German Dziebel's presentation "Interpreting Archaeological Signatures Before Clovis"
03 March 2015
India human head profile appears to have worked facial features including two nostrils in correct location
From India, human head with eye, two nostrils and mouth, Thath Chanuhacha collection, Bangkok, Thailand.
The facial features appear to be worked but this would need be confirmed by a petrologist. The two nostrils in anatomically and artistically correct location suggest this piece was indeed humanly worked.
28 February 2015
"Right eye open, left eye missing" Eurasian Paleolithic rock art motif identified in Arkansas among now dozens of North American examples
"Right eye open, left eye missing" Eurasian Paleolithic art motif found in Arkansas
Human agency would be confirmed by careful scientific examination of this stone but Archaeology does not want to open up any new cans of worms because it does not operate like a science. It would rather maintain the status quo and preserve dogmas and research budgets than generate new knowledge, despite its reliance on the good public for almost all of its funding. Is Archaeology serving itself or humanity's need to know more about its past?
"Right eye open, left eye missing" Paleolithic art motif found in the Netherlands in a context >300,000 years before present. Collection of Jan van Es.
Either Neanderthals made it to North America or other humans carrying their art and tool traditions were present here.
26 February 2015
Kavinda Dharmisiri's zoomorphic and anthropomorphic yellow sapphire stone, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Interpreted as an animal head facing right by Kavinda. Because this stone is likely from the Lower Paleolithic it is not likely to be a dog but is more likely to be an animal present in Sri Lanka during that time.
"Dear Mr Johnston
I'm from Sri Lanka and I have this natural rock formation of a rough yellow sapphire rock which was found about 60 years ago from a gem mine in Ratnapura, Sri Lanka. It belonged to my grandfather who was a gem merchant. One side of the rock resembles a human face and the other side a dog's face which is quite interesting and I was searching about such findings on the internet and came across your blog about portable rock art and thought of submitting you these images of it hoping I could get a better understanding about it.. whether it's a natural rock formation or a portable rock art..
I believe it looks similar to the "one eye open, other eye closed" figure stone which i saw on your blog.
Length = 6 cm
Width = 5.3 cm
Depth = 3.3 cm
These type of findings are not common in our country and this stone was quite popular back in the day that it even got published in local newspapers..
i understand that it might be difficult to comment on such a finding by just looking at the images.. though it would be great if you could express your opinion about this rock formation..
Thanks and Regards
A nose has been manufactured by a human by incising two lines which terminate at their intersection to form a "V" shape. The location in the nose area between the eyes and its precise execution argue strongly for this being an artifact. There may also be stone removal in the figure's mouth area as highlighted by the oval marking.
A second rough human head profile facing left appears when the stone is rotated slightly to the right from the orientation in the photo at top.
Third human face figuration is in Lower and Middle Paleolithic paleoart motif of "right eye open, left eye missing." The right eye is circled, the "missing" left eye is marked by the triangle, distortion of the left side of the face under the eye is characteristic of this motif and is made of an arching line, mouth circled at bottom.
24 February 2015
Austin, Texas, PAC-MAN like anthropomorphic stone found in a strong portable rock art context helps confirm it as a widespread motif
PAC-MAN like anthropomorphic stone, David Boies find, Austin, Texas
This sculpture found by David Boies near Austin, Texas, is yet another example of a recurring form from portable rock art bearing sites which have been featured on this blog. This one helps confirm this PAC-MAN like form as a broad formal motif which must have had a cultural significance to the people who made and used them. They have been described from Oregon, Tennessee and Mississippi- and now Texas.
Tennessee example in center with two Oregon examples at the ends
The subject of stone toys has been raised here before and its seems possible these simple heads could have used for child play or puppetry. David Boies noted this figure's resemblance to a frog.
1) At far left are flake removals, possibly made to accommodate a human grip of the stone.
2) The lines forming a funnel shape indicate an area which may have been used and patinated by a human finger in the grip of the object. It could also be that the sharp corner of the figure's mouth was used as a scraper tool and this caused the wear and patination in the funnel area.
3) The circle around the eye may indicate a natural stone feature which was exploited or it could be human made pigmentation by birch bark resin or the like.
4) The black line indicates an approximate edge of this stone before it was humanly modified. A large hunk of the stone was removed at an approximate 100 degree angle to depict an open or laughing mouth.
The flake removal at left and the mouth at right indicate this is an artifact and not a natural coincidence. Several individual stone removal points with the same or similar patination are highly unlikely on a natural rock. Natural scars on stones have differing patinas because they are so spread out in time.
22 February 2015
Human head with big lips facing left, Stacy Dodd and Rod Weber find, near Joplin, Missouri
The sculpture stands upright in this position. The human face is looking left and skyward and the horned bovid head profile is facing right.
Blue line marks the human and animal heads joined together and facing in opposite directions like the mythological two-headed Janus. This is a known paleoart motif described by early sculpture author Pietro Gaietto. The bovid could be a muskox which appears in other examples of portable rock art. The "Harlans Muskox" had downward pointed horns which curve out when viewed from the front but which appear straighter than they are when the animal is seen in side profile view as in this example.
"Sculptures of lower and middle Paleolithic are eight types:
1) human head
2) animal head
3) human head two-faced
4) animal head two-faced
5) human head joined for the neck at the head of animal
6) human head mixed to animal head
7) naked woman (Venus)
8) head of animal with human body."
20 February 2015
Colorado hand axe with human facial profile suggests relation to the Acheulean tradition in the Old World
Chris Schram find, Big Dry Creek, Westminster, Colorado
Objects like this encountered by North American archaeologists are often categorized as "pre forms" as if they are too crude to be finished tools. They are not aware of Old World art and tool traditions or stone working techniques other than free hand knapping. Large caches of so-called pre-forms should be re-evaluated to see if they may be completed tools which have not yet been well described here. Some could be indicators of very old archaeological sites.
This small axe was retouched to include a crude human face in right profile along the right edge of the tool composed of an eye, a nostril and a mouth. This helps confirm its link to Old World Acheulean traditions (the "decorated bi-faces".)
17 February 2015
Lower Paleolithic feline head sculpture from the French Pyrenees is predictive of ceramic art in Czech Republic tens of thousands of years later
Feline head sculpture, Henri Valentie find, Pyrenees range, France
Mr. Valentie writes: "Here is a feline head found in the Pyrenees at 1200 m altitude in context of Lower Paleolithic tools. The dimensions are 34/22/8cm. All around has been retouched."
The tool context would suggest an age of greater than 300,000 years for this sculpture. While it may be dismissed as too crude by some, we must remember the mainstream art and archaeology establishments do not think early humans such as Homo erectus or Homo heidelbergensis were capable of or made even crude figurative art.
Reproduction of a ceramic lion head from the Dolní Věstonice Museum in Czech republic. This lion head is also depicted as having a right eye but the left eye is expressed as a blank space- or as missing. This demonstrates the persistence of this art motif from Lower to Upper Paleolithic contexts. The ceramic lion head is about 30,000 years old.
Henri Valentie find, Île d'Oléron, France, 11/8.5/4cm
With certain layout and spacing humans cannot help but recognize a simple face on a stone like this. When the stone is found in an archaeological context it can be reasonably deduced that it was also noticed in the past. Independent portable rock researcher Alan Day has written an article on this subject "Recognizing Faces in Lithic Artifacts (Figure Stones): A Neuroscientific Perspective"
13 February 2015
Lower Paleolithic art motif of "faces on diamonds," diamond shaped stones and a mammoth head figure at Mammoth Spring, Arkansas, compare directly to finds in Northern Virginia
Four new faces on diamond shaped stones, Mammoth Spring, Arkansas, Jeff Vincent finds.
The largest one in the middle was featured earlier on this blog. Ursel Benekendorff of Hamburg, Germany, has described this motif from a Lower Paleolithic context in Northern Germany. Archaeology must ask itself "What is this motif doing in North America?"
Close up of a "face on diamond" artifact.
More diamond shapes Jeff Vincent has identified at Mammoth Spring, Arkansas. Jeff hypothesizes these could be abstract "bird in flight" figures when viewed in a horizontal rather than vertical orientation.
In 2012 I speculated these shapes may be heavy duty borer/burins and made this illustration based on my Ohio observations.
Arkfeld Site, #44FK731, Clear Brook, Virginia, mammoth head figure found in a strong context of many mammoth figures and diamond shaped stones.
identified at the Spout Run Site, Bluemont, Virginia, and featured earlier on this blog.
11 February 2015
A ground sloth and horse head combination sculpture in petrified wood from Big Dry Creek, Westminster, Colorado
Chris Schram find, Big Dry Creek, Westminster, Colorado, in a watershed Chris has documented is rich in humanly worked petrified wood figure stones and sculptures. Interpreted by Chris in the field as a standing bear from behind with its head turned to the left.
The depiction of the posture of the animal is highly suggestive of a ground sloth. A stub of a thicker tail than a bear tail seems to also be depicted. There is precedence for sloth portable rock art in the United States as evidenced by the Arkfeld site example made on a stone featuring a natural face mask and found in a palaeoart context.
Animal head (bear, sloth) is defined by human modification of the stone, illustrated by line markings.
Published scholars in Ice Age rock art such as R. Dale Guthrie and Barbara Olins-Alpert have described many of the human and animal images as having a cartoonish appearance. We also can see this in their portable rock art. The cartoon-like appearance is due to reduction of the visages to their most simplistic and evocative forms and having to translate these natural forms into the hardness and stubbornness of rock.
This kind of polymorphic sculpture is seen in many examples on this blog and the combinations of the animals, such as horse and sloth, likely had an understood cultural significance to the Ice Age makers and users of these objects.
05 February 2015
In search for the earliest Americans, Archaeology has painted itself into a corner with focus on flaked chert and spearpoints
Nadia Clark find, Prescott, Arizona
Bird figure found in a context of many bird stone finds and tools identified by Nadia as quartzite microliths. Archaeology has not yet been able to identify the lithic art or tools which might correspond with any pre-Clovis (>13,000 years ago) peoples. The art objects being found and described by amateurs must be considered a proxy for identification of tools which may not yet be described in the Americas.
101 bird figures from Nadia's back yard
Close up of some bird stones
Microliths (1-3 cm) all found together on Nadia's property. These are worked quartzite tools which produced a pattern of morphology which Nadia is unable to dismiss as a natural coincidence. With the presence of figurative art at the same small site at Prescott, Arizona, these items require further study rather than immediate dismissal by archaeologists. These look to have been used in the fingers rather than as elements of composite tools but I still use the term microlith to describe their diminutive size.
Tools like this are common to the Acheulean period in East Asia, as are crude hammers and choppers.
Despite art and tools in line with Old World finds, American archaeologists cannot see it because they have been educated to focus on flaked chert. This is just a small fraction of all the lithic material left by the earliest Americans and has left American Archaeologists stuck around the 15,000 years before present date for the presence of the first Americans. Sophisticated balanced and heat treated wooden spears have been identified in Europe at around 300,000 years ago. Archaeologists would have us believe no early people in America used wooden spears and non-chert tools, or made portable rock art. With dense populations of humans in east Asia around 800,000 years before present and the Beringia land bridge being open 200,000 of the past 500,000 years, it seems unlikely the first humans arrived in America just 15,000 years ago.
Amateurs have not been prejudiced by the dogmas of academic archaeology and use common sense to identify concentrations of tools and art. A real science is always open to anomalous finds and has a way to accept them or reject them based on its developed methodologies.
Despite the occasional call for more involvement of avocationalists, Archaeology does not operate in this way. Archaeology blows off amateurs with novel observations as if it already knows all there is to know. This hubris renders Archaeology impotent to do the work required to identify the material culture signatures of the earliest Americans. With a continued focus on flaked chert tools as the required evidence of the earliest Americans, Archaeology will never identify who they were.
04 February 2015
Acheulean handaxe with bird, human and animal imagery demonstrates how iconic flints may turn up in private or museum "tool" collections
Acheulean handaxe, (15 x 7 cm). From Calvados (Normandy) West of Paris Basin. Private tool collection. Acheulean -550,000 - 300,000 BP
A likely animal head and neck figure facing left, possibly horse
Bird figuration with tail feathering on the handaxe form
Simple anthropomorphic pointed head facing right with eye detail
Handaxe in the Acheulean tradition is also a bird-form
These icons may also be seen in a petrified wood figure stone with bird, human and horse imagery found by Chris Schram in Westminster, Colorado. The human faces are depicted on the bulging breast of the birds in both the France and Colorado examples.