A black bird sculpture centered on a white bivalve shell fossil with a human face as if the shell was a "blooming hairdo"

Find by Ken Johnston at a Flint Ridge quarry and workshop location, Licking County, Ohio. 8.5cm length.

A black bird sculpture centered on a white bivalve shell fossil. The bird's beak is at far left, tail at far right. The fossil shell was probably identified on a larger stone and then it was reduced as the bird form was sculpted to feature the shell. Perhaps "doing justice" to the fossil meant giving it to a bird form and adding a human face depiction. Flint Ridge has produced many bird figures already seen on this blog. This is a classic simple bird profile sculpture.

Image of the West Tofts, U.K,,  handaxe, ca. 100,000 BP, centered on a bivalve fossil

This picture has been cut from the photo at top of the Licking County, Ohio, bird sculpture artifact. This open-mouthed face image with a blooming shell "hairdo" is particularly interesting given the comment of Jan Evert Musch regarding the details of the West Tofts handaxe at the link above and its possible inclusion of human imagery related to the shell.

Austin, Texas, area "One eye open, other eye shut or missing" motif on a chert pebble and in a repeated local pattern

David Boies artifact find, near Austin, Texas

This figure evidences stone removal on the "right eye, the nose" and the "mouth" made to affect the final desired image of a chert pebble face mask expressing the pervasive portable rock art motif of "One eye open, other eye shut or missing." 

This motif dates to the Acheulean and may also be seen in Middle-Paleolithic European assemblages, according to art and religion scholar James Harrod, Ph.D., at OriginsNet.

View 2 of this worked pebble with scale in inches.

The face looking at us straight-on has the left profile of another face occupying its left side. The two faces share the same stone feature as a "nostril."

I am inspired by the rock art scholarship of Barbara Olins Alpert who has made superb comparisons of Pleistocene art forms and historic to modern arts. The kind of facial image ambiguity seen in the Texas figure stone is also exploited by artist Pablo Picasso of our time.

“There Is Nothing New Under The Sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:4-11

Author Barbara Olins Alpert describes a simplistic face made by addition of three painted black lines to a naturally-suggestive form in a cave at Vilhouueur (Charente, France) seen pictured here and dated to ca. 25,000 years before present. See her illustration below.

Figure 4.26 from Barbara Olins Alpert's The Creative Ice Age Brain: Cave Art in the Light of Neuroscience.

David Boies Austin, Texas finds, side by side and compared to France cave rock art painting.

Austin, Texas, area human head sculpture has a mammoth figure cresting its head in Paleolithic art tradition

Human head sculpture, find by David Boies, near Austin, Texas. There may be red ocher staining on the lower part of this artifact.

Ken Johnston illustration marking the full mammoth in profile facing left which is depicted as "cresting" the human's head.

Licking County, Ohio, human face left profile sculpture interpreted as also incorporating a mammoth icon (trunk and head bump) cresting its head. Found in context of other human/mammoth art pieces. Featured in an earlier posting.

Sahuarita, Arizona, stone human head sculpture incorporates visage of a "one-eyed feline," a recurring motif in portable rock art

Sahuarita, Arizona, find by James, identified as a human head sculpture

James writes, "I have been hunting arrowheads and various artifacts for about 8 years and one day out I found a carving and couldn't wait to get home and share what I found. I posted pics on the site I joined and then every one said I was crazy, it was just a rock. But the art/tool was really as plain as the nose on your face, so I started looking for research and here I am still wanting to share. I have found more arrowheads just by following the art that is laying on the ground. I need a community that knows what is really going on. Not just another sharp rock site- there is a lot more going on than people realize. And I would like to share these images from Sahuarita, AZ . Thanks, love the site. James"

Ken Johnston detected the visage of a one-eyed feline incorporated into the backside of the human head sculpture identified by James. This helps "seal the deal" on the authenticity of this art piece. The human head form and the one-eyed feline form are consistent with other portable rock art representations as seen on this blog.

The missing eye is represented by a gash, where the seeing eye has more stone detail.

"Most people who care much about art find that of the work that moves them most the greater part is what scholars call "Primitive" ...In primitive art you will find no accurate representation; you will find only significant form. Yet no other art moves us so profoundly." -Clive Bell, 1914; quoted after Cahn and Meskin 2007: 266.

Sculpture from Italy on the cover of Pietro Gaietto's book compared to Arizona example

David Boies iconic finds at Austin, Texas, illustrate how disturbance of natural quartz crystal fractal patterns through grinding and chipping may allow scientific confirmation of artificiality

David Boies iconic finds at Austin, Texas, illustrate how human disturbance of natural quartz crystal fractal patterns through grinding and chipping may allow scientific confirmation of artificiality of suspected artifacts such as these

Mr. Boies has identified dozens of portable rock art objects in a concentrated area near Austin, Texas.

David Boies iconic finds at Austin, Texas

Missouri human head sculpture identified by Keith Stamper is similar to Acheulean tradition sculpture described by author Pietro Gaietto

Keith Stamper find, St. Peters, Missouri, identified as a sculpted human head figure 

The Keith Stamper sculpted head at top has strong stylistic similarity to this sculpted human head by Homo erectus from the Lower Paleolithic Acheulean tradition featured by Pietro Gaietto on the cover of his book.

(left) View 2 of the Keith Stamper Missouri sculpture find, (right) a profile view showing "nose" protrusion

Two human heads with facial profiles facing left (click photos to expand)

A sample of the dozens of anthropomorphic forms identified by Keith Stamper at St. Peters, Missouri

Levallois-like flake tool identified among sculptures by Keith Stamper

Thick blade tool found among sculptures by Keith Stamper

Pipe Creek chert vein plate segment may have been selected for resemblance to North American lion head in the same tradition as large lion head sculptures from Flint Ridge, Ohio

This Pipe Creek, Ohio, chert vein plate was featured in a recent article in Ohio Archaeologist. I noticed it resembles chert lion head sculptures I have identified from Flint Ridge, Ohio 

This chert vein plate was likely harvested and shaped for its likeness to a feline head facing right in a cultural tradition which was first noticed at Flint Ridge, Ohio. The top and bottom edges of the figure are the top and bottom natural surfaces of the chert vein and the right and left edges were harvested or trimmed in order to frame the basic facial elements in a plausible lion head shape.

A reconstructed interpretation of the North American lion head

Black lines highlight the interpreted eye and nose, and a red line marks the mouth, of a lion head profile facing right 

Flint Ridge, Ohio, lion head sculpture facing right featured earlier on this blog.

Flint Ridge, Ohio, lion head sculpture facing left featured earlier on this blog.

Flint Ridge, Ohio, sculpted lion head found in a group of seven other sculptures featured in postings in the month of May, 2012.

Austin, Texas, lion head figure stone

Lion head profile looking left, found by David Boies, near Austin, Texas

(Left) A possible lion head sculpture from the Arkfeld site, Clear Brook, Virginia, faces the Austin, Texas, figure. Even though they are facing opposite directions, these two lion heads are made on somewhat the same visual template, likely being a culturally-guided tradition. The Texas figure at right has a prominent chin at the 16.5cm mark.

Oregon human face on a pebble from the Dennis Boggs portable rock art collection is strikingly similar to one identified in Siberia

Dennis Boggs find, near Irrigon, Oregon, Columbia River Valley

The drawing below is not of this artifact, but of another very similar one identified by Russian archaeologist M.A. Kiriyak. The entire Dennis Boggs collection of more than one hundred iconic objects is interpreted and curated by Ken Johnston, with one thousand additional specimens pending examination and study.

An illustration of an Upper Paleolithic "cobble mask" from Siberia, Russia. Bol'shoi El'gakhchan I site, from Early Art of the Northern Far East by M.A. Kiriyak.

Side-by-side comparison of Oregon figure stone (left) and drawing of a Siberian figure stone (right)

Île d'Oléron, France, amateur archaeologist Henri Valentie identifies worked quartz cobble with a primate face, a human face mask and a human facial profile

Henri Valentie find, Île d'Oléron, France. In this perspective on the stone, we may interpret a primate-like face, including nostrils, looking straight-on.

Hello there,

I present to you one of my latest discoveries still on the island of Oleron. Initially I apprised this stone for a tool then I saw a human face but also a beautiful profile of a head. It is lower paleo, quartz, 1.6kg, width 8.8 cm, 10.2 cm deep. Always fascinated by your site.

Cordially to you,

Henri Valentie

Another view of the stone presents a face mask in the "one eye open, other eye closed or missing" motif

In this third view of the same stone, we may see a human face and head profile looking left and a gorilla-like head in left 3/4 profile

Early art and religion scholar and publisher of OriginsNet.org James Harrod, Ph.D.,writes: "In addition to geometrics, including the biface or 'handaxe', female figurines, and the human head or skull, animals constitute the fourth major element in Early Paleolithic symbols systems. This gallery highlights a special motif identified at Pampau, primates, including what appear to be a macaque-like monkey and some baboon-like heads and even a proposed gorilla-like creature. The artifacts are in the collection of Ursel Benekendorff and she was the first to propose that these artifacts may be interpreted as representations of macaques and other primates. Fossil evidence for macaques does occur throughout the European Pleistocene." 

(left) Artifact from Germany as seen at originsnet.org for motif comparison to France example, Photographer © Walther Matthes. Matthes, W. (1969). Eiszeitkunst im Nordseeraum. Otterndorf, Gr: Niederelbe-Verlag; (1964/1965). Bild 62.

(left) Artifact from Nona Axsom, Portland, Oregon for motif comparison to France example

Up close of third facial image, facing left, on the same stone. 

In this same up close view seen in the illustration at right, the ambiguity of the stone allows the interpretation of a gorilla-like face looking straight-on, including nostrils.

Those nostrils may become the eyes on a third face in this perspective, sharing the same chin element as the other two faces. This little face seems to have some feline qualities. The cat may interpreted with ears and as having its tongue slightly visible in its mouth.