JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—An artifact dating to the Late Chalcolithic period, known for the smelting of copper and copper alloys, is being called the oldest-known evidence of smelted lead in the Levant. Found in a burial chamber in the Negev’s Ashalim Cave, the roughly 6,000-year-old object is made up of a piece of wood that measures nearly nine inches long and a 1.4-inch piece of lead. Analysis of the lead suggests that it came from the Taurus Mountains in Anatolia, so either the finished artifact or the raw materials may have been imported. “In this respect, it fits very well with what we know about the Chalcolithic culture, which was a highly developed culture with amazing abilities in art and craft,” Naama Yaholom-Mack of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem told Live Science. It is not clear how the artifact was used, however. “Its eventual deposition in the deepest section of Ashalim Cave, in relation to the burial of selected individuals, serves as evidence of the symbolic significance it possessed until the final phase of its biography,” Yaholom-Mack and the research team wrote in PLOS ONE. To read about the town in the Levant thought to have been home to the Philistines, go to "The Gates of Gath."