A two-sided turkey vulture head with two human face profiles incorporated onto its backside from Flint Ridge, Ohio

'Two-sided turkey vulture head with two human face profiles incorporated onto its backside.'

Ken Johnston find, Flint Ridge, Licking County, Ohio

Side 2 of a likely turkey vulture head depiction. The material is Vanport chert.

Human face right profile on the back of the vulture head.

Close up of human face right profile reveals intense flint work on a very small scale. These artifacts call for extremely close scrutiny of worked stones near major stone quarry sites like Flint Ridge for iconic properties.

The face has received flint work attention which cannot be accounted for in an endeavor to make a tool. This stone seems wholly unsuitable as tool stone. It has been deliberately shaped, it resembles a bird head on two sides and has two human face likenesses when they have already been associated with the backs of bird figures on this blog here and also here. This Ohio flint bird is very similar to one from Italy, described by Paleolithic sculpture author Pietro Gaietto.

The Ohio bird was found in the same general location as several other flint bird head figures.

I have also described human facial profiles worked on flint edges. This is an example in the Flint Ridge material with a profile on each side of the stone like this one.

It should be noted that Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes specifically described bird heads as among the iconic materials he found alongside tools in the Somme valley of France in the mid 19th century.

Turned upside-down the turkey vulture head resembles a sitting bird with beak turned up to accept feeding

The flint compared with a turkey vulture head

Here is another human facial profile, looking leftward, worked into the flint on the backside of the bird head. Note the prominent brow ridge which suggests a more robust human type.

In its totality this object and its context proves a Stone Age art enterprise at Flint Ridge which, among many motifs, incorporated combined bird and human forms.