During the Middle Paleolithic in Eurasia, the production of deliberate, abstract engraving on bone or stone materials is a rare phenomenon. It is now widely accepted that both anatomically modern humans and hominins that predate them have produced deliberate engravings associated with symbolic behavior. Within the Levantine Middle Paleolithic context, only five examples of intentional engravings are known thus far. In this paper, we present an aurochs bone fragment that bears six deep, sub-parallel incisions, recovered at the open-air Middle Paleolithic site of Nesher Ramla in Israel. The item, found in an anthropogenic accumulation of artifacts in Unit III of the site, was dated to early Marine Isotope Stage 5 (ca. 120 ka). Unit III is a stratigraphically well-defined layer that is characterized by intense on-site knapping activities with predominance of the centripetal Levallois reduction method and by intense exploitation of aurochs and tortoises. This paper presents a multidisciplinary study of the bone and the incisions, including zooarchaeological, macro- and microscopic analyses, Scanning Electron Microscope analysis and experimental replications. The macroscopic and microscopic attributes of the incisions, and the comparisons with experimental material exclude a taphonomic or utilitarian origin of the incisions. The study indicates that the engravings were most likely produced by a right-handed individual in a single working session. The morphology and characteristics of the incisions, especially the presence of longitudinal polish and striations in one of the incisions, suggest that they were made by a flint artifact, likely retouched. The engraved bone from Unit III at Nesher Ramla is one of the oldest deliberate abstract manifestations produced by Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age hominins and the oldest known so far in the Levant. As such, it has major implications for our understanding of the emergence and early stages of the development of human symbolic behavior.

在欧亚大陆的旧石器时代中期，在骨头或石头上刻意、抽象地雕刻是一种罕见的现象。现在人们普遍认为，解剖学上的现代人类和早于他们的古人类都刻意刻画了与象征性行为相关的雕刻。在黎凡特旧石器时代中期的背景下，迄今为止只有五个故意雕刻的例子已知。在本文中，我们展示了在以色列 Nesher Ramla 的露天旧石器时代中期遗址发现的带有六个深、亚平行切口的野牛骨头碎片。该物品是在该遗址 III 单元的人工堆积物中发现的，其年代为早期海洋同位素 5 期（约 120 ka）。单元 III 是一个地层明确的层，其特点是强烈的现场敲击活动，主要是向心勒瓦卢瓦减少方法以及对野牛和陆龟的强烈开采。本文介绍了对骨骼和切口的多学科研究，包括动物考古学、宏观和微观分析、扫描电子显微镜分析和实验复制。切口的宏观和微观属性以及与实验材料的比较排除了切口的埋藏或功利起源。研究表明，这些版画很可能是由惯用右手的人在一次工作中制作的。切口的形态和特征，尤其是其中一个切口中存在纵向抛光和条纹，表明它们是由燧石制品制成的，可能经过修饰。来自 Nesher Ramla 的 III 单元的雕刻骨骼是旧石器时代中期和石器时代中期人类产生的最古老的刻意抽象表现形式之一，也是迄今为止在黎凡特已知的最古老的骨骼。因此，它对我们理解人类符号行为发展的出现和早期阶段具有重要意义。