Source: TW
Could a game with the ball have been invented very deep in time in Eurasia before the separation of the ancestors of the core 1st Americans from the remaining Eurasians? Or was it independently invented by the core 1st Americans in meso-America & convergently in Eurasia? Most people seem to accept the latter.
In meso-America the ball game was often accompanied by the ritual slaughter of the losers. And the ball is believed to have been vulcanized in some site by sulfur from burning human remains. It is interesting that a motif of the killing of 2 cosmogonic figures One-Death & Seven-Death in a ball game. We have come across a version of killing of the heroes with a bladed-ball.
In the H world, umA & rudra are said to have killed two daityas, vidala & utpala, with a ball in course of their game. The origin myth of the ball-shaped li~Nga of kandukeshvara at kAshI is based on this tale. The material with which the ancient India balls were made remains unclear to me.