Abstract: Perforated beadwork represents a technology specific to humans used to convey social information to other individuals through a shared symbolic language. As such, it provides new evidence and clues to learn about the early emergence and dispersal of behavioral modernity in the world. It is therefore critical to correctly identify the artefactual nature of perforated objects; otherwise chaos would result in the reconstruction of mankind’s cultural innovations and dispersal routes. Sunjiadong site, in Henan province, is dated to 0.4 Ma BP and has yielded a few stone artifacts, human teeth, and fossils belonging to mid-Pleistocene animals, such as Megaloceros pachyosteus and Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis. A perforated bone was found within the fossil assemblage and has been analyzed both macroscopically and microscopically. Compared with archaeological specimens of humanly perforated bones, examples of naturally perforated bones, and specimens produced in actualistic experiments (mainly digested bones regurgitated by hyenas), the Sunjiadong perforated specimen is interpreted as possessing all the typical characteristics of a hyena-regurgitated bone. It differs largely with those modified by beetles and human boring. It is suggested that the Sunjiadong perforated bone was first gnawed by a hyena and then was swallowed; due to the action of gastric hydrochloric acid, the result was a loss of mineral matter, with the margins of the specimen becoming thinner and sharper, meeting at an acute angle. The uneven edges of the perforations made by carnivore teeth were eroded and rounded by digestion. The perforation itself and the bone’s outer surface were identically corroded, and the parallel structure of the bone fibers was revealed by acid etching.

Key words: Naturally perforated bones; Humanly perforated bones; Carnivore modification; Hyena-regurgitated bones