A pebble between two volcanoes
In the summer of 1981, archaeologist Naama Goren-Inbar was excavating a site on the Golan Heights called Berekhat Ram. The dig was situated between two layers of basalt. Using argon-argon dating on these volcanic layers, geologists determined the age of the stratum where the object was found. The upper layer dates to approximately 233,000 years Before Present, while the lower layer is significantly older, at around 470,000 to 780,000 years old. This places the artifact itself in a period between 250,000 and 280,000 years ago.
The object discovered is a small, reddish pebble of volcanic tuff, a type of rock formed from volcanic ash. It measures 3.5 cm long, 2.5 cm wide, and 2.1 cm thick. The pebble has a naturally anthropomorphic, or human-like, shape. The controversy and scientific interest come from a series of grooves that appear to have been intentionally incised on its surface. If these marks were made by a hominin, it would make the Berekhat Ram figurine one of the oldest examples of representational art in the world. The hominins living in the region at the time belonged to the Acheulean culture, likely a late population of Homo erectus.
A case of deliberate modification
The debate centers on whether the grooves on the pebble are natural or artificial. One deep groove encircles the narrower end of the object, suggesting a neck separating a head from a body. Two shallower, curved grooves run down the sides, which have been interpreted as arms.
Microscopic analysis, first by Alexander Marshack and later by Francesco d’Errico and April Nowell, was conducted to settle the question. The analyses compared the grooves on the figurine to marks made experimentally on similar tuff material with sharp-edged flint tools. The researchers concluded that the texture within the grooves was consistent with the repeated motion of a tool breaking off and grinding rock particles. This evidence strongly suggests the grooves are not the result of natural erosion but were deliberately carved, likely with a flint tool to improve the pebble's existing human-like form.
This conclusion remains contentious. Some scholars argue that even if the marks are human-made, they might have had a utilitarian purpose rather than a symbolic one. Others question the representational nature of the object entirely. The discovery of a similar and contemporaneous object, the Venus of Tan-Tan in Morocco, has provided more context and support for the idea that early hominins were capable of symbolic expression long before the appearance of Homo sapiens. The Berekhat Ram figurine challenges the timeline for the origin of art and symbolic thought, suggesting these cognitive abilities may have emerged hundreds of thousands of years earlier than previously accepted.