23JP1222 site in Missouri has nosed face profile interpreted by Stacy Dodd

From the 23JP1222 "Old Route 66 Zoo" site in Missouri (OR66Z) MO#

Photo is by, and courtesy of, Alan Day

Find by Stacy Dodd and Rod Weber. Interpreted as an anthropomorphic right facial profile sculpture, standing in correct orientation on a base. Please compare the facial forms and nose composition to artifacts in the prior posting, also from Missouri. Thanks to Mr. Dodd for noticing the similarity here. Some of the human head sculptures in the genre and from this site appear to be deliberately looking upward.

Figure stone investigator Alan Day of Cambridge, Ohio, writes:
"A recurring motif in the old Figure Stones, which this author has dubbed the Stargazer - a face staring upward, usually open-mouthed, the figure standing on a flat or arched base."

Example I of another human head depicted as looking upward.

-kbj

Bill Waters identifies animal and people rock figures in mid-Missouri archaeologist's burden stones

"The horse head," flint work identified as an intended horse head figure by Bill Waters of Keithville, LA

Bill Waters find, mid-Missouri. This is a scraper tool, interpreted as also portraying a human head and face in right profile view. 

Bill Waters find, Missouri, interpreted as face in left profile

Bill Waters illustration of his interpretation of this face on a flint flake

Bill Water's "Five faces," artifacts with 'nose-like' protrusions

Could these be forms of lateral rostrocarinates also incorporating anthropomorphic imagery?.
Bill Waters writes "I live in Keithville, Louisiana, and these stones come from mid-Missouri and are found near a creek.  Some tools like this scraper are found also, but the cool thing about this scraper is the art work on it too, some stones are clearly not tools and have art and some stones have art and have a deep cup on them so I figure they could also be used as a cup.

I have an elderly Friend who was an Archaeologist. I work chores for him and I accept Artifacts as payment, I barter, Well He gave me many boxes of these small stones which he believed to be removals, I noticed the removals had extra work done on them and I soon discovered the excellent miniatures, because I was looking for miniatures as my discovery of how to read the ancient markers and grips. I believe the miniatures are overlooked because they were not looking for miniature art, it is easy to overlook the small art works. In the boxes he gave me are maybe a thousand of these and I will send you more picts as I have the time to work on them.

The fellow I buy these from collects them because of the strange circular marks which 3 different geologists confirm as human modification and that is the reason I started buying them because I quickly realized the marks were man made. I always wanted to know why they put the marks on the stones and I discovered the marks are markers and when the markers are in the correct position the art is seen. I use this method to locate the art. I see the markers first, there are also grips which are hard to show but are perfect in my hand and this one of the most compelling features. This discovery excites me and I have found over 40 works of art. I hope someday for my discovery to be known.

Thank You, Bill Waters"

Geologists identified human manufactured cups on stones collected by Bill Waters. These types of cups in stones (not to be confused with fire starters, nutting stones, cupstones, cupules, etc.) may have been used as communication devices by early Americans as will be demonstrated in a future posting on this blog.

Another animal head figure (horse?) in right profile, identified by Bill Waters

Anthropomorphic stone face found in Maine by flint knapper Bob Doyle

Anthropomorphic stone face found in Maine by Bob Doyle

Bob Doyle is an amateur archaeologist and master flint knapper living in Maine. Bob teaches knapping, experiments with old stoneworking techniques, and replicates technologies used in the past to create tools and portable rock art objects in the figure stone genre.  Bob identified some human modification to this rock. The mouth seems to have been made by creation of a pecked or chiseled horizontal line with a semi-circle underneath. (click photos to expand)

Here is a picture of the stone face from Thailand in the posting just prior to this one for comparison to the Maine stone face, found half the world away. Perhaps the faces are examples of a universal human aesthetic, and signification given to natural objects which may have been used "as is" or slightly modified to enhance the human likeness as in Bob's example.

-kbj

Thailand burial offering interpreted as a natural stone

Thailand grave offering interpreted as a manuported natural likeness to a human head by Tira Vanichtheeranont 

Tira writes, "I did not find this piece by myself. However, your suggestion of "manuports" is applied to this case. The story behind of finding this piece is as follow :-

This piece was found by excavation of the grave site in Ban Chiang Area which is the important prehistorical culture area of Thailand. Most artifacts found in this area were dated 2000-500 B.C. So, may be the ancient people have found it look like human face and brought it to their living area. I am not sure, but we may think in this case!

So, the answer to your question of What village/water source was it near is: Ban Chiang is the village and the water source is might be the Mekong River which is the nearest river in the Ban Chiang Territory."

Thank you Tira for the contextual information and for the photos. This shows how context can suggest significance was given to simple natural forms resembling the human face, from 3 million years ago and the Makapansgat pebble, to 3000 years ago in this Mekong River valley burial object.

A detailed view into the mouth of the Thai stone head

Back side of the rock

-kbj

Flint feline head in left profile

Flint feline head in left profile

Find by Ken Johnston, Licking County, Ohio, along Buckeye Lake

(click photo to expand)

This artifact was found about 1000 feet from the flint feline head figure in the posting just prior to this one. This too is a flint feline head in left profile view suitable for hafting and with possible rubbing patina.The bottom and right side of the artifact as pictured here appears to have been smoothed by handling or rubbing action. Please note the flint work detail seen in the cat's nose area. A number of bird head figures have been found in this same area, as has a lion head/horse head combination on a tabular plaque seen in this earlier posting.

Side 2 seen with scale

-kbj

A hafted flint feline head with handling wear at Buckeye Lake, Ohio

Licking County, Ohio, flint depiction of a feline head in left profile found and interpreted by Ken Johnston

A spokeshave like mouth (red), a worked eye (in circle), an ear made using a cavity in the flint, a ledge to assist with hafting to bone or wood, possibly comprising the body of the feline. I have wondered if some of these artifacts may have been used as toys, or semiotic pieces tied to stories told to warn children of the dangers of cats. There is an area of smoothed wear patina, as if from rubbing action, around the neck and jaw area, highlighted by a thin white line. (click photos to expand and compare)

Large size feline head from an earlier posting composed in similar style and using the same stone design template as the smaller artifact. The feline head profile is reversed in this rendering of the photo to allow direct comparison to the smaller piece from the same perspective. This colorful feline's mouth is at the lower left, seen as a creamy white band. The ear is made of a reddish oval shaped part of the stone in the upper right, which is comparable to the expression of the ear on the smaller artifact.

Reverse side, seen with cm scale

-kbj

Author R. Dale Guthrie has reconstructed "lion taking bite of human head" scene from portable rock at Gourdan, France, supporting Ohio hoard compound sculpture hypothesis

The Buckeye Lake, Ohio, Paleolithic sculpture hoard's figures #1 and #2, of 7 total found together, had been thought to be a compound sculpture where the two depictions, a human head in the round and a lion head panel, were designed to be combined to depict an action scene of the lion taking a bite from the human's head. The Guthrie reconstruction of this same action scene being depicted on a portable rock art piece from Gourdan, France, supports this idea. The human in the Ohio sculpture set is even depicted as glancing away in the same manner as the human in Guthrie's drawing below.

Illustration of "the drawing's most likely intent" by R. Dale Guthrie, artifact from Gourdan Paleolithic site, France. (click photos to expand)

James Harrod, Ph.D., is a religion scholar who has written extensively about the role of early art and symbolism outside North America. In his paper "Four Memes in the Two Million Year Evolution of Symbol, Metaphor and Myth" presented at Harvard University in October 2010, Harrod describes the "bite of predator to the human head" as a primary Oldowan meme. It is based on the first ethos which Harrod describes as a product of the complex and paradoxical relationships of humans, predators, and scavengers. For example, humans appreciate the prey of the lion which has been left with flesh and marrow to provide sustenance, while at the same time they dread being snuck up on from behind and becoming a prey victim of the "provider." This meme may have persisted since Oldowan times, or it could have arisen at different times in human prehistory because of the role of the lion as apex predator and the human role as both dependent on, and prey of, the big cats.

Here are links to the original blog postings made about the human head in the round and the lion head panel. 

Image from page 175, The Nature of Paleolithic Art, R. Dale Guthrie

Click here for more on this book

-kbj

Portrait in exotic green glass from glacial overlook site which produced other art sculptures and flint profiles

Licking County, Ohio, find by Ken Johnston.  

Exotic green glass material has been flaked and retouched to create a likeness of a human head and face in left profile view, where the rough cortex part of the stone is serving as the person's hair. This was not the only item of flint-like material found at this disturbed soil site on a hilltop which produced "Sir Nameless," the Siberian like bird and the elephant/human art pieces.

The green glass here was confirmed to be human manufactured and not a natural rock by a prominent university lithics lab and by others with experience at Corning Glass Corp.

-kbj

Pebble "masks" or heads in like material, collections of Jan van Es

Pebble "masks" in like material, from the collections of Jan van Es, The Netherlands

-kbj

American cave with underground river has carvings similar to Koonalda cave, Australia, lattice or grid pattern

Koonalda cave, Australia, carved lattice pattern

Photo © R. Edwards, in L. Maynard and R. Edwards, in Wright, R. V. S. (ed.). 1971. Archaeology of the Gallus Site, Koonalda Cave. Canberra: Australian Institute for Aboriginal Studies: Plate 33. More information from originsnet.org

Seneca cavern, Ohio, carved lattice or grid pattern

Although not portable rock art, the grid, or lattice, motif is known to rock art scholars. Its possible presence in the Americas, in Ohio, may provide support for the hypothesis of paleo rock art being found here as well. I noticed two side by side grids in a Bellevue, Ohio, cavern which was present during the Pleistocene. Its surface contact points were plugged with glacial mud during the Wisconsinin glaciation which may have hidden/blocked the cave from human access for some time. The cavern was discovered by two boys rabbit hunting in the mid 19th century who stumbled onto a sinkhole which led to an entry. These grids were on a flat surface which presented a nice "seat" at the edge of a room in the cavern.

If one compares this grid to a profile of the cavern system (last photo), it seems the grid could be a kind of map. There are seven levels to the cavern and seven "ladder sections" in the middle of the grid as seen below.

Seneca cavern 25cm grid with markups highlighting lines. The starts and stops indicate the grid was constructed with deliberation greater than just etching perpendicular lines. There is small amount of modern grafitti in the cavern from the 19th and early 20th centuries before the landowner installed an iron gate. It is along the line of "James loves Harriet." Although there is no way to prove these are prehistoric grids, their underground river context similar to Koonalda's, supports their antiquity.

There were other possible art features in this cave which I plan to return to with better lighting and photography equipment. It seems North American cave art needs to be more thoroughly investigated. The landowner said no one had ever examined Seneca cavern for art before my visit.

A second 15 cm grid was next to the larger grid. (click photos to expand)

A profile map of the Seneca caverns, Bellevue, Ohio

-kbj

Rick Doninger identifies similar animal and bird figures from Tennessee

Rick Doninger found and identified animal and bird figures, west Tennessee

(click photos to expand)

Red and yellow ocher crayons were found in association with the figures

Thank you Rick for sharing your finds.

-kbj

Ronda Eldridge "just seeing things" makes find in Central Texas which compares favorably with Missouri and Maine sculptures also identified as bird forms

Ronda Eldridge find, Central Texas.

Ronda Eldridge is an avocational archaeologist and artifact collector in Central Texas. She discovered a cluster of bird forms and bird head figures in a 15 x 15 ft. section of her property, and a continuing over-abundance of zooanthropomorphic figures which defy natural attribution. Ronda will kindly be sharing photos of her finds and has more on the way because the figures are becoming so numerous now that she is able to identify them.

Stacy Dodd And Rod Weber find, 23JP1222, Missouri

Warren K. Moorehead find, Maine

Ronda wrote an excellent description of her experience, which is similarly shared by untold numbers of amateurs and avocationalists each year:

"Hi Kenneth,

My name is Ronda Eldridge and I live in central Texas.  I just finished looking over your blog and found it very interesting.  I live in an fascinating little place in "the middle of nowhere" as folks here like to say.  The property on which I live has a creek adjacent to it and there is a lot of evidence that indians lived here.  I have had fun during the last five years collecting up points, blades, etc. and recently bought some books and began doing research to help identify my artifacts.  One evening while I was out walking around, I came across a rock that looked like a bird's head.  Then another, and another.  All of these were in one area and some of them appeared to have paint on them.  There were other animal shapes and some human-looking ones as well but the amount that looked like bird heads was overwhelming. I got online and began searching for information to help me identify what I was finding and I found very little.  So, I contacted the archeology professor at the university where I teach music and he really wasn't much help.  The exchange was via email and I think he believed I was claiming to see bird bones in the rock material itself.  After that I posted some examples on a site called arrowheadology.com and I was told I was seeing things.  My husband thinks I am seeing things also.  I don't believe I am seeing things.I have found rocks that have either: natural bird shapes; natural bird shapes with "details" scratched, chipped, or painted into them; rocks that have been slightly modified to look like bird shapes; and rocks that have been outright worked to look like bird shapes.  Since this discovery, I went back into my pile of knife-type tools that I couldn't fit into one of the categories in my books and I discovered some of the bird-type figures and modifications.  

So, everyone I've talked with so far (especially my family) thinks I am crazy.  My thinking is that this land has been held/lived on by white settlers since 1850 (our homesite was a trading post and then general store/post office).  NOBODY has ever looked at this specific place (of which I am aware) for artifacts other than arrowheads.  Just the amount of rough tools (such as nutting stones, metates, etc.) indicate that this area was heavily populated....as does the creek with the beautiful tall ridge behind it.  I have found relatively few points in comparison to the amounts of tools, etc. but those points fit several ages with the oldest that I can tell being a perfect Golindrina point.  

I've attached in power point format some pictures with notes about what I believe I may be seeing. 

I could really use some advice. Am I just seeing things?

I appreciate your time.  

--Ronda Eldridge"

-kbj

A whale of a figure stone

Interpreted by Ken Johnston as a Sperm whale head figure stone

Dennis Boggs collection, Irrigon, Oregon, Columbia River valley

The base of the whale head has been ground flat so as to better support the figure and present it at the desired angle from the horizontal plane.

When viewing the "whale head" upside down, a quasi-anthropomorphic face may be seen. It is of striking similarity to another "stone face" identified by Mr. Boggs himself from the same locale.

-kbj

Sculpted Neanderthal head from Germany may have Oregon and Ohio North American analogs

Finding by rock art and tool investigator Hans Grams, Germany

"Head of a Neanderthal: 25 kilograms, 36 x 33 x 17 centimeters"

Finding by James May, at the mouth of the Columbia River gorge, Oregon, identified by Ken Johnston as a possible Neanderthal head sculpture, left profile view.

James May find, Oregon. The triangular shaped carved "eye" on this sculpture is above, and slightly to the left, of the finger in this photo.

The point at far left of the stone may be interpreted as the nose of the human head. The Germany and Oregon, USA, heads have a very similar facial profile with prominence of the mid-face. That is, the nose is seen far forward and the chins and foreheads recede from there. This is in line with the Neanderthal facial morphology as reconstructed based on fossil skull data. A similar expression of this type of facial structure is seen in this post of some smaller artifacts from Arizona and Ohio, also suspected of being Neanderthal head figures. Paleolithic art scholar and author Pietro Gaietto, indicates human heads are one of the 8 most common sculpture types of that time.

This example of a human head sculpture in flint from Ohio also has mid-facial prominence and a triangular eye as is seen the Oregon example.

-kbj

23JP1222 Missouri sculpture is similar to example from Savona, Italy

Stacy Dodd and Rod Weber find, the "Old Route 66 Zoo" site in south west Missouri. This has been interpreted as an anthropomorphic head sculpture in right profile view, with an elongated neck or stem.  Above and below photos are by, and courtesy of, figure stone investigator Alan Day, of Cambridge, Ohio.

The neck or stem on both the Missouri and Italy examples seem suitable for gripping the stone with the hand while the face could be manipulated. I hypothesize these items were used as puppets, maybe as toys or as part of a shamanistic practice of some kind. Photo by Alan Day.

Example from Italy, illustration Copyright (c) Pietro Gaietto

Gaietto writes, "Fig. 4.29) Lithic Sculpture. It represents a head of Homo sapiens sapiens with neck.
Size: Height cm. 27.
Place of origin: S.Pietro d'Olba, Savona, Italy.
Material culture: upper Paleolithc.
Worked from two sides, it is nearly a frontal representation. This type of sculpture, with high and robust neck, is present in several anthropomorphic menhirs at Carnac, with several types of Homo sapiens sapiens.
Collection Museum of the Origins of Man."

-kbj