Posted on 06/18/2018 10:56:29 AM PDT by BBell
Some of the most enigmatic human-made objects from Europe's late Stone Age — intricately carved balls of stone, each about the size of a baseball — continue to baffle archaeologists more than 200 years after they were first discovered.
More than 500 of the enigmatic objects have now been found, most of them in northeast Scotland, but also in the Orkney Islands, England, Ireland and one in Norway.
Archaeologists still don't know the original purpose or meaning of the Neolithic stone balls, which are recognized as some of the finest examples of Neolithic art found anywhere in the world. But now, they've created virtual 3D models of the gorgeous balls, primarily to share with the public. In addition, the models have revealed some new details, including once-hidden patterns in the carvings on the balls
Hugo Anderson-Whymark, a curator at National Museums Scotland who created the online models, explained that many functions have been proposed for the stone balls over the years.
Such proposals have included the possibility that they were made as the stone heads for crushing weapons, or standardized weights for Neolithic traders, or rollers for the transport of the giant stones used in megalithic monuments.
One theory is that the knobs on many of the carved stone balls were wound with twine or sinew, which allowed them to be thrown like slings or South American bolas. Other theories describe the balls as objects of religious devotion or symbols of social status.
"Many of the ideas you have to take with a pinch of salt, while there are others that may be plausible," Anderson-Whymark told Live Science. "What's interesting is that people really get their imaginations captured by them — they still hold a lot of secrets."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I think they were made for crushing grains and pulping foodstuffs
Looks like a fossilized cruller.
You are the second one to make that observation.
I meant to say spears but pears are more deadly.
Right up there with bananas : )
Concretions
Dog biscuits.
Well, they had no TV or internet back then.
Probably the handiwork of captive wee folk.
My thoughts, too.
A thousand years from now, some other bunch of over thinking nerds will marvel over the “purpose” of garden gnomes and fake flamingos
I considered their use as a "seal" that could be pressed into clay or wax and the pattern used to impart authority or "value" of some sort. I believe cylinders used in antiquity as such were found in Israel.
The idea that it’s a seal, or a kind of ‘family crest’, is interesting.
Formed through (then) natural forces, found by man who decorated some of them. imo.
I’m not sure the geometry of these could be natural. Nature creates highly organized crystals like diamonds and other gemstones; but we don’t often see this kind of geometry displayed so precisely in the coarser stone aggregates.
These are the product of men’s imagination.
I’ve seen lots of pictures of tectites; but none that have the precise geometry of some of these ‘balls’.
They may have been inspired by tectites, or some other natural formation; but I believe that the most beautiful and elaborate of these carved spheres were made by men from “regular old” rocks.
https://irna.lautre.net/Tout-ce-que-la-nature-ne-peut-pas,45.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concretion#Kansas_pop_rocks
Whoa! You’re overloading my knowledge of geology.
I like the first one in the hand in your Bing search - it looks like a flying saucer.
(We’re spelling it wrong - it’s apparently teKtite.)
imo the hand of man is evident only in the elaborate decoration of a few...the original objects were unadorned and probably discovered by Neolithic man during ground excavations, such as the creation of the shelters at Skara Brea, or whilst searching for flints.
The decorations suggest a Pict origen, the Neolithic inhabitants of Skara Brea for example, had no metal tools. I think it’s a mistake to assume the hands that decorated the objects were the force that actually created them...
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