Horned caprid's head image identified on Ohio hoard #7, flint and crystal owl sculpture, is similarly described on rock engraving from Gourdan, France

Horned caprid's head image identified on Ohio hoard #7, flint and crystal owl sculpture, is similarly described in a rock engraving from near the Grotte de Gourdan, France. The animal's head is about 6 x 2cm (click photos to expand and compare)

Prehistoric French engravings of animal figures. Number 3 is described as a "Saiga antelope on a stone from Gourdan"

The plateabove is by  PIETTE, LOUIS-ÉDOUARD-STANISLAS

(b. Aubigny, Ardennes, France, 1827; d. 1906)

The Saiga antelope was also found in Siberia, Beringia and Alaska during lower sea levels in the last ice age. The French and Ohio images are from the same perspective and involving the same key parts of a horned caprid's head. Perhaps this was a common way to indicate these animals in stone.

Buckeye lake sculpture hoard #7 of 7, flint and crystal owl shown with horned caprid's head highlighted in the oval and a possible image of a feline face leering from above highlighted in the circle. This feline visage seems to be a serendipitous inclusion in the flint material, including crystal cavities as eyes. It may have been a recognition of this "lion" which inspired the placement of a prey animal, the Saiga antelope, which requires several actions to modify the flint surface to produce the shape and image. In the earlier posting about this sculpture, a bird in flight at its eye and a still bird at its beak were described. Those birds, and the lion and antelope images illustrated here, may hint toward a "predator and prey" theme in this polymorphic piece.

-kbj