Figure on the left:

Bone statuette with mobile elements (head and limbs) found at Dolní Vestonice, southern Moravia (Czech Republic), and dating back to about 20,000 years B.P. Among the hypothesis advanced by the discoverers, there is the possibility that it was a puppet employed during shamanic rituals, in which it was regarded as the representation of a spirit helper of the shaman (perhaps the spirit of a dead or an ancestor). This interpretation is corroborated by the features of the statuette face, that remind those of a human skull or a corpse. Facsimile, Museum of Natural History (Naturhistorisches Museum), Wien, Austria; the original is in the Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic.

[Image: http://donsmaps.com/dolnivenus.html]

Figure on the right:

Reconstruction of the puppet found at Dolní Vestonice, in which it is hypothesized its function as visible manifestation of a spirit. It is likely that the person who utilized it, possibly a shaman, managed to make it move through a mechanism similar to that still employed today in the puppet theatre.

[Image: http://donsmaps.com/dolnivenus.html]