A pebble found by an Israeli boy two years ago has turned out to be a rare statuette from the Neolithic period, some 11,500 years ago.
It all began when then 8-year-old Itamar Barnea, an archaeology enthusiast from Kibbutz Malkia in northern Israel, decided to go on a hike in the region and stumbled upon the statuette. He placed it in a box and all but forgot about it until his mother, Reut Barnea, found it about a month ago.
Reut then presented the find to Dr. Renate Rosenthal-Heginbottom, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who passed it on to the Israel Antiquities Authority, which in turn confirmed it was a fertility figurine.
As a gesture of appreciation, the IAA awarded the now 10-year-old boy a good citizenship certificate earlier this month.
Dr. Ianir Milevski, who oversees the IAA's Prehistory Department, said that the organization's experts were "surprised by this rare figurine, which is probably only the third such find to be uncovered in Israel."
He said that the figurine, which depicts a pregnant woman, was made through scraping and chiseling. He noted that the two other figurines were found to be from the pre-pottery Neolithic period, the period generally defined as 8,500 BCE – 5,500 BCE.
He said that the authority's research suggests that "such figurines were represented human fertility, and some researcher believe they were supposed to represent mother goddess and possibly served as mascots."
Milevski added: "During that period, people in the Near East were moving into permanent settlements and began working in agriculture and domesticating animals. During this period, fertility was considered paramount in society."
