This is the best summary I could come up with:

Early ancestors of humans 1.4m years ago deliberately made stones into spheres, according to a study – though what the prehistoric people used the balls for remains a mystery.

Did early hominins intentionally chip away at them with the aim of crafting a perfect sphere, or were they merely the accidental byproduct of repeatedly smashing the stones like ancient hammers?

The team of scientists examined 150 limestone spheroids dating from 1.4m years ago that were found at the ’Ubeidiya archaeological site in the north of modern-day Israel.

The early hominins – exactly which human lineage they belonged to remains unknown – had “attempted to achieve the Platonic ideal of a sphere”, they said.

While the spheroids were being made, the stones did not become smoother but did become “markedly more spherical”, said the study in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Julia Cabanas, an archaeologist at France’s National Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the research, said this meant that the hominins had a “mentally preconceived” idea of what they were doing.

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