A Texas mammoth and face mask combination figure stone along with two tools, a snarling flint and a quartzite bird

 David Boies find, Westlake, Texas

Mammoth form combined with face mask icon

Rather than accurate representation, Palaeoart is more so about recognition, perhaps the process of discovery, and inclusion of significant natural form. In a strong context of iconic objects in Westlake, Texas, this stone may be seen to contain an "element of an elephant" along with an abstracted human, feline or human/feline face mask. The mammoth with human form on the posterior is a North American portable rock motif already documented on this blog. (click photos to expand and toggle)

What may look like "visual noise" or "junk" or "just a rock" to some observers today may have been quite starkly perceived as significant by a peoples living in a more natural world without mass images and mass icon production and so many 90 degree angles.

Stone objects like this were likely serendipitous finds for culturally motivated artists. If a natural find suggested a mammoth and a face mask, it would be modified as necessary to satisfy the requirements of the artist. Here, there appear to be engravings to enhance the trunk of the animal and some kind of alteration to the stone to affect a mammoth eye in the anatomically correct position. The face mask image seems to have been assisted with some stone removal. The natural form presented to the prehistoric artist has been rectified according to cultural imperatives which may be somewhat understood by modern-day interpreters.

David Boies finds, Westlake, Texas, among the portable rock art and identified as possibly iconic tools. They may provide insight into the tool forms Archaeology might look for in its search for the earliest Americans.

A snarling flint

Zoomorphic flint imagery identified by Mr. Boies would not have been lost on prehistoric peoples in the area who seemed to collect such objects.

Westlake, Texas, small quartzite bird figure with possible grinning human face configuration on its back, identified by David Boies.