Portable Rock Art - Flogging A Dead Horse?

Today's Eolith's post on Portable Rock Art is about horse head motifs, these all come from my usual find site. I have shared quite a few figurative examples of worked stones showing suspected horse artworks.

 A very good horse head likeness can be seen in this flint tool, this artifact contains many other motifs, just like almost all the finds displayed on this blog.

In this old post, the horse head motif almost instantly turns into an impression that looks very much like the head of a Tyrannosaurs Rex (The theory of revolution) and there are more extinct creature impressions to be seen in the stone as well (UK Tortoise - extinct for roughly 35 million years)

One of the key features of the horse head motif found in my figure stones, is the 'mane' feature, many of them have it. Perhaps this is one of the key visual indicators, or 'triggers' used to produce the impression for these prehistoric peoples, or just to make a distinction between another creature with a similar head shape?

The uncluttered flint sculpture below shows the second 'eye' feature just above and to the left of the other one and, also a curved 'muzzle' and 'mouth' impression (mouth along bottom edge), this leaves us with four possible combinations, or ways to view the suspected creature impressions. Pick an 'eye' and pick a 'muzzle' and see for yourselves. 

This piece from the previous post is not quite right either, mane, muzzle, ear and profile shape features are all good, but when it comes to choosing a feature for the 'eye' nothing seems to quite fit properly, and we end up with either a dinosaur head impression, or art intending to show the head of an eagle, or something like it.

The worked flint piece below, shows the double sided impression of a seated horse.

 The next two pictures are of the same find, I believe the item was hafted using the hole shown in the second picture. Although that would produce something similar to an axe, I'm not of the opinion that it would be very useful for chopping trees, and was more likely a weapon, the blade area is on the lower area of the 'mane'. The photo below is lacking many details, only one of which is the ocher etched 'eye'.

Below are some more worked flint finds from my site, many do seem to roughly translate as to being the horse head motif, although they could just as easily be descriptions of other creatures, some look more like dinosaur impressions or possibly other creature motifs.

Figure Stones - Simple Genus

The last post here on Eoliths was a highly complex piece of stone art, showing numerous face profiles, at least 5 bears, many hominids, many complete apes, more than one half canine, even half a tortoise and the good old elephant front leg glyph can be seen, I will compile a list at some point and share via my Google Plus.

This post is about the simple figure stone's or portable rock art finds, and how the proto language evolved into a much simpler form, well at least there is evidence that something in the prehistoric 'evolved', even if it was only communication.

 The next five pictures below are of the same flint find from my usual hunting grounds, there is just enough detail in the piece to make up nearly all of the most common glyphs, and even if details were missing, the outline may suffice to be of use to someone who was well aware of the communication technique.

Above: A simple bear head glyph facing right.

 Above: Another bear glyph right, and a horse head glyph facing left, note the white flint representing the mane and darkened muzzle area. 

 Above: The good old elephant and front leg motif, note how turning the stone 1/4 counter clockwise a simplified thumb motif can be seen pointing right.

Above: An ape face motif to the left, and a bird motif to the right. You may also notice a face likeness in the center of the stone.

 The YouTube video below shows a collection of some of those Indian Effigy Stones, these could all have been used in a very similar way, very briefly at 4:37 you will see the stone has a chip for a 'thumb nail' and is very thumb shaped. I am not of the opinion that Indians from there supposed occupational time line made these items, although that does not mean that Indians of a much earlier date didn't. If you are unaware of my views on the thumb motif refer to this post (Portable Rock Art - Rule of Thumb) I have added a picture or two since originally posting.

The Video above is provided by William Shira.

Portable Rock Art - Complex Cognition

By now many readers of Eoliths blog and collectors alike have managed to pick up the gist of this art form, and are able to read a good amount of the portable rock art common lexicon and convention, so it's about time I introduced some of my more complex pieces. These have many glyphs view-able from many angles, and are most often hominid based, showing an array of head profiles of ape like's and sometimes even sapiens sapiens face descriptions, or very close cousins. 

One thing I have noted is that these more complex figure stones quite often have a tesseract (an inverse tetrahedron) as shown in these two posts (Two Faced Figure Stone) and (Portable Rock Art - Elephant and Hominin). This piece, besides the many face profiles, has quite a few animal front half descriptions.

To get the most of this piece (well, what is being displayed) will take some effort, this time I will save on my writing and allow readers to decode the stone themselves. A few clues: not just basic shape is used as a canvas, light / shadow, pigment and fine detail were also employed.  Three different mammal front half's motifs can be found in a line, some hominid face profiles are stacked one upon another, at least seven can be seen, and if you spot the 'gnome' your probably a first class reader. You will also likely see things that I have not yet.