Archaeologists have unearthed a 7,000-year-old figurine that looks like an alien.
Researchers discovered the unusual form while digging at a site in Kuwait called Bahra 1.
They described the clay figure as a ‘small, finely crafted head, with slanted eyes, a flat nose and an elongated skull’.
It somewhat resembles an alien, or even the Sorting Hat from the Harry Potter franchise.
While it might look strange, this style was actually common in ancient Meopotamia, although this marks the first time one has been found in Kuwait or the Arabian Gulf.
The archaeologists who discovered it described the find as a ‘total surprise’.
‘[The] discovery of the figurine was a total surprise for the whole team,’ Agnieszka Szymczak, an expedition leader, told Live Science.
‘It was the first such find not just among the over 1.5k [1,500] small finds excavated from the Bahra 1 site but also from the Arabian Gulf region.’
The joint Kuwaiti-Polish team have been excavating one of the Arabian Peninsula’s oldest settlements, with occupation lasting from around 5500 to 4900 B.C.
The researchers say although the find is typical of figurines from the Neolithic Ubaid community, it is the first of its kind discovered in the Gulf region.
Professor Piotr Bieli*ski, of University of Warsaw’s Mediterranean Archaeology centre, said: ‘The presence of this figurine at our site raises intriguing questions about its purpose and the symbolic, and perhaps ritual, meaning it may have had for the community inhabiting this settlement.’
Another important discovery sees the confirmation of local production of pottery.
Since the beginning of the research at the Bahra 1 site, two types of vessels have been discovered.
This includes imported pottery associated with the Ubaid culture and completely different pottery, the so-called Coarse Red Ware (CRW), also known from other contemporary sites on the Arabian Peninsula.
CRW pottery has long been considered a local product, but until now there has been no evidence as to the specific places of its production.
The key discovery was the discovery of an unfired clay vessel, which helped confirm that Bahra 1 is the oldest known site of pottery production in the Gulf region.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE STONE AGE?
The Stone Age is a period in human prehistory distinguished by the original development of stone tools that covers more than 95 per cent of human technological prehistory.
It begins with the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins, ancient ancestors to humans, during the Old Stone Age – beginning around 3.3million years ago.
Between roughly 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, the pace of innovation in stone technology began to accelerate very slightly, a period known as the Middle Stone Age.
By the beginning of this time, handaxes were made with exquisite craftsmanship. This eventually gave way to smaller, more diverse toolkits, with an emphasis on flake tools rather than larger core tools.
These toolkits were established by at least 285,000 years in some parts of Africa, and by 250,000 to 200,000 years in Europe and parts of western Asia. These toolkits last until at least 50,000 to 28,000 years ago.
During the Later Stone Age the pace of innovations rose and the level of craftsmanship increased.
Groups of Homo sapiens experimented with diverse raw materials, including bone, ivory, and antler, as well as stone.
The period, between 50,000 and 39,000 years ago, is also associated with the advent of modern human behaviour in Africa.
Different groups sought their own distinct cultural identity and adopted their own ways of making things.
Later Stone Age peoples and their technologies spread out of Africa over the next several thousand years.
