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This is scientific American 60 second science.

I'm Christopher Intagata.

Ball games are a big source of modern amusement, even amid the pandemic, but they're nothing new.

Consider for instance a 4,500-year-old linen ball found in a child's tomb in Egypt,

or 3,600-year-old rubber balls from Central America, where the contest called for players to slam the ball with their hips.

Now, researchers have pinned a date on what they say are the oldest sporting balls in Europe or Asia.

Three spheres dug up from the tombs of

horsemen in the deserts of northwestern China crafted three millennia ago.

And we are quite sure that they were used in some kind of bat and ball game.

Patrick Veritman is an archaeologist at the University of Zurich and part of the team that

analyzed the ancient sporting equipment.

The balls are about three inches in diameter, in rawhide leather and stuffed with leather strips and hair.

And then also when you look at the Chinese character of ball itself, it's quite interesting because this character is made up of the idiograms of hair and leather.

The details and photos of the balls appear in the Journal of Archaeological Science reports.

As for how this ancient ball and stick game was played, it could be something like

polo, but it could also be something like an early form of hockey or golf.

But since we don't have any textual evidence and we don't have any

sticks from the same period, we don't really know exactly.

Regardless of the sport, Ferdman and his colleagues write that a ball game of any kind would have provided

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