Between 35,000 and 41,000 years old. Germany.

The Eurasian Cave Lion was around there back then and was probably the direct model for the Lion-man sculpture. It was roughly 20% larger than modern African lions. Paleolithic cave paintings (e.g., Chauvet) show the male cave lions lacked the heavy neck manes of modern lions.

I had a project at the Smithsonian's conservation analytical laboratory in the later 90s and made friends with a girl working in the lab that was working on these: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251028779_Three_lat...

(The timing is right at least and the lead author is from the Smithsonian)

She probably shouldn't have but she let me hold them in my hands. You could see that they were made by stuffing a skull with grass then putting the clay over the skull - you could see the grass imprints on the inside. I think they were from 9000 BC, Syria region. Pretty much brand new compared to this lion.