Is 8000-year-old 'dildo' world's oldest sex toy?

Washington, July 22 (ANI): If you thought sex toys were a product of modern day life, think again - an excavation in Sweden has turned up what may be an ancient dilo.

Carved out of antler bone, the object is about 4 inches long and 0.8 inches in diameter.

"Your mind and my mind wanders away to make this interpretation about what it looks like - for you and me, it signals this erected-penis-like shape. But if that's the way the Stone Age people thought about it, I can't say," Live Science quoted archaeologist Gšran Gruber, of the National Heritage Board in Sweden, who worked on the excavation, as saying.

The resemblance is uncanny.

Writing on his blog Aardvarchaeology, Swedish archaeologist Martin Rundkvist said: "Without doubt anyone alive at the time of its making would have seen the penile similarities just as easily as we do today,"

The 'dildo' was unearthed at a Mesolithic site in Motala, Sweden, that is rich with ancient artefacts from between 4,000 to 6,000 B.C.

Gruber said: "It's an organic object, that's why it's special. Normally when we excavate early Mesolithic sites we never get the organic material. But this site where we're excavating now is along the shoreline. The preservation is very good here - it's been lying in the bottom sediments and clay layers of the river, and it's been well preserved there."

Perhaps instead of, or in addition to, its sexual purpose, the object may have been used as a tool, such as to chip flakes of flint, said Gruber. (ANI)