A horse head sculpture, a crystal eyed pebble face mask and an 'Early Man' bust from The Old Route 66 Zoo, Site #23JP1222

'Horse head with feline as mane'

Stacy Dodd and Rod Weber find, Jasper County, Missouri

The Old Route 66 Zoo Site, #23JP1222

I think this horse head sculpture is also presenting a feline, where the cat is curled across the back of the horse head like the mane of the horse, the cat and horse share ears and the 'eye' of the horse is the 'mouth' of the cat. This is thought to be a pairing of predator and prey where both animals are present in the same view (in an optical illusion).

This remarkable portable rock art site continues to produce iconic pieces like these in a concentrated area of less than 1/2 acre.

'Face mask' on a pebble recognizing crystal mineral inclusions as 'eyes' 

'Early Man' bust, looking left in 3/4 profile view

'Early Man, View 2'

I think it is likely the human is being depicted here with a mammoth figure cresting its forehead.

Standing two-legged figure with ambiguous faces is made of jasper imported to the Arkfeld Site

Standing two-legged figure with ambiguous faces is made of jasper imported to the Arkfeld Site. Adam Arkfeld find, Site #44FK731, Clear Brook, Virginia.

Rock formation appears worked to enhance inclusion's bird likeness

Rock formation appears worked to enhance inclusion's bird likeness.

Adam Arkfeld find, Arkfeld Site, Clear Brook, Virginia

'Kissy Birds' (reprise)

'Kissy Birds'

Mark Jones find, Piney Point, Maryland

This is a St. Valentine's Day weekend reprise of a figure stone named 'Kissy Birds' by its finder. It was eroding out of a bank into the Potomac River along with numerous other portable rock art pieces including birds and a good number of 'one eye closed/missing' human face mask stones. I was able to visit Mark and concur with him that this stone was worked on multiple surfaces and includes an intentionally ground 'eye' visible on the bird on the left.

Piney Point, Maryland, is located right in the great Chesapeake Bay migratory bird flyway on the east coast of North America. Water birds preening or courting would have been a common observation of people in the area.

The love birds take on a fair 'heart' shape in their outline form. 'Kissy Birds' was this blog's first posting, 5 years and 600 articles ago.

Hardin County site at the confluence of the Tennessee River and a creek is producing a variety of portable rock art

Human head looking right

More Jason Lamont finds, Hardin County, Tennessee

Human and animal heads joined. Human with large nose facing left and animal facing right. This sculpture type has been identified by Pietro Gaietto as a primary one of Paleolithic stone work.

The lighting is poor here but this is a diamond shaped stone which has been configured with a simple face of two eyes, a nose and a mouth. This 'face on rhombus' motif has been identified at several sites in association with other portable rock art finds like in this example found at Mammoth Springs, Arkansas by Jeff Vincent.

Animal figures

Animal figure

Chert 'Bird in flight' figures

Carvings mixed with natural cracks on Arkfeld Site limestone plaque

Adam Arkfeld find, Site, #44FK731, Clear Brook, Virginia (18cm)

This is possibly a bird-form plaque: a bird head facing left and a bird body in profile facing right. Several carved pieces like this have been identified by Adam Arkfeld. In addition to the circle and lines it looks like a few 'dots' were carved as well.

Mammoth body and feline head combination standing sculpture from Flint Ridge, Ohio

Mammoth body and feline head profile combination standing sculpture from Flint Ridge, Ohio (11cm)

The mammoth is facing left and the feline head is facing right. This mammoth and feline head combination motif is seen in other examples documented here, most recently including this Tennessee find by Jason Lamont and a Virginia mega sculpture made on a landscape rock formation.

Ken Johnston find in the context of many other flint figures seen on this blog. Found in the immediate context of this bird figure recently published.

When assessing a piece like this for artificiality and intent to create an iconic piece rather than some random natural or human action, very strong weight is given to the fact that the interpreted figure stands upright on a base and is presented in correct viewing orientation with respect to the visual horizon. Like in many other sculpture examples, this one stands upright on a designed base. The base has been worked to level out the surfaces the sculpture stands upright on.

This base is what allows a piece of flint 11cm tall and 3cm thick, with a 'lean,' to stand upright.

Photo favoring a more frontal view of the mammoth's trunk curvature.

Photo favoring a more frontal view of the feline head. The 'bump' of the mammoth head is also the ear of the cat. Importantly, this is also the case with the Tennessee example seen in the link above.

The cat's 'nose' is a translucent crystal formation. Other feline heads have been described on this blog from Flint Ridge and this one follows the general scheme or template I have identified.

The hardness and fracture qualities of the flint and the artistic combination of two animals in one view leads to rather abstract visages of the creatures. Accurate representation was not the goal of this art. The final art product may not have been too important either. Perhaps the process of being able to work a stone and realize a motif such as this, in a practical 'optical illusion,' was what was valued by the cultures who made these iconic materials.

A mammoth sculpture emerges from the snow at Site #44FK731, may illustrate a proto-Polyphemus tale

'Mammoth sculpture with human face profile on posterior' (26cm)

Adam Arkfeld find, Arkfeld archaeology site, #44FK731, Clear Brook, Virginia

The Pleistocene Arkfeld site has produced more mammoth art objects than any other site in the world and several in this same motif. This is an example of a mammoth and human combination sculpture with a person's face profile on the back side of the mammoth figure. The artifact is not in situ in this photo but is surrounded by snow from today's East Coast blizzard.

North American portable rock art combining mammoth and human imagery may be Paleolithic sculptural illustrations of a proto-Polyphemus tale

A number of portable rock art mammoth sculptures which include human imagery have been identified by North American amateur archaeologists and described on this blog. A prominent motif is one of a mammoth with a human face profile incorporated onto its posterior.

Julien d’Huy has suggested there is evidence for a Paleolithic origin for a proto-Polyphemus tale (international tale type ATU 1137). He thinks it likely made it from the Old World into the Americas when the Bearing Land Bridge was open, prior to 10,500 years ago. There is also evidence for versions of it persisting in Amerindian Algonquin and Ojibwa cultures.

According to d’Huy, North American versions are compatible with some European cave art depictions:

“The peculiar image of the animal with a human thigh and prominent rear orifice is equally obscure, but can be compared to the Amerindian versions of the Polyphemus tale, in which the hero often hides inside an animal itself by entering through its anus. This enables the hero to escape the monster who controls the beasts from his dwelling. A motif of the hero hiding in this way would account for the prominence of the anus / vulva on the depicted animal and the co-occurrence of this with the peculiar feature of a human thigh on the animal.”

I think it is possible these sculptures are illustrating the human’s escape from the Lord of Animals in this tale by hiding in/at the mammoth’s anus.

Julien d’Huy, 2014-2015. Polyphemus: a Palaeolithic Tale? - The Retrospective Methods Network Newsletter, Winter 2014-2015, 9: 43-64.

A quartzite skull mask combined with 'raptor with prey at beak' motif from the Arkfeld Site, Clear Brook, Virginia

'Quartzite skull mask' 12cm

Adam Arkfeld find, Paleolithic Arkfeld archaeology Site, Clear Brook, Virginia. Quartzite is an imported stone material to the Arkfeld Site. The conspicuous difference between the shapes of the two eyes leads me to conclude this is an example of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic 'one eye open, one eye missing or closed' motif seen in the Old World and in the United States.

There may be an owl-like bird's face depicted on the top of the head of the human. It may have a depiction of a small animal dangling from its beak. The owl's 'tail' is also the 'chin' of the human.This 'owl with prey' motif has been seen in other examples. Click photos to expand and toggle between the illustrated and non-illustrated versions.

This is the scene in nature captured in this recurring portable rock art motif seen so far in both Ohio and Virginia.

Cairo, Egypt, area portable rock art find may be an amulet example of the mythological "All seeing eye"

"All seeing eye" portable rock art find by Ahmed Aggag, Cairo, Egypt

Ahmed Aggag found this stone 20 years ago at age 10 and has kept it since then. It appears to have been a mimetolith, or a rock resembling something else. In this case, the stone's formation resembled a human eye. It has been incised with a number of lines forming a simple hash pattern so it is an artifact and the likeness to an eye was likely appreciated and enhanced by its maker.  The lines appear like 'eye lashes' on the two eye figures.

Although I cannot confirm from the photos, it looks like the irises could have been created by application of a black pigment to the stone. Interestingly, the iris on Side 2 seems to be in an octagon shape, with eight definable segments which create the roundness.

This stone eye could have been an amulet in the Egyptian mythic tradition of "The Eye of Horus" or the "All Seeing Eye."

Side 2 of the stone also resembles an eye. The iris has eight sides.

Incised lines on the eye confirm its status as an artifact

Mr. Aggag's eye stone with (cm) scale

 Examples of eye figures from the Cairo Museum provided by Ahmed Aggag

Normandy, France, Mousterian industry 'scraper' includes human head effigy with face profiles on its edges and perhaps an example of the 'symbolic cosmic egg-chin'

'Human head effigy with neck facing left'

From Normandy, West of Paris Basin

Ken Johnston collection

France Mousterian industry 'scraper' includes human head effigy with face profiles on its edges. This is a presumed Neanderthal piece of figurative art. Many other iconic tool examples exist in private and museum collections but have yet to be identified because no one ever considered the possibility of their existence. Neanderthal figurative sculpture behavior could be established in short order if archaeologists just look carefully at artifacts already above the ground.

Detail of the 'eye' feature on photo 1 shows human attention to distress the surface of the flint

'Human head effigy with neck facing right' on France Mousterian 'scraper' This face on the opposite side has a forehead, eye, nose, mouth, chin and neck.

This is also a bird figure where the bird's breast is the chin of the human. This piece may be displaying the motif of the 'symbolic cosmic egg-chin' as seen in the prior posting.

'Human head left 3/4 profile, tongue sticking out'

When the breast of the bird, also an egg-like form, is isolated and rotated 90 degrees right, the elements of a human head worked in great detail in the flint may be observed. It appears the person's tongue is sticking out or he has something in his mouth. This bird-breast, egg-shape and human face combination suggests the making of a symbolic cosmic egg.

Most interestingly, the larger face on the edge and the small head on the egg form share the same stone feature as their mouths.

The question for Archaeology is "How many Lower and Middle Paleolithic artifacts currently classified as tools include art or are exclusively art objects?"

A second human head sculpture from a Lower Paleolithic site in the French Pyrenees

'Human head right profile (with 'hair')

Henri Valentie collection, Île d'Oléron, France

The right edge in this view has several flake removals to affect the appearance of a human face profile. From a Lower Paleolithic site in the French Pyrenees producing art and tools.

Henri Valentie writes "I found this on the same site as the piece already published in the blog November 7, 2014. I find a resemblance with 2 heads. The first photo shows part which is dotted. Perhaps have they attempted to create a hairstyle? The stone is 23/20/15 cm."

When the sculpture is rotated the opposite side expresses the Paleolithic art motif 'human head two-faced' described by Pietro Gaietto. The two faces are in profile looking right and left.

The face looking right is composed entirely of a bird figure with a bulging belly. The belly of the bird is in an egg form and also serves as the chin of the human.

Arrows depict approximate lines of sight from the two face profiles. Illustration of a recessive, squared off chin at left and a rounded protruding chin on the face at right. Gaietto has written that the two faced sculptures may sometimes be depicting two kinds of people, more robust, archaic humans and more gracile anatomically modern humans (AMH) for example. I think that is the case in this example with the archaic human face at left and the more AMH face at right.

Ken Johnston interpretation of the bird and egg forms composing the face looking right. Two breaks have been made to make the bird's 'tail feathers' and two incised lines converge to form the point of the bird's 'beak.'

This sculpture is displaying the previously described motif of a 'human face with a symbolic egg-chin.' I have hypothesized that the rounded, protruding egg-like chin seen in anatomically modern humans but no other hominins has resulted from genetic influence from a long-running cultural imperative to selectively favor mates with chins resembling a "cosmic bird egg."

The human chin has long been an enigma to Physical Anthropology: Journal of Human Evolution, Jeffrey H. Schwartz and Ian Tattersall, The human chin revisited: what is it and who has it? (1999)

Paper: Facial prognathism in the hominid and human species

A standing bird figure stone in flint from Licking County, Ohio

Ken Johnston find, Licking County, Ohio. 9cm, Vanport chert

The bird balances delicately on a worked tripod base on a flat surface. Found in an area which has produced several flint bird and bird head figures already featured on this blog.

Mammoth and feline head combination is second mammoth sculpture with parallel lines from Hardin County, Tennessee, site

Jason Lamont find, Hardin County, Tennessee

Jason identified this rock as having artificial incised lines running vertically when the stone is in standing position. Jason identified another incised stone which has been interpreted as a mammoth and human combination.

'Feline head facing left'

Side 2. I interpret this incised piece to also be a figurative representation of a mammoth body facing right and a feline head facing left. The photo here provides a nice perspective on the feline head. The cat's ear is at the top edge of the photo. The cat's ear is also the 'head bump' of the mammoth. This feline and mammoth combinatopn motif is seen in other North American examples and in this megalithic landscape rock art sculpture in Virginia. 

Feline head facing left and a profile of a mammoth body facing right. The illustration locates stone features serving as the 'eyes' of the feline and the mammoth. The 'mouth' of the cat is in red. Click photos to expand.

A second stone with incised lines and selected removals was found along with the incised mammoth and feline combination. Jason Lamont finds.