Portable Rock Art - Gone Ape.

Three animations from a recent portable rock art hunt on my secret UK find site. Are these prehistoric art from a time when Gorillas or Apes lived in England? If these are just random rocks then surely any likeness and topology of which could just as easily be found? This would put the burden of proof on any who don't believe what they see to find three similar images, say of Scooby Doo, a Womble or Sponge Bob Square Pants, to prove that chaos is responsible. 

The three flint finds with ape or gorilla like impressions were found fairly easily, I did not meticulously search for these images.

Prehistoric art of an ape?

A side on gorilla or ape image can be seen in this figure stone, even a nipple description is present. Other motifs already documented on this blog can also be seen, for example the elephant head and front leg.

An ape of gorilla like face description can be seen.

Dinousour Fossills - Figure Stones.

This collection of fossils are all surface finds from my usual artifact hunting grounds.  These areas are steep chalk down lands laid  in the cretaceous period.  In this  location erosion has lead to  some very ancient flint tool and prehistoric art finds as well.

So what dinosaurs do these fossils come from and how old are they?

its hard to be sure, some are very close to fossils of known species, a good paleontologist should be able to tell us. As for age and the fossils being flint all we can be sure of is that they were laid down at least 70MYA being from cretaceous layers, but some could just as easily have been fossils back then.

Theropod toe claw is an obvious suggestion for this one and size wise would be that of a large adult. 

Figuratively it covers the basics for paleo communication, elephant head, feline front half, phallus, thumb, pointing finger, bovine, bird, gorilla strut and yes it says theropod claw very well. This was also something of a status symbol most likely.

 This one is also most likely a claw although it has fang like features, Pterosaur wing claw?. This could easily be used as a piercing tool and figurative device fossilized or not. An interesting bird optical illusion can be seen.

This one has a tooth like point to the right and a hand guard and grip, for those with smaller hands. This one could have been a worked piece of jaw bone before fossilization into flint. This one says fish no matter which way round it is.

 

 Another claw, this time from something less predatory? This item has the basic paleo language shape.

 This is a piece of a jaw bone, the remains of two molar like wide spaced teeth can be seen.

 This item was already a flint fossil before any workmanship was carried out. Use of pigment can be seen.

Further reading:

• Eoliths: Ancient Flint Tools from Tertiary Layers
• Figure Stones: Portable Rock Art & Prehistoric Faces
• Portable Rock Art: Ancient Carvings & Symbolic Stones

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.

Cutting Edge Paleolithic Tool Set

These eight white flint tools are all from my find site. The site produces every kind of flint tool, adze, awls, scrapers, axes, knifes, burin's and bill hooks, with the exception of arrow heads. I usually post the most figurative examples, but these show less iconography than my usual prehistoric lithic implement posts.

The two photos below are from the same flint scraper.

Above, an ape like face profile can be seen looking right, and also a horse head profile also faces right.

Above the reverse side has a subtle human like face profile facing left.

The next four pictures show an adze, but it also makes a good awl and blade tool

Above, a familiar looking face profile can be seen on the right, looking left, probably that of a hominid. 

Above, notice the re-touch along the bottom edge, making some nice serrations.

Above, three more prehistoric blade tools each one also carries likely figurative content.

The next three pictures are of a serrated knife, it shows signs of hafting.

The next two pictures also show a prehistoric serrated blade tool, this could also be used as an awl.

These two pictures show an axe like tool, although its a little small for chopping trees. flake removal scars suggest an attempt at creating iconography but as for the figurative depictions, I am unsure.

Flint Blade Tool with Centralized Fossil Sea Shell

Another blade tool from my site but also looks like a figure stone, as always face profiles are numerous in my materials. Suspected hominid side on views and a subtle elephant impressionist artwork. The fossil sea shell is perfectly centralized, which I have identified as a possible Diodora shell (Keyhole Limpet) Late Cretaceous till recent. This is not my only tool find with a fossil inclusion, this Mesolithic pick has a suspected rare Spriggina fossil of the Pre-Cambrian period 550MYA+.

Suspected Diodora fossil close up pictured in the flint tool above, 5mm across.

The reverse side of the Flint Blade with suspected elephant impression facing right, and suspected hominid head profile facing left.

A well known Paleolithic hand axe find also showing a centralized fossil sea shell (from the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge)

Further reading:

• Eoliths: Ancient Flint Tools from Tertiary Layers
• Figure Stones: Portable Rock Art & Prehistoric Faces
• Portable Rock Art: Ancient Carvings & Symbolic Stones

Lithic Topology

Some very straight forward shape and or petroglyph content comparisons, of finds from my site.

My old favorite elephant and front leg is here plenty, I will leave it at that for suspected iconic creature content, enjoy ;-)

3 of the 4 here are blade tools as well as poly iconic.