Thousands of years ago, children from the Iberian Peninsula carved pieces of slate into the shape of owls, creating palm-sized toys to play with, a new study suggests. Originally, archaeologists thought the cartoonlike figures were sacred objects representing deities, used only in rituals. But a new study reveals that they also could have served as children's toys or amulets.

To investigate, researchers from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) examined 100 of the approximately 4,000 engraved slate owl plaques that have been collected over the years at tomb and pit sites scattered throughout the peninsula. All of the carvings dated to the Copper Age (3500 B.C. to 2750 B.C.) and were rated for how many owlish features they had, including two circles for the owl's large frontal eyes, etchings of a beak, wings, plummage and other noticeable characteristics of the birds of prey. Each piece also contained two small perforations at the top, which researchers think could have been used to weave in actual bird feathers.

"My first impression when looking at the engravings was that they were simple to make," Juan J. Negro, the study's lead author and a biologist in the Department of Evolutionary Ecology at the CSIC, told Live Science. "[The carvers] didn't invest a lot of time or skills into making them, and they could be finished in a few hours."

So what inspired these Copper Age kids to focus on owls instead of other animals?

Negro said he doesn't have an explanation for that, but "owls were a common sighting - even today in urban areas." "Most likely these youngsters lived in settlements and would see owls regularly, since they're known to get rid of rats and mice," Negro said. "Owls are different from other birds due to their large heads and frontally placed eyes, which people find striking. Because of this, if you were to ask children to draw an owl, they wouldn't need a model, since everyone has an image of an owl in their brains. They're iconic animals just like horses, dogs and elephants."

To test this theory, Negro and his team asked a group of modern-day children to draw images of owls, and the resulting artwork looked eerily similar to the ancient carvings.

The findings were published Dec. 1 in the journal Scientific Reports. 

livescience.com