Rocks' pits may be art "cupules" on Columbian mammoth sculpture forms

Pitted artifact found by Ken Johnston in Perry County, Ohio

This artifact may include imagery of the Columbian mammoth, species identifiable by the "bump" depicted at the top of the head.

 Columbian mammoth reconstruction

Buckeye Lake mammoth cupule stone #1 (of 2) was found in the disturbed soil of new subdivision road construction activities, on the south shore of Buckeye Lake, Perry County, Ohio.  Cupules, often identified by mid-west American archaeologists and collectors as "nutting stones," or "paint cups," or "grinding hollows," often appear to have had very limited or no evidence of use as tools.  The Buckeye Lake, Ohio, examples have discernible peck marks lining the cups, seemingly untouched by human action since the time they were created.  The 3 cups on the 2 stones seem to have been created under a preconceived idealistic form within definable size and shape parameters. This raises the possibility they are in fact symbolic cupules and were never used to crack nuts open.

Visual arts Cork (Ireland) web page on prehistoric cupules

To date, only a few proboscidian images have been documented in North America.  Examples are the Old Vero Beach Mammoth/mastodon (Purdy at. al. 2010), the Utah petroglyph recently described by Malotki and Wallace (2011), and Juan Armenta's 1959 find in Mexico.  Please see Pleistocene Coalition News, several issues, link is on right screen panel for free newsletter.  These images are all similar in that they are glyphic representations by use of incisions or organized pecking ("A line is a dot that went for a walk" -Paul Klee) made on stone or bone.  They are essentially "line drawings" of proboscideans.  Archaeological investigators would do well to consider the possibility of such imagery expressed in portable rock sculpture form, often "almost invisible" (A. Day), subtle to our visual-media-saturated brains, invoking only the most essential visual elements to allow one to "assemble a picture," often incorporating natural stone forms, which can signal recognition and signification of these awsome animals by America's earliest human inhabitants.  All art requires some level of participation on the part of the receiver.  My opinion is archaeologists need to participate a little more in order to begin to understand what art so far removed in time from us is all about.  As Ohio figure stone investigator Alan Day of the Day's Knob site has taught, "Know what you see, don't just see what you know." 

This is the reverse side of cupule stone #1.  It has a second cupule, exactly opposing the cupule on the other side, so the cupules almost touch at the center of the stone.  Human agency on this rock is not an issue and gauging the probability of intent to create mammoth imagery was given support by the recent find of a second cupule stone (photos below), which has significant agricultural plow damage.  It has the overall mammoth silhouette shape, remnants of diagnostic "bump" on top of the head, stands upright in correct ground orientation on the only edge which allows it to stand, and has evidence of the very bottom of a cupule on the reverse side which may have been destroyed by plow action in historical times.

This cupule stone #2 was discovered 3 weeks ago in a display case at the Buckeye Lake Historical Society Museum.  A special thanks to museum director J-me Braig for arranging to loan me the artifact for photography and examination. A second cupule on the reverse side, like stone #1 has, may have been removed by plow action.  Just a tiny bit of the absolute bottom of a possible second cupule is found on the reverse side, exactly opposite the cupule seen in photo above.

Both Ohio cupule stones were found along the modern day shoreline of Buckeye Lake, a former Ice Age glacial terminus swamp/lowland, ephemeral lake area.  The cupules were found about 5km distance from each other.  Buckeye Lake is about 8km from the Burning Tree (golf course) mastodon find site.  So, there is record of human/proboscidean contact very close to the find sites of these possible mammoth sculptures.

Burning Tree mastodon site, with missing rear leg and stone tool butcher marks

Mammoth cupule stone #2 at left, #1 at right, seen side by side for similarities in raw materials, cupules and "mammoth form" perhaps as intended as the cupules themselves.

To establish precedent creation of single cupule, portable, zoomorphic sculptures, from Neolithic age in Europe please see Don's Maps site for photos of "Altar from house No. 45, Lepenski Vir Ib, carved in the likeness of a fish, possibly a carp. Photo: "Lepenski Vir" by Dragoslav Srejović 1972." The site is located in modern day Serbia.

http://www.donsmaps.com/lepenski2.html

A cupule with touching meandering groove, from Auditorium Cave, Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh, India.  It dates from 290,000 to 700,000 BCE.  It seems so interesting that the behavior of creating cupules dates back so far in the "old world" and may have persisted into, or re-emerged, in North America.

Perry County, Ohio

"Sir Nameless"

 "Sir Nameless" pictured with his shadow.

Silhouette sculpture on stone plaque shows faces on both sides

Licking County, Ohio, find by Ken Johnston and Lyn Niday

This facial profile sculpture is from a newly disturbed soil context from construction activities at a tree park about 5km from Buckeye Lake in southern Licking County, Ohio. The context was sterile of glacial deposits and had only native Ohio bedrock-type limestone and sandstone objects and naturefacts.  The immediate context (3m radius) also produced a couple of crude tools, coarse stone lithic debris and two other suspected art pieces (a bird and a feline) which will be the subjects of future postings on this blog.  "Sir Nameless"- Beautiful, narrow, facial profile sculpture shows faces on both sides, named after the 

Thomas Hardy poem, "The Children and Sir Nameless"

Sir Nameless, once of Athelhall, declared:

"These wretched children romping in my park

Trample the herbage till the soil is bared,

And yap and yell from early morn till dark!

Go keep them harnessed to their set routines:

Thank God I've none to hasten my decay;

For green remembrance there are better means

Than offspring, who but wish their sires away."

Sir Nameless of that mansion said anon:

"To be perpetuate for my mightiness

Sculpture must image me when I am gone."

- He forthwith summoned carvers there express

To shape a figure stretching seven-odd feet

(For he was tall) in alabaster stone,

With shield, and crest, and casque, and word complete:

When done a statelier work was never known.

Three hundred years hied; Church-restorers came,

And, no one of his lineage being traced,

They thought an effigy so large in frame

Best fitted for the floor. There it was placed,

Under the seats for schoolchildren. And they

Kicked out his name, and hobnailed off his nose;

And, as they yawn through sermon-time, they say,

"Who was this old stone man beneath our toes?"

-THE END-

"Sir Nameless" under camera flash illumination

Perhaps statistical mathematical analysis can be brought to bear on the subject of art candidate rocks such as this one.  There are approximately 12 edge lines comprising the profile of the face along the left side of the stone as pictured above.  Each of the edges is in proportionally correct size, shape, grading and angular alignment to compose a human face.  It seems statistically unlikely mother nature could do all the work to make a 12 point face at this level of exquisite detail.  One bad angle, one disproportionately sized edge, would impact the dramatic realism of this high art piece.  A second bad characteristic would have exponential degradation of the visual processing of the image as a "face."  It reminds me of something I read once:  how many bites out of a cutlet does it take before it is no longer a cutlet?  Only a human can sculpt an object like this.  The art and tool context of the find makes artificiality quite certain here.

  

With scale

Side 2 with scale

Thickness of stone plaque seen here

Worked flint resembles a crested bird's head and stands on a base to orient such a figure stone correctly

Worked flint resembles a crested bird's head, with an "eye" seen in this view, and stands on a nice and likely intended base to orient such a figure stone correctly

Artifact from Flint Ridge, Licking County, Ohio.  Find and interpretation by Ken Johnston.  One suspected artifact incorporating bird head imagery might be a fluke but with a couple of compelling birds having emerged from the Flint Ridge area in Licking County, Ohio, a possible motif here is worth further investigation and study.  Please also see the posting "Least Bittern" for what could be a similar execution of bird head imagery found in near proximity, 10 meters, from this possible crested bird head.  I have wondered if these simple nature based images could have been created for children to ponder and play with as "toys" or maybe they had another significance.  The possible intended bird imagery may be familiar to us, but uses and meanings are not attainable from rock art of the long past.

http://portablerockart.blogspot.com/2011/06/least-bittern-head-awaiting-feeding.html

Artifact is pictured on a centimeter (cm) grid for scale.  The beak on this side is lined with quartz crystals.

The Flint Ridge Knap-in, the largest gathering of flint knappers in North America, takes place September 2, 3 and 4, 2011, at Flint Ridge, Glenford, Ohio, just east of Newark and about 1 hour east of Columbus. That's Friday through Sunday of Labor Day weekend.  Hope to see you there!

http://www.flintridgeknapin.com/
 

Two birds depicted in flint and quartz crystals on figure stone from Flint Ridge, Licking County, Ohio

Two birds depicted in flint and quartz crystals on figure stone from Flint Ridge, Licking County, Ohio.  Artifact found and interpreted by Ken Johnston.

This side of the figure stone resembles a standing water bird, with its wing and tail raised away from its body, connoting movement.  The bird has a ground crystal eye, and a crystal head.  Note how the little sculpture stands upright on a pedestal-like base.

With scale

The blue circle in this photo indicates where the crystal was ground down to differentiate that spot visually from the rest of crystal in order to make an eye.  The eye is in the perfect spot to depict a standing, long-billed bird in left profile view.  As most all art like this, nature offered up the ideal starting form and with some modification this piece of chert was brought to life.

In this position, the same artifact would never be recognized as an art piece worked on a micro-carving scale to depict two separate birds.  However, once the birds are recognized, this is a great view of the work to remove stone material to define a bird's beak.  The area of grinding to remove quartz material is seen highlighted in blue marking on this photo.  Click photos to expand views.

PLAY>

Watch this short video of this beautiful flint and crystal bird sculpture rotating slowly on a display turntable.  The video is a little fuzzy but combined with the photos will provide a good sense of what this figure stone is like in three dimensions and how much the crystals catch the sunlight.

Another bird-like, beaked, flint from southern Licking County, Ohio

Licking Township, Licking County, Ohio

Ken Johnston collection

 

Bird-like flints with beaks can be found locally in the Buckeye Lake area.

Also pictured here are two flint, again somewhat bird-like, blades found within 10 feet of the beaked piece. These pieces were most likely not associated in pre-history but are staged together here to illustrate what seem to be avian shapes found in this locale in greater numbers than pure randomness should allow. Perhaps a pattern can be demonstrated with publication of more examples of this artifact type.

As the enabling (knife-like, spear-like) and first part of a bird to emerge into this world, these beaks may have had a symbolic significance expressed in flint and beyond their potential utility as tool attributes.

 

The topic of children toys in archaeology is rarely addressed but it is likely some rock art was used for learning and play.   A real bird is difficult for a child to hold but they are such a large part of the world of nature early people were immersed in.  Maybe these bird forms were a way to capture a child's imagination for a time.

three artifacts found at Hebron, Ohio, along Buckeye Lake, by Ken Johnston

reverse sides of the artifacts

all shown with scale

close up of beak-like feature

beak feature from opposite side of artifact

Perhaps a Least Bittern (bird head sculpture standing upright on base)

Least Bittern head and beak, from Flint Ridge, Licking County, Ohio.

The artifact stands on a base with the beak pointing skyward, just like a living Least Bittern awaiting feeding.

artifact is pictured on a centimeter grid for scale and perspective

(click photo to expand)

Side 2

(click photo to expand)

side 2 standing

John James Audubon reproduction of the Least Bittern in its typical, beak pointing up position.  The flint sculpture here captures not only the look of the Least Bittern but also its most notable observable behavior which is the young clustering with beaks in the air awaiting the regurgitated food to be provided by the mother, heads swaying like the wind-blown reeds and grasses of the water's edge.  As soon as mother leaves to bring back and regurgitate food for the chicks, it's beaks up and moving to the rhythm of the long grass to camouflage themselves and be in ready position for her return.  For this reason, birds (and specifically beaks) are thought to be symbolic of new life and motherly sustenance.

The nesting Least Bittern is observable in the shore area of Buckeye Lake, Ohio, near Flint Ridge today.  When I saw the flint, my immediate thought without hesitation was "Least Bittern!!!" and then the painting on the wall of my study.  The artifact beak has a slight curve where the Least Bittern's beak seems more straight. It seems to be the closest looking species of water bird currently in Ohio and may have been the species in the mind of the creator of this piece of flint.

If not intentionally produced as a sculpture, the likeness to a bird could have been recognized in prehistoric times and resulted in the piece being set aside. The perfectly flat base and ideal standing position of the sculpture form argue for intent to create a presentable bird head sculpture here.

 

More icons, further interpretation made, of Peter Cottontail Has Left the Building

Peter Cottontail Has Left the Building (further interpreted)

click photo to expand size

artifact is sitting on a CM grid for scale

After the first posting of this artifact a few days ago, a bird icon was detected at the crest of the rabbit's back.  Thanks to visitor Lyn Niday of Marion, Ohio, for reporting the bird she saw.  The bird has a beak and an eye and shares its crested head with the rabbit's pointed back.  It could be taken as a "cardinal" because of the crested head and red color.  The "bird overseer" motif is also seen in the posting "Giant Cosmic Egg."  It is not marked up in the posting but may be seen on top of the man's head/woman's head.  It is strikingly similar to the one here, being separated by 2000 miles and an unknown period of time.  One must look carefully to see the bird.

 

A proboscidean representation is seen on the rabbit's hind quarter, the rabbit leg is also the trunk of the mammoth or mastodon.  An elephant eye is also worked into the flint and is marked up on the photo above.

On the right side of the artifact is yet another rabbit, looking straight on at the viewer.  The sparkling silver, lightning bolt-like, inclusion in the stone appears to have been integrated a "blade of grass" the rabbit is munching on.  The orange triangle is what would be the nose area of this rabbit face eating grass.

The red rabbit head profile inclusion of the grey background stone material is also highlighted in the top photo.  The entire piece seems centered around this iconic inclusion.  It is likely what inspired the artist to work the flint to further represent a rabbit.  This rabbit head in profile also serves as the ear of the elephant.  Click this photo to expand size.  Photos taken on a CM grid.

For those who could not see the smiling rabbit's face in the original post, I have made the markup above to compare to the original unmarked photo as seen at left.  Click photo to expand.

Dennis Boggs of Oregon detected this face on the artifact as he highlighted in the photo here.  Thanks for reporting this Dennis and for rotating the photo and marking it up so a nice comparison may be made.

Rabbits, birds and elephants are thought to be major maternal and fertility icons in Paleolithic art.

-kbj