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.

10 July 2012

An Acheulean jasper scraper from the Grand-Pressigny, central France, which pairs human and baboon heads like previously described example

Acheulean jasper scraper from the Grand-Pressigny, central France

Collection of Ken Johnston, this perspective interpreted as a human face in right profile view

Typology : Pointed Side Scraper.

Material : Yellow Jasper.

Cutting : This implement was cut in a Jasper pebble. A few flakes were cut to create the pointed sub-triangular shape. The three points and the edges were finely retouched. Both faces and one side were left mostly cortical to ensure a strong and safe grip.

Dating, hominid : This implement belongs to the Acheulean Culture (Lower Paleolithic period, circa 300 000 to 650 000 years ago), and was conceived by Homo HEIDELBERGENSIS ( European Erectus ).

Origin : Found in the area of the Grand-Pressigny, in the center of the France; discovered in the Creuse's ancient riverbed.

Sizes : 3 7/8 inches X 3 7/8 inches or 9.5 cm X 9.5 cm

Weight : 280 g

Condition : Intact, no modern damage

Click photos to expand and compare

A somewhat similar facial profile identified by Dennis Boggs, Boardman, Oregon, on this beautiful translucent crystal laden flake (a "lithophane," Johnston) where the crystal area (cortex) may be seen to serve as "hair" in the anthropomorphic facial profile. The artifact depicts a left facial profile which has been inverted in this photo to allow comparison against the French example from the same perspective

This second right facial profile on the same artifact seems more zoomorphic than anthropomorphic. It may an intentional representation of an animal such as a baboon

Please see this posting from about one year ago where I described a human face and a baboon face incorporated into an Acheulean handaxe, also from France. This second example illustrated today seems to confirm the possibility the baboon/human pairing was a widely expressed motif in that area which amateur and professional archaeologists should be aware of. They are, in fact, decorated tools, existing in the realm of early human art and spirituality as well as function.

Acheulean jasper scraper from the Grand-Pressigny, central France

Collection of Ken Johnston

The above perspective shows how elusive possible iconography is to collectors and archaeologists working in the field. The above photo, showing the artifact as perhaps taken at usual "macro level" of archaeological interpretation, may be seen as a relatively insignificant worked block of flint. Only upon very close examination of the retouch work can the details of possible zooanthropomorphic forms be revealed. With this more "micro" level of examination of artifacts in existing collections and at sites yet to be discovered, it will be seen that Boucher de Perthes himself was correct is positing the existence of art right with the tools of his "antedelluvian man."

-kbj

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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

10 July 2012

An Acheulean jasper scraper from the Grand-Pressigny, central France, which pairs human and baboon heads like previously described example

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