonstrates that artistic renditions of the human form originated in Europe between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago--thousands of years before most researchers thought, and a time so close to initial European settlement that newcomers would have had to rapidly invent such advances or import them from Africa.

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"This discovery ... is perhaps the earliest example of figurative art worldwide," Conard says.

Excavations in southern Germany's Hohle Fels cave in 2008 yielded six fragments of the figurine that have since been pieced together, Conard reports. He uncovered the specimen amid stone, bone and ivory tools characteristic of the Aurignacian period, when modern humans first reached Europe. Researchers estimate that the period lasted from about 40,000 to 29,000 years ago.

Some researchers are skeptical, saying that dating of surrounding materials supports an earlier proposal that figurative art emerged in Europe roughly 32,000 years ago, more than 5,000 years after modern humans reached Europe.

An ivory figurine of a woman with exaggerated sexual features may date to at least 35,000 years ago.