A team of archaeologists discovered two carved stone balls while excavating a 5,500-year-old burial tomb in Sanday, located on the Orkney Islands in Scotland.
According to the team's blog, they returned to the site this August after leaving it in a "protective state" at their last excavation in 2019.
The tomb is located on a cliff on the Southern tip of Scotland's Tresness Peninsula, according to The Press and Journal, but due to erosion, the tomb and surrounding area are eroding, and "disappearing" into the sea.
The discovery includes two rare polished carved stone balls, as well as small fragments of bone and pottery, they reveal in their blog.
The exact purpose of the polished stone balls is not known, but it is possible they were used as weapons, according to The Press and Journal.
Prof. Vicki Cummings, a lecturer in archaeology at the University of Central Lancashire, told The Scotsman that the tomb was likely linked to the remains of a Neolithic settlement at Cata Sands.
Excavations in the area have been ongoing since 2017, according to the team's blog, with archaeologists and researchers racing against time to preserve the tomb and history before it's too late.
Well what a find! a polished stone ball found in the chamber of the neolithic tomb Tresness Sanday. This find is of real significance as it is one of only a few that has been discovered in a burial context.@UCLanArchAnth @UCLanResearch @hugowhymark @SamWalshOsteo @NtlMuseumsScot pic.twitter.com/YEbPBhJjfy
— UCLanArch&Anth (@UCLanArchAnth) August 18, 2021
Just over 500 of these stone balls have been found in Scotland. Dr. Hugo Anderson-Whymark, the senior curator of Prehistory (Palaeolithic to Neolithic) at the National Museum in Scotland, tweeted that only about 20 of these polished stone balls have been found in Orkney.
A cracking find from the tomb! Only 20 or so Neolithic polished stone balls have been found in Orkney and few have been recovered from secure contexts https://t.co/VzIe9OHRqI
— Dr Hugo Anderson-Whymark (@hugowhymark) August 18, 2021
Prof. Cummings told The Scotsman: "Sadly this is a site that is disappearing into the sea so we are extracting this information before it is basically lost forever.”