Image of limestone bird-form from a poster presentation made by Alan Day at the International Rock Art Congress held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2013. Photos by Alan Day.
Independent portable rock art (figure stone) researcher Alan Day of Cambridge, Ohio, has confirmed human agency on stone figures at hilltop sites in Guernsey and Muskingum Counties, Ohio. Day co-authored a recent article in Ohio Archaeologist with petrologist Dr. Eric Law about a limestone-bird form.
Most all archaeologists do not have the expertise to fully evaluate conditions of human agency the way a geologist/petrologist (rock formation specialist) is able to. Archaeology should acknowledge its general limitations in this area and should begin to defer to a scientific approach to evaluating artifact status as Mr. Day has done.
However, Day's article shows Ohio Historical Society archaeologists have no interest in pursuing the subject of stones with iconic properties despite Ohio having a large number of examples reported by amateurs. They must have already determined they do not exist or they are not important to the development of archaeological knowledge in the Buckeye state. They would be wrong on both counts.
Image and text from the journal Ohio Archaeologist, published by The Archaeological Society of Ohio. Copies of Ohio Archaeologist are available from the Society. VOLUME 63 NO. 4, FALL 2013, pp. 37-38. The quote is attributed to article co-author Dr. Eric Law, professor of geology and petrology at Muskingum University, New Concord, Ohio.
In this case, we also must consider the possibility we do not have an art- object here, but a polishing stone, like we find them a lot in Europe too. This is a good start for discussion, when all options remain open... Regards, Jimmy
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