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Article: Ancient symbols surface on Israeli pebble. (Upper Paleolithic)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- June 9, 1990
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Ancient symbols surface on Israeli pebble
An engraved limestone pebble uncovered at an Israeli archaeological site in 1988 provides a rare example of abstract, symbolic artwork in the Middle East during the Upper Paleolithic, a period between 35,000 and 12,000 years ago, according to a new scientific report on the artifact.
"The pebble appears to reflect the sophisticated, abstract encoding of a message," says Erella Hovers of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who directed excavation at the Urkan e-Rub IIa site where the engraved stone turned up. Artifacts found with the pebble belong to hunter-gatherers who inhabited the region between 19,000 and 14,500 ...