While prehistoric art depicting animals with trunks has been found in Europe, this may be the first in the Western Hemisphere, researchers have reported in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

“It’s pretty exciting, we haven’t found anything like this in North America,” said Dennis J. Stanford, curator of North American Archaeology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, who was a coauthor of the report. They hunted these animals, Stanford explained, and “you see people drawing all kinds of pictures that are of relevance and importance to them.”

“Much of the real significance of such finds is in the tangible, emotional connection they allow us to feel with people in the deep past,” said Dietrich Stout, an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta.

Cave paintings showing animals have been found in Texas, but those were dated to about 4,000 years ago, much more recent than the newly found carved bone. The bone fragment contains an incised image about 3 inches long from head to tail and about 1 3/4 inches from head to foot.