A magico-religious flint sculpture hoard from Buckeye Lake, Ohio

This month of May, I will be introducing a series of seven zoo/anthropo-morphic flint sculptures which were found in immediate proximity to each other along the north shore of modern Buckeye Lake, Ohio.  Buckeye Lake is a leftover glacial terminus swamp from the last ice age. The area is along the advancement line of both the Wisconsinin and Illinoian glaciations in Eastern Licking County, Ohio.  (click photo/maps to expand)

These seven sculptures and my ongoing research about them is what inspired my interest in the subject of portable rock art. They were discovered by a landscaper on my property who was digging a footer for a stone wall. He found a number of large pieces of flint in a cluster while digging the trench and they were thought at the time to have been used in prehistoric tool manufacture as finding such flint boulders by the lake is not uncommon. The dug up flint became a part of the garden which was formed by the new stone wall.

The find site is approximately 10 miles from Flint Ridge, recognized as the source of one of the most desirable cherts in North America due to its workability, durability, coloration and beauty. A couple of years ago I was doing spring cleanup in the garden and picked up one of the large flint rocks and noticed a rough, life-size, human face looking back at me. Then, I took a closer look at the rest of them. That is how this portable rock art adventure began.

For each of the seven Flint Ridge sculptures, I have identified analogs from sites in Ohio, Maine, Missouri, France, Germany and Italy. I will present them alongside the Buckeye Lake, Ohio, pieces. These seven artifacts may be among the oldest in my collection. Because of the apparent presence of a now extinct North American lion's "head," the presence of a sculpture type originally described by Boucher de Perthes, and two other comparable sculpture pieces from the European Paleolithic, the Buckeye Lake sculpture hoard is suspected to be of Pleistocene age. That would make them some of the oldest known art objects in the Americas. These sculptures were likely part of the spiritual life of their makers and curators.

The "Across Atlantic Ice" theory of a peopling of North America as most recently posited by Bradley and Stanford, demonstrates the plausibility of a connection between America and Europe which could account for European style palaeoart being discovered by amateur archaeologists and collectors in the United States.

-kbj

Suspected Ohio bird sculpture is similar to one identified by an archaeologist at Hamburg, Germany

Licking County, Ohio, limestone bird form stands on base. It was found by Ken Johnston at a suspected prehistoric cultural site near Buckeye Lake in Licking Township. It has a general similarity with a known bird sculpture from a German site.  (click photos to expand)

Identified as a bird icon from an archaeological site near Hamburg, Germany. Hamburg-Sülldorf A; Mousterian, Quartzeit.  Identification (W. Matthes): "Bird." Matthes, W. (1969). Eiszeitkunst im Nordseeraum. Otterndorf, Gr: Niederelbe-Verlag: plate 26.1. Photo © Walther Matthes. From originsnet.org.

Side 2 of the Ohio bird

One minute video of the Ohio bird rotating on a turntable

-kbj

Europa in America: Woman/goddess riding bison and white bison figures found together in an Ohio cornfield

The mythographers tell that Zeus was enamored of Europa and decided to seduce or ravish her, the two being near-equivalent in Greek myth. He transformed himself into a tame white bull and mixed in with her father's herds. While Europa and her female attendants were gathering flowers, she saw the bull, caressed his flanks, and eventually got onto his back. Zeus took that opportunity and ran to the sea and swam, with her on his back, to the island of Crete. He then revealed his true identity, and Europa became the first queen of Crete. Zeus gave her a necklace made by Hephaestus and three additional gifts: Talos, Laelaps and a javelin that never missed. Zeus later re-created the shape of the white bull in the stars, which is now known as the constellation Taurus. Some readers interpret as manifestations of this same bull the Cretan beast that was encountered by Hercules, the Marathonian Bull slain by Theseus (and that fathered the Minotaur). Roman mythology adopted the tale of the Raptus, also known as "The Abduction of Europa" and "The Seduction of Europa", substituting the god Jupiter for Zeus.

Woman/goddess and bison: Zeus and Europa flint figures found in an Ohio cornfield.

Found by Pam Douglass at Jacksontown, Licking County, Ohio, near Flint Ridge.  Within a few feet of this figure, Pam found a flint she identified as a sculpted white buffalo head which was featured in a prior posting, featuring a crystal-lined "eye" which penetrates the flint.  It is seen in the final artifact photo below. 

The bison and female relationship in paleoart dates to Chauvet cave and earlier. It persisted through Greek and Roman mythology.  A question for art scholars based on the two finds featured here is: at what point in time did the bison become white in the art?  That might help date these two exquisite pieces of flint work.  This Licking County, Ohio, Flint Ridge artistic flint work is documented for greater archaeology for the first time here on portablerockart.com

In a prior posting, Ken Johnston interpreted a bison in this perspective. The "eyes" are highlighted as green stars.  A small tail stub is highlighted at far left. (click photos to expand)

View when the artifact is rotated 1/4 to the left from the bison view above

A pregnant woman may be seen where her breasts are also the shared nostrils of the bison from the other view.  Her protruding belly is the reddish flint at the far right. The woman and bison also share an eye which is a sparkling silver inclusion in the flint. It is revealed here by the black line markings that the woman's arm is depicted as reaching back to hold the horn of the bison.  Even her forearm muscles are shown. The woman's lower body in this view could also be interpreted as a mammoth view head on with the funnel shape of the trunk being depicted.  This would be in line with known paleoart.  Duncan Caldwell has written of the "first optical illusion" which is an artifact which can be interpreted two ways, as a mammoth or a bison, depending on how you view it. 

Crystal eyed, breasted woman, hair flowing, with arm reaching back and grasping the horn of the bison

Pam Douglass found both artifacts here in immediate proximity and interpreted this one a white buffalo head

""The association of woman/Goddess and bison is deep. Again and again they are found, in different forms, together, often both pregnant. If we look at the gestation time of women and bison, we find that they both have a 10 lunar month pregnancy. Like the Horse and Bear, the Bison is an animal with great mythical importance. We tend to think of the bull cults of Minoan Crete or Çatal Höyük, or the horned Goddesses of Egypt, but the bison/bull is of course also one of the most often depicted animals in Palaeolithic art, and so must have held great significance much further back in history as well. In fact, like the clay bear statue described in GA12, there also exists an exquisite clay bison sculpture from the same period. A bull and cow bison about to mate, the cow ready and the bull scenting the air, can still be seen deep in the cave of Tuc D’Audoubert.  The association of Goddess/woman and bison in Palaeolithic art is a particularly strong symbolic image of the shamanistic concept of life and death and suggests lunar mythology of transformation and gestation. [Marija Gimbutas, 1989]. There are many examples of this mythic importance of the bison; Laussel’s goddess being perhaps the most famous, holding her pregnant belly and the 13 lunar month-notched bison horn." (The Abduction of Europa by Rembrant, 1632. Click painting image to expand.)

-kbj

Hopewell tradition mica cutout remnants found eroding from path along Kenawah River, West Virginia

Hopewell mica cutout remnants found at Ansted, West Virginia

(click photos to expand)

This Hopewell tradition mica was found by Lyn Niday eroding from a path along the Kenawah River at Ansted.  Lyn collected what was exposed at the surface and noted the mica appeared to have been cut.  Because of the delicate nature of mica in thinner sheets, it is amazing the "lobe" represented by the three sections at right remained in tact.  Maybe this mica is a small part of what was a larger piece of art work. The mica is thought to originate in the Carolinas and to have been moved into the Hopewell sphere via a system of trade and exchange.

 Hopewell tradition mica cutout artifacts include bird claw and bear tooth icons.  The Hopewell are dated from 200 BCE to 500 CE.

This mica was found in the area of the Armstrong expression of the Hopewell interaction sphere. There is an excellent museum at Hopewell Culture National Park at Chillicothe, Ohio

Rick Doninger finds possible icons alongside tools at his south west Indiana flint quarry site

Right human facial profile on a flake, Rick Doninger find, south west Indiana

Coarse stone "birds in flight" 

A possible zoomprphic form in flint.  Another flint from Rick's site featured an elephant form (trunk curve and eye), a bison, a lion and a human face portrait.

Side two

A worked zoomorphic head form (bear-like)

Many tool artifacts recovered from the quarry work shop in Indiana don't easily fit the well known taxonomies of North America.  Notice the fully developed knife in center, including handle foretelling of contemporary knife forms.  (click photos to expand)

A classic Levallois flake (center) and Clovis point (right of Levallois) and other points represent varied stone working technologies Doninger has identified

Rick Doninger writes: "I can prove Levallois is here.  I can now show the entire core preparation and the reduction sequence in the production of the tools. The cores tell the story of the technology just as in the Clovis and later industries. Without the cores, the technology has to be assumed or left to speculation. Here are a few pics of just about every known early man technology, especially the Levallois that was present in the Acheulean and Mousterian, all from right here in the heartland. I think it is a first to be able to show "old world" technology right alongside Clovis and later, all from the USA. They can’t explain what is being revealed right here. It is every tool type described in the lower, middle, and upper paleo abroad. It may not be older than Clovis, but the alleged pre-clovis technology has already been assembled in a coherent set of identifiable Levallois artifacts, thousands of them............check a few out..........good to hear from ya........      You might ask around and see if anyone else can display old world tech side by side with the Clovis and later technology all from the USA. You are seeing a first here Ken, .......academia can deny it if they want to, but the proof is in the artifacts and the cores and we have them.........God Bless,.....rick d."

-kbj

Natural mammoth-shaped boulder in Ohio was modified to include a human face mask as similarly identified by Luigi Ciapparoli at Piacenza, Italy

Licking County, Ohio

Boulder with natural mammoth-like trunk curve and mammoth head bump in profile on right side. Patina on left rear of stone indicates a worked, fresher surface, demonstrating the known paleoart face mask motif of "one eye open, one eye closed," often in a moaning or distressed-looking expression as seen here. (click photos to expand)

Luigi Ciapparoli has identified similar works at Piacenza, Italy, and has prepared a Flickr slide show of his finds and interpretations.

The Ohio face mask boulder as discovered by Ken Johnston while driving in Licking County, Ohio, near Buckeye Lake.  The face is seen from the side at far left at the back part of the boulder

-kbj

"Old Route 66 zoo" site's bird sculpture is "squared off" like Ohio and West Virginia examples

Bird figure with eye. Stacy Dodd and Rod Weber find from the "Old Route 66 zoo" stone sculpture megasite, Jasper County, Missouri

The bird sculpture above "squares off" its body by a horizontal and vertical line truncation creating near 90 degree angles.  The Ohio and West Virginia examples below seem to feature the same kind of "squaring" in truncating or framing the bird images. (click photos to expand)

Side 2.  This bird sculpture was found in direct association with dozens of other Missouri sculptures

A flaked stone tool found near the sculptures at the "Old Route 66 zoo" site

A "squared off" bird find by Ken Johnston, at Ansted, West Virginia

A "squared off" hanging bird sculpture, Alan Day, Day's Knob, Ohio

A Dutch hare (haas) figure stone

Hare. Jan van Es collection, The Netherlands

-kbj

Washington resident seeks comments regarding suspected stone face figure found at Columbia Park in Kennewick

Greg Martin family find from shore of Columbia River, Kennewick, Washington

Mr. Johnston;

I came across your blog when I was searching for information on small rock carvings.  I was looking for information that might relate to a suspected face carved on a small stone, found by my daughter’s boyfriend, along the Columbia River, in Columbia Park, near Kennewick, WA in mid-March.  It is possible that the features are simply a natural occurrence, but to me the configuration seems to imply some manipulation.

The stone is about 4.5 cm tall by 3 cm wide and 2.5 cm thick (at thickest point).  It appears to be water worn as are most of the gravels found along the river and in the region.  As with much of the water worn gravels found in this region, it is possible that it was transported here during one of the many cataclysmic Missoula Floods which swept through western Washington and along the Columbia River channel following the last ice age.

I have included four different views of the stone and would be interested in your interpretation and comments, as well as any from readers of your blog.  Thank you for considering my submittal.

Sincerely,

Greg Martin, Kennewick, WA

-----------

Hi Greg,

I think your intuition is correct about the manipulation of this piece.  It seems from the photo the left eye could have a part of the natural stone and the right eye, the nose line and the mouth were added. There is a known motif of "one eye open, one eye closed or missing" in paleoart, so it may be in line with that. Usually the left eye is closed or missing and in your case the hole, or missing eye, is at left side of the face. The faces are usually in a moaning or mouth agape position, so yours is unusual in that it appears content or slightly smiling.  I will be happy to post it soon on my blog.  I don't get as many comments as I'd like, but I will solicit them on your behalf.

A man named Dennis Boggs from Irrigon, Oregon, I think 40 miles or so downriver from you, sent me his 50 year collection of "stones that looked manipulated" and I have identified a number of "face stones."  You can do a site search of "boggs" and see the list of postings.  Others in Washington and Oregon have also identified similar material.  Your daughter's boyfriend (or you) should return to that same location and look for more possible worked stones with figures because there are almost always more where one is found.  You can look at my postings to see some of what may be possible out there. This would at least help you assemble a "cluster of surface finds" and developing context information is so important in archaeology.  There is no way to tell without more pieces and a real archaeology effort to determine if they (assuming you find more) are in a place of original deposition or if they have been aggregated by natural processes. I think people are finding them in both situations.

I note you are a scientist and my position is that science needs to be brought to bear on these kinds of anomalous finds.  However, I think you might find archaeologists are not too keen on the topic of intended imagery in crude pebbles. I have been diagnosed with pareidolia by so many archaeologists, you'd think they were licensed to practice psychology!  It would seem that microscopic evaluation by a competent specialist could determine or rule out human agency on the hundreds of finds being identified by laypersons, even with taxonomies coming to light because of the internet, but archaeology does not have a healthy mechanism to evaluate anomalies- it is not a real scientific enterprise but seems to be a group of gatekeepers who have vested interests in maintaining the status quo.

Thanks for taking time to write and for your photos.

Ken

------

Ken;

Thank you for your swift reply to my inquiry. I will take your advice and return to the area where the stone was found and see if there are any other examples of manipulated material.  The stone was found on the river shore in a highly trafficked area of the Park, actually not that far from where the bones of ‘Kennewick Man’ were found.

One of my hobbies is tumbling stones (usually river rock).  My grandkids like the shinny rocks and it stimulates them to ask questions about geology.  After handling thousands of local river or water worn rocks over the last few years, I have never come across any with the sort of features which appeared to be human manipulated/created. You can be assured that I will be doing my future collecting with a much more critical eye.

Thanks again for your response.

Greg --

Does anyone have comments or advice for Greg, or similar finds to this one?

-kbj

"Pissy Birds" figure stone has two angry birds, two love birds, two female figures and a vulture with an anthropomorphic face on its posterior

"Pissy Birds"

Found and interpreted by Mark Jones of the Washington, D.C., area

Mark Jones is a fossil hunter who accesses many of his collection sites by boat at Piney Point, Maryland, at the confluence of the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. Mark also became an avocational archaeologist because he often finds Native American artifacts while looking for fossils. Because they look very closely at the rock material they are investigating, Mark and his wife began to notice patterns in many of the rocks which they could not attribute to natural processes due the large numbers of them in concentrated areas. In addition to the "one eye open, one eye closed" motif seen in European portable paleoart, they noticed a motif of paired birds, courting birds or "love birds." The area today remains the most significant flyway for birds to migrate and nest along the eastern coast of the United States. (click photos to expand)

One is immediately struck by the female figure. The natural rock lent itself perfectly to the artist who made incisions to better define the rump transition into the lower back. That same line also creates two bird heads which have protruding beaks and one eye each in their profile view, quite distinctly facing away from each other. Contrary to the normative theme of love birds, which Mark and his wife call "Kissy Birds," this figure stone seems to depict the birds in a human-like position of being "back to back" while angry. So, they call this figure stone "Pissy Birds."

In the first of the three photos in this series, Mark Jones provides a view of the pissy birds. 

In the middle photo, when the stone is viewed upside-down, a female figure of a torso from the front may be seen. At what would be nape of the neck of the full-busted woman, two elements come together at the top center of the figure in a "kissy birds" form. Jan van Es has described the importance of the "cosmic egg" in paleoart and one may interpret the buttocks and breasts as somewhat egg-like, perhaps symbolic of the fertility implied by the figure. 

In the last photo is a view of a buzzard or vulture from the left rear where the rounded part at the very top is the head of the bird with its beak visible to the left.  Finally, on the posterior of the vulture, double incised lines define the hairline of an anthropomorphic face with two manufactured eyes and a slightly grinning mouth which may be a natural stone feature.

Alan Day of Day's Knob uses the term "janiform" to describe figure stones with two creatures facing away each other like Janus of mythology. So, this may be thought of as a kind of "double janiform" with the pissy birds and the vulture and the face.

A special thanks to Mark Jones for sharing his figure stone and for providing such excellent photographs. Here is a link to the original posting of a "Kissy Birds" figurine identified by Mark.

-kbj

Ride a painted pony... microart carving, in slight bas relief, of a possible horse was made with three different pigments- red, black and white

Dennis Boggs pebble art find, Irrigon, Oregon, Columbia River valley

Dennis Boggs collected stones he suspected had been humanly worked because of their concentrations and repeating patterns.  Dennis gifted his 50-year collection to portablerockart.com so it could be examined and shared with the public.  For reference, his collection comes from about 40 miles downriver from Kennewick, Washington.

After a 10x magnification loop inspection of the unique red, black and white coloration on this little grey rock, Ken Johnston detected the image of a four legged mammal, seeming somewhat horse-like. At 3cm in size, one can understand how this kind of art has missed the attention of archaeology officialdom. What would be the horse's nose/nostrils is a chip in the stone in anatomically correct position, and made after the pigmentation was completed. It is about 1x2 millimeter in size.  The nose seems to be included in detail like this in many stone images, as if to animate the creature with the breath of life.

Microart is extremely difficult to detect in the field and most commonly gets screened out and dumped as meaningless burden stones. Archaeologists need to closely examine every single piece of rock, even tiny ones, from their sites so art pieces like this can be discovered and further described.  

(click photos to expand and see details)

This artifact is available for testing by qualified archaeologists.  X-ray fluorescence may help identify the substances used for the three-level pigmentation process on this carving.  Red was applied first, then black, then white.  It seems one of two eye concavities has black pigment applied, while the other eye has no pigment. This may be an expression of the "one eye open, one eye closed" motif known from other American and European finds. 

Nothing special from this view, unless the pebble is examined and then one discovers the anomalous coloration suggesting artifact status.

This side is clean of all pigments and shows the natural color of the pebble. The pebble stands upright on a flat base.  

If the animal depicted is indeed a horse, it would indicate a Pleistocene or Pleistocene-Holocene transition age for this exquisite red, black and white pebble microcarving.

More Buckeye Lake, Ohio, bird head profile figures found in a cluster

Bird heads in profile identifiable by species: Ruffed Grouse (top), Male American Bald Eagle (mid), and Belted Kingfisher (bottom)

Bird heads are one of the most common motifs in portable rock art found in the United States.  The three specimens above were found in a cluster in an agricultural field now mostly covered by a highway rest area, near the modern day shore of Buckeye Lake, in Licking Township, Licking County, Ohio. Another example of a turkey bird head from this site was featured in an earlier post.  Pam Douglass, another amateur who works sites about 8km distance, also reports finding multiple "birds" and "bird heads" in concentrations.

Ruffed Grouse, king of 2-5 acre territory, males pound tails on hollow "drum logs" to defend area and attract mates. Survives the hardest winters which kill off other game birds like pheasant and turkey

American Bald Eagle (male), apex predator of the bird world

Belted Kingfisher, sits on a branch overlooking water and dive-bombs into the water to catch fish. The Kingfisher figure stone was executed in "Coschocton Blue" flint and includes a creamy inclusion at the neck just like bird.  Both the bird and the flint have a very similar slate blue coloration.  

-kbj

Master flintknapper Bob Doyle of Maine identifies a bird figure stone (and describes his work)

Bob Doyle find, coast of Maine, identified as an artifact

(click photos to expand)

Bob Doyle is a master flintknapper and stonework replicator.  He has been investigating carvings and figure stones on the Maine coast for many years. He has done work on identifying the often obscure stone working techniques used to create or carve figure stones, such as drilling linked spots on the stone to weaken it and create a line of fracture for controlled stone removal.  Bob writes, “…the attached bird...'flint bird'... he is a tool...[a shaver, I suspect]. There is a tell-tale polish on his front side, and he fits nicely in ones hand if it were being used...”

This could have been a natural stone which was recognized as "bird-like" and utilized as a simple tool in prehistory.  The eye could have been added to provide the confirmation of the animation of the stone as a "bird."  Boucher de Perthes claimed the presence of an eye in an anatomically correct position was a sign of artificial modification and can be "a sure sign of intent" to create a figure stone. 

View of the rear of the flint.

Bob Doyle at work at one his Maine sites

Bob writes: "As far as time lines in regard to the making of these carved [animals, humans,etc.] I could only guess...in my searches I do not dig into stratified sites...mostly I'm taking artifacts from river banks, shell middens are productive...but again I won't dig into one...I take the pieces that are about ready to fall into the ocean, or into a river or river bank...I visit my sites often enough to recover material before it begins to deteriorate...

The people that created (a shell midden) are known as 'the red paint people...no archaeological record of the red paint people can be found after about 3500 years ago...so my long winded point is that carvings were being created in quartz, and other hard stone 3500 years b.p.

I have been trying to find a site that is within a couple of thousand years old that might contain carved material...but as I mentioned I don't dig into the earth to find most of my artifacts...it is a bit of a handicap...but I think the 'so called experts’ will become enlightened before too long...I know of a dozen sites where wonderful things are oozing from the earth...but at this point in time I cannot say whether carved stones evolved through time through European contact...if they did they [the carvings] probably became smaller...

If you're ever in this area I'd like to show you some of the sites I'm referring to...there are many carvings, but most are blind, and are unable to see them...sunny sunshine...bob"

-kbj