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.

21 July 2014

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

19 July 2014

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.

18 July 2014

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.

16 July 2014

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)

14 July 2014

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.

11 July 2014

Missouri sculpture of lion head profile incorporates lion face image looking straight on

From site #23JP1222, Jasper County, Missouri, lion head profile looking left with faint trace of lion face looking straight-on

Mark ups made on photos to illustrate interpreted lion forms

Flint Ridge, Ohio, interpreted as a lion head profile looking right with a lion face looking straight on. This was a one-eyed lion depiction and the missing eye is added to this photo to allow better interpretation of the lion face elements.

09 July 2014

Missouri "bird in flight" stone figure compares favorably to two Arkansas figures, has human face images on posterior like other examples

"Bird in flight" stone figure identified by Stacy Dodd and Rod Weber, from The Old Route 66 Zoo site, 23JP1222, near Joplin, Missouri.

Mammoth Spring, Arkansas, finds by Jeff Vincent featured already on this blog. The bird at left has a smiling human face on its tail. Other bird figures on this blog have smiling humans integrated into the head or tail.

There is a faint trace of a human face on the bird's tail feathers like in examples seen in the posting yesterday, July 8. Like other depictions in portable rock art, and particularly from The Old Route 66 Zoo site, there appear to be teeth in the human's mouth.

Faint trace of a second smiling human face image on the bird's tail.

08 July 2014

Mammoth Spring, Arkansas, bird in flight includes human face image like other bird sculpture examples

Jeff Vincent find, Mammoth Spring, Arkansas, is a second example of a bird in flight sculpture he has identified among dozens of art objects

A human face image is incorporated into the Arkansas bird's tail feathers as also seen in this example from Maryland featured earlier on this blog.

Ohio's top archaeologist is "not at all persuaded" as art in his back yard languishes in obscurity

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.

Denisovan Ancestry in East Eurasian and Native American Populations