Archaeology of Portable Rock Art

Subjectivity in Stone Age art works such as figure stones, engravings, sculptures, effigies and curated manuports. See how images and icons have been realized in portable rock media since the dawn of humanity. Here, archaeologists and art historians are becoming aware of these forsaken artifacts. “And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in every thing." -in W. Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1599.

14 July 2014

Île d'Oléron, France, amateur archaeologist Henri Valentie identifies worked quartz cobble with a primate face, a human face mask and a human facial profile

Henri Valentie find, Île d'Oléron, France. In this perspective on the stone, we may interpret a primate-like face, including nostrils, looking straight-on.

Hello there,

I present to you one of my latest discoveries still on the island of Oleron. Initially I apprised this stone for a tool then I saw a human face but also a beautiful profile of a head. It is lower paleo, quartz, 1.6kg, width 8.8 cm, 10.2 cm deep. Always fascinated by your site.

Cordially to you,

Henri Valentie

Another view of the stone presents a face mask in the "one eye open, other eye closed or missing" motif

In this third view of the same stone, we may see a human face and head profile looking left and a gorilla-like head in left 3/4 profile

Early art and religion scholar and publisher of OriginsNet.org James Harrod, Ph.D.,writes: "In addition to geometrics, including the biface or 'handaxe', female figurines, and the human head or skull, animals constitute the fourth major element in Early Paleolithic symbols systems. This gallery highlights a special motif identified at Pampau, primates, including what appear to be a macaque-like monkey and some baboon-like heads and even a proposed gorilla-like creature. The artifacts are in the collection of Ursel Benekendorff and she was the first to propose that these artifacts may be interpreted as representations of macaques and other primates. Fossil evidence for macaques does occur throughout the European Pleistocene."

(left) Artifact from Germany as seen at originsnet.org for motif comparison to France example, Photographer © Walther Matthes. Matthes, W. (1969). Eiszeitkunst im Nordseeraum. Otterndorf, Gr: Niederelbe-Verlag; (1964/1965). Bild 62.

(left) Artifact from Nona Axsom, Portland, Oregon for motif comparison to France example

Up close of third facial image, facing left, on the same stone.

In this same up close view seen in the illustration at right, the ambiguity of the stone allows the interpretation of a gorilla-like face looking straight-on, including nostrils.

Those nostrils may become the eyes on a third face in this perspective, sharing the same chin element as the other two faces. This little face seems to have some feline qualities. The cat may interpreted with ears and as having its tongue slightly visible in its mouth.

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Warren K. Moorehead on the imperitive to collect "rough and rude" art

“… The museums are full of axes, celts, pipes, banner stones, discoidals, hematites, tubes, slate ornaments and ceremonials, pestles, hammers, etc. What the museums need (as of great value to Archaeological Science) are collections from a single locality including everything found in that locality. They want the finds of the village site, the studies in unfinished specimens, the poor and the good, the imperfect as well as the perfect. In this regard, the collectors make a great error. Most of them do not save everything but cling to the ‘pretty relics’ and discard the rough and the rude. Personally, I would give more for a collection, provided it contained all the types, all the finds of a certain valley than for just the fine, perfect objects of that valley. From a collection of the latter, I would be misled, for if I accepted it as indicative of the people of that valley, I would say they made the most beautiful works of aboriginal art, nothing rude or unfinished being turned out by their artisans. In such a statement, I would be unpardonably wrong.”

Warren K. Moorehead, 1884

Sculptor Henry Moore

"The most striking quality common to all primitive art is its intense vitality. It is something made by people with a direct and immediate response to life. Sculpture and painting for them was not an activity of calculation or academism, but a channel for expressing powerful beliefs, hopes and fears.

Primitive art is a mine of information for the historian and anthropologist, but to understand and appreciate it, it is more important to look at it than to learn the history of primitive peoples, their religions and social customs…But all that is really needed is response to the carvings themselves, which have a constant life of their own, independent of whenever and however they were made, and remain as full of sculptural meaning today to those open and sensitive enough to receive it as on the day they were finished." --Henry Moore, 1941

Ursel Benekendorff is recognized in the vanguard of Stone Age art inquiry and study

(This image is Copyright (c), Ursel Benekendorff, All Rights Reserved. May not be copied or distributed in any way. Used here with permission of Ursel Benekendorff for purpose of linking to her web site Schafftwissen) Stone age art pioneer Ursel Benekendorff has 2000 photographs and demonstrates standardization in the production of the world's oldest art. “My work was a pioneer work, without help of curators or technical experts. Self developed methods helped me, to stay on top of thousands of pieces of extraordinary shapes, excavated by digging machines. I was fast but not that fast and not all artifacts could have been rescued, still Menhir sizes, microlithic material, handsize stones and Un- PORTABLE sized stones were documented. That was more than most collectors assembled or documented, as I learned later on. I had invited large numbers of people to my site, so I know how they go about it all, they operate on a personal preferences, thus a wide open field, possessing is the goal, not so much the unsolved research questions. You see it was not my goal to find the best but the goal was, to clear misleading pictures and find those, who got repeated. This needed a large variety of stone types to detect the repetition by former artists. (Not looking pictures into the stones). But I wanted and still want to know, how the logo face stone on my website created his surrounding.” -Ursel Benekendorff

A book on Siberian portable rock art could provide clues to North American possibilities

Early art of the northern Far East : the Stone Age, by M. A. Kiriyak. This book is about the portable rock art of the Russian north east area. It was written in Russian but has been translated to English by the United States National Park Service's Shared Beringia Heritage Program. The hundreds of iconographic artifacts described and pictured here should inform North American archaeologists regarding the possibilities for art modalities having arrived via Beringia during peopling of the Americas migrations. The book is available for preview at the link here.

Archaeology of Portable Rock Art

Denisovan Ancestry in East Eurasian and Native American Populations

14 July 2014

Île d'Oléron, France, amateur archaeologist Henri Valentie identifies worked quartz cobble with a primate face, a human face mask and a human facial profile

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