The bone, therefore, is neither a tool nor a ritual object, but a decorative and artistic piece. "It is one of the quite rare Neanderthal objects of symbolic nature," Tomasz Płonka, an author of ...

So, the bone was not a tool or a ritual object. Instead, it was a decorative piece of art. It represents the earliest known artwork created by Neanderthals north of the Carpathian Mountains in Europe.