Five more human head sculptures and some more tools from Arkfeld Site, #44FK731, Clear Brook, Virginia

Five human head sculptures and some tools from Arkfeld Site, #44FK731, Clear Brook, Virginia

Another Arkfeld Site 'human head sculpture made by means of large flake removal' and an 'animated point' in an Acheulean tradition replicate finds featured on 4 May

'Human head and neck sculpture made by means of large flake removal'

Arkfeld Site, Clear Brook, Virginia, #44FK731

Another Arkfeld Site 'human head sculpture made by means of large flake removal' and an 'animated point' in an Acheulean sensu lato tradition replicate finds from Arkfeld featured on 4 May. This posting and the one on 4 May support each other in developing hypotheses of patterns of art behaviors at The Arkfeld Site. Finds by Adam Arkfeld.

Just like the large face head sculpture featured on 4 May, I interpret and illustrate a horse head figure across the forehead of the human on this sculpture too.

Here, I have turned the human head 90 degrees left and focused in on the interpreted horse head representation. This and the 4 May post show human face sculptures combined with horse heads in the same motif. Click on photos to expand and toggle.

A pointed tool with a human face likeness incorporated into its lower right edge as seen in a lithic industry Mode II (Acheulean) tradition featured in many postings on this blog. This has also been described from four sites in The United States.

The non-iconic edge of the tool is sharp

'Animated' tool identified among other tools and human face likenesses at Virginia's Arkfeld Site

Heavy duty pointed tool from Arkfeld Site, #44FK731

Clear Brook, Virginia

Adam Arkfeld noticed a simple human face likeness on the back of the tool.

The face is set within a rhomboid shaped 'head.' 'Human face on rhomboid' is a portable rock motif seen from Arkfeld Site and other sites as featured on this blog including the Spout Run Site several miles from Arkfeld. The face details are composed of ground features of eyes, nose and a mouth.

The tip of this Arkfeld Site tool may have been broken during use

Arkfeld Site burins

Eyes, nose, mouth and chin with an incised cleft

Human face profile looking right with possible bird head form looking left

Human head and neck right facial profile figure

Arkfeld Site sculpture in often repeating motif of "mammoth figure incorporating human head at posterior"

'Mammoth and human combination sculpture'

Adam Arkfeld find, Clear Brook, Virginia

Mammoth body profile facing left. Illustration of the 'mammoth eye' and the human facial elements which have been carved into the back of the mammoth. The sculpture stands upright in correct orientation on a flat base.

This motif of "mammoth with human face at posterior" has been identified in several sculptures from this site and described from other sites in postings on this blog.

Levallois-like tool from Virginia's Arkfeld Site

Arkfeld Site bird form chopper tool has an analog from Flint Ridge, Ohio

'Bird-chopper with human face profile at tail'

Adam Arkfeld find, Clear Brook, Virginia

The bird-form chopper was found directly with the handaxe also interpreted with ambiguous zoomorphic attributes featured in the prior posting.

Arkfeld Site bird chopper with human face profile at tail circled

A Flint Ridge, Ohio, bird-form chopper tool featured in an earlier posting on this blog. It is a reverse image of the same tool and art motif seen in the Arkfeld Site bird-chopper example.

Flint Ridge, Ohio, bird chopper with human face profile at tail circled

Virginia and Ohio bird-form choppers seen side by side. They are reverse mirror examples of the same tool and art motif. Human facial profiles on the birds' tails are illustrated in circles. It should be noted that both of these items are made in stone material with unusual 'sparkling' visual properties reflecting light.

Close-up of Arkfeld site bird chopper

Adam Arkfeld interpretation of another bird figure serving as the larger bird's wing. It looks like it could be a floating water bird like a goose. The human face is at the gooses's tail and the larger bird's tail at the same time with human's eye circled at right in the illustration here. I concur with Adam's interpretation and I think the goose in this position could be interpreted as 'drinking water.'

Close up of the right side human facial profile on the two birds' tails along with an illustration of the interpreted eye and mouth locations. Click photos to expand and toggle.

Manufactured tools, including some Mousterian-looking Levallois prepared core technology points (arrows indicate them) recovered all together by Adam Arkfeld in Virginia one day this week.

North American Virginia Levallois point

A human face profile sculpture from The Old Route 66 Zoo depicts a prominent brow ridge

Human profile sculpture with prominent brow ridge

Stacy Dodd and Rod Weber find, Jasper County, Missouri

The Old Route 66 Zoo, Site #23JP1222

Arkfeld Site iconic handaxe displays symbolic marking convention linking it to Eurasian figure stone examples

'Large iconic handaxe on a giant unifacial flake"

Adam Arkfeld find, Clear Brook, Virginia

This is a very interesting tool specimen ( a "slipper" axe) with what I interpret to be iconic properties, largely because of the 'feline' sense I get when I look at this side of the artifact under these lighting conditions and can see the possible human modification to the handaxe to feature an iconic image. It compares favorably to other crude cat representations I have come across over the years. The two incised lines terminating at their meeting at a position approximating the bridge of the feline nose is a visual trigger to us that this is indeed a cat and it has been given a required element of life, a nose.

I interpret a feline face representation "nested" within the frame of the handaxe. Two eyes have been worked. There are two incised lines which terminate at their end points to form a ^ or carat shape in the approximate area of the bridge of the lion's nose. A feline-like muzzle has been created with a notch on the stone in the center bottom.

Side 2 of this large unifacial piece

Sri Lankan and Romanian examples. These figure stones from Eurasia have been featured earlier on this blog and demonstrate the artistic convention of incising two lines to create a V or ^ shaped nose to disambiguate or animate face icons.

Arkfeld Site close up photo of incised "nose indicator" symbol

I propose The Arkfeld Site example displaying the same artistic nose marking convention links it to Eurasian peoples through a symbol-making cultural tradition.

I wrote in the posting last year "I have suspected the common artificial application of nose and nostril details on many figure stones seen on this blog may have been a way for Stone Age peoples to add a symbolic 'breath of life' to the rocks."

A human head left profile sculpture in colorful flint from Missouri has back-end shaping similar to an Ohio example and suggests a common attachment scheme

'Human head left profile flint sculpture'

Stacy Dodd and Rod Weber find, The Old Route 66 Zoo, site #23JP1222 near Joplin, Missouri, at Jasper County. One of hundreds of iconic finds from this 5 acre locus along the Old Route 66.

This piece may also be expressing the motif of "mammoth cresting human forehead." Other examples may be seen where the mammoth's 'trunk' develops into the human's 'nose' as may be the case here.

This is an exceptionally beautiful piece of stone. It has been carefully sculpted into a human likeness. Note the recessive chin and prominent nose of the representation.

Here, the Missouri example of "mammoth head cresting human forehead" back-end shaping is compared to a Licking County, Ohio, example of a sculpture in the same motif featured earlier on this blog. The straight lines and angle of their meeting at the back ends suggests they may have been commonly affixed to something, like wooden staffs or posts.

The Missouri flint material seen here is so very similar to the colorful Flint Ridge, Ohio, (Vanport formation) stone which is close to my home and subject of many postings on this blog.