[A] possible use of the spheroids or stone balls found at the Lower Paleolithic site of Qesem Cave, in Israel, through a multidisciplinary approach which involves both technological, use-wear and residue analyses, as well as a series of bone fracturing experiments.

The type of wear and the abundant residues of bone and fat found on ten spheroids from the site suggest direct evidence that these tools were used to crush fresh bones using percussion. The experimental results of the study also show that the morphology and characteristics of replicas of the spheroids are appropriate for extracting bone marrow, offering a comfortable grip and useful active areas for repeated use.

Many of the artifacts analyzed have a visible patina indicating that their use in bone crushing at the Qesem site was subsequent to their shaping. The recycling of lithic pieces is a frequent activity at the site, and in this case in particular, this could suggest collection of artifacts at other points in the territory, very probably at older sites within the Lower Paleolithic Acheulean complex of the Levant, as has been documented previously in earlier studies.

Citation: Assaf E, Caricola I, Gopher A, Rosell J, Blasco R, Bar O, et al. (2020) Shaped stone balls were used for bone marrow extraction at Lower Paleolithic Qesem Cave, Israel. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0230972. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230972

The presence of shaped stone balls at early Paleolithic sites has attracted scholarly attention since the pioneering work of the Leakeys in Olduvai, Tanzania. Despite the persistent presence of these items in the archaeological record over a period of two million years, their function is still debated. We present new results from Middle Pleistocene Qesem Cave on the use of these implements as percussion tools. Use-wear and abundant bone and fat residues found on ten shaped stone balls indicate crushing of fresh bones by thrusting percussion and provide direct evidence for the use of these items to access bone marrow of animal prey at this site. Two experiments conducted to investigate and verify functional aspects proved Qesem Cave shaped stone balls are efficient for bone processing and provide a comfortable grip and useful active areas for repeated use. Notably, the patina observed on the analyzed items precedes their use at the cave, indicating that they were collected by Qesem inhabitants, most probably from older Lower Paleolithic Acheulian sites. Thus, our results refer only to the final phases of the life of the items, and we cannot attest to their original function. As bone marrow played a central role in human nutrition in the Lower Paleolithic, and our experimental results show that the morphology and characteristics of shaped stone ball replicas are well-suited for the extraction of bone marrow, we suggest that these features might have been the reason for their collection and use at Qesem Cave. These results shed light on the function of shaped stone balls and are consistent with the significance of animal fat in the caloric intake of Middle Pleistocene humans as shown by the archeozoological evidence at Qesem Cave and possibly beyond.