Archaeological digs in Europe have found ivory carvings from approximately how many years ago?

• A. 10,000 years ago
• B. 50,000 years ago
• C. 100,000 years ago
• D. 30,000 years ago

Answer: (D)

Dating ivory carvings from Europe places them in the Upper Paleolithic, when early modern humans produced figurative art from mammoth ivory around tens of thousands of years ago. The widely cited ages for these European ivory pieces cluster in the ~30,000–40,000-year range, and radiocarbon dating on preserved ivory supports ages in this window. So 30,000 years ago is the best approximate match among the options because it sits squarely in that known period of early European ivory art. The other dates don’t fit the established timeline: 10,000 years ago is too recent for these early works, while 50,000 or 100,000 years ago would be outside the well-supported European Upper Paleolithic record.