The Kanawha Madonna is a wood carving of a person holding a four-legged animal. The carving is currently part of the collection of the West Virginia State Museum and displayed in the Cultural Center as an example of prehistoric Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 wood carving. The statue is nearly 4 feet (1.2 m) tall with a 8 inches (20.3 cm) in height by 13 inches (33 cm) in width base. It was carved from the trunk of a honey locust

Honey locust

The Honey locust, Gleditsia triacanthos, is a deciduous tree native to central North America. It is mostly found in the moist soil of river valleys ranging from southeastern South Dakota to New Orleans and central Texas, and as far east as eastern Massachusetts.-Description:Honey locusts, Gleditsia...

 tree. The base has a hole in the bottom, possibly for mounting on a pole.

Discovery

In 1897, four teenaged boys found the statue while exploring an cave set in a cliff above the lower New River, in Kanawha County, West Virginia

Kanawha County, West Virginia

As of the census of 2000, there were 200,073 people, 86,226 households, and 55,960 families residing in the county. The population density was 222 people per square mile . There were 93,788 housing units at an average density of 104 per square mile...

. They found the statue under a large flat stone. A member of the West Virginia Historical and Antiquarian Society, Dr. John P. Hale acquired the statue. Hale visited the cave and presented a paper about the statue.

In 1964 a radiocarbon date put the statue's age at 350 years old. A more recent radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...

 estimates the wood to date from between 1440 to 1600 CE

CE

CE, Ce or ce may refer to:* Common Era , secular alternative to Anno Domini * Cerium, chemical element with symbol Ce- Titles :* Chief Executive, administrative head of some regions...

, although this does not mean it was carved at this time. It could have been carved at any time after this.