Attitudes Towards Animals in Neolithic and Assyrian Times Animals have been viewed differently by different cultures. This is evident when comparing the wall painting of a deer hunt from the Neolithic period (Gardner, 38) and the reliefs of Ashurbanipal hunting lions and the dying lions from the Assyrian dominated period of the ancient near east (Gardner, 56). The deer hunt scene, painted at Catal Huyuk c. 5750 BC, depicts several humans hunting two large deer and one small deer. The reliefs, sculpted at Nineveh c. 650 BC, consist of King Ashurbanipal sitting in a chariot and shooting several lions with his bow and arrow, and a close-up view of a dying lioness that has been sh