Reply to the comment on “Early evidence for symbolic behavior in the Levantine Middle Paleolithic: A 120 ka old engraved aurochs bone shaft from the open-air site of Nesher Ramla, Israel [Quat. Int. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2021.01.002]”

In our original paper we claimed for a possible symbolic value of the engraved aurochs bone shaft found at the Unit III of the Middle Paleolithic site of Nesher Ramla. In his comment to our original paper, Hodgson (2021) presents a contradictory interpretation, which mostly involved a proto-aesthetic source for early engravings.