'Earliest use of symbol': Archaelogists discover parallel engraving on 120,000 yr old bone

Israeli and French researchers on February 4 found the parallel engravings on the 120,000-year-old aurochs bone that were discovered at the open-air site of Nesher Ramla, Israel. The lines are key as early evidence to study the symbolic behaviour that existed in the Levantine Middle Paleolithic ages. “The production of deliberate, abstract engraving on bone or stone materials is a rare phenomenon,” archaeologists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) said in a study published in the journal Quaternary International, adding that the etchings on the bone fragments were 120,000-year-old and oldest evidence of human's use of symbols. 

As per the scientists at the rom Le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France, the lines found on the bones are identified to belong to an extinct species from wild cattle, that lived in the Middle East approximately 120,000 years ago and is the earliest-known use of symbols. The markings were first observed by the researchers from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (HUJI) and the University of Haifa, in the Ramle region of central Israel.

Six similar etchings

"Remarkably the fragment remained largely intact and the researchers were able to detect six similar etchings on one side of the bone, leading them to deduce that they were in the possession of something which held symbolic or spiritual significance,” the study in the journal Quaternary International explained. The carving was discovered in a trove of flint tools and animal bones exposed at a site during archaeological excavations, which, the archaeologists believe was a camp or a meeting place for Paleolithic hunters. 

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[Credit: Science Direct Journal/ Research Quaternary International]

“Based on our laboratory analysis and discovery of microscopic elements, we were able to surmise that people in prehistoric times used a sharp tool fashioned from flint rock to make the engravings,” Dr. Iris Groman-Yaroslavski from the University of Haifa explained in the study.

Moreover, as per researchers, the U-shape and prominence of the design suggested that it may have been the human who must have carved lines into the bone. “This engraving is very likely an example of symbolic activity and is the oldest known example of this form of messaging that was used in the Levant," the study said. "We hypothesize that the choice of this particular bone was related to the status of that animal in that hunting community and is indicative of the spiritual connection that the hunters had with the animals they killed,” researchers further stated. 

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