Portable Rock Art - Open Mouthed Monkey

Another one of my finds from the secret location here in Southern England. Only three things can easily be interpreted in this stone, the most interesting of which is the open mouthed chimp like depiction. This could also be interpreted in the previous post and in the cretaceous portable rock art find. Tiny micro fractures were used in the cortex of the flint in order to chip away and create the eye features.

Two Faced - Figure Stone

This figure stone from my find site has flake removal scars in many places, the most interesting of which is the inverse tetrahedron that makes up the eye feature, also shown in the previous post. Some kind of pigment was also used to enhance the eye. 

In the animation below an ape like face (probably sub-human) transforms into an almost lioness facial likeness. Another one eyed transforming face can be seen in this other piece of portable rock art, Face to Face.

Another face can be seen leftwards in the picture below.

From another angle a more gorilla like head profile can be seen along the left edge.

An elephant head profile can be seen with trunk curled under, top left in the picture below. The curled trunk makes up the brow ridge.

Portable Rock Art - Elephant and Hominin

This worked flint stone from my site has two of the most common motifs found in portable rock art, both in an upright position and both on the same side of the stone. The elephant and front leg glyph can be seen facing right and the hominin head profile motif can be seen near the left edge, center. A very similar looking hominin shape can be seen in this post on Eoliths of a flint tool three times ----> Standing Flint Tool Hominid Face

Flint Tool - Portable Rock Art shows Apes

This flint tool from my finds site has some ape like faces, two of the faces can be seen at each end of the tool, front on, but only showing one side, something noted on a few finds on this blog. The face on the larger edge looks gorilla like and on the smaller edge sub human. The outside larger edge also shows a face profile on both sides of the blade tool. Many retouch flake removal scars can be seen on this piece of portable rock art, the black material is likely tar or resin.

Wolf and Horse Portable Rock Art and Flint Tool

Another flint tool from my find site that shows the horse head glyph and possibly a double sided depiction of the Egyptian Jackal or African Wolf, I also notice the elephant and front leg motif is incorporated into the horse head, another convention noted in previous finds of mine. The blade or cutting surface of this flint tool is along the bottom of the figurative neck area.

Rule of Thumb - Portable Rock Art Motif

Something I have been aware of for a few years is the Thumb motif found on my site and in other hand axes and blade tools. I have already shown a number of hand shapes in my poly iconic materials and perhaps there is a similar meaning to these icons. I have long suggested that these motifs are actually visual language devices rather than art per se. I have found many suspected thumb shapes from my find site and have seen others, both recognized and unrecognized both in flint tool form or just as worked stones. So what is the meaning of this motif? Many portable rock art finds contain images of hominids and apes, usually in head profile form, and there is a great variety of both, all of these motifs can be replaced by the thumb motif. So instead of carving various ape and hominid head profiles, prehistoric men could of carved a thumb shape to indicate all, allow me to explain a little further. One of the unique features of hominids is opposable thumbs, so this motif would cover all hominids. On a double sided piece direction of travel could be easily indicated, furthermore when the piece is turned upside down this could indicate all apes and monkeys, as the thumb would be in the position it is on monkeys hands rather than the natural position it is in on the hands of humans and hominids.

This is a Flint hand Axe found in Kent Uk, a thumb shape and nail can be seen. Source: www.stoneagetools.co.uk 

Below: A selection of 3 thumb shapes found from my find site, The top one is also a blade tool.

Below another one of my UK thumb finds.

 

The Two Flint tool finds below were both found in North America and Both show the Thumb Motif.

Picture Lost somehow? empty space deleted 13/10/2021

From Ebay, another combination elephant half and thumb motif.

Below: From my find site here in the UK, another combination thumb and elephant front leg motif.

Below: The images to the left are drawings of an eolith, recovered from layers dated to at least 2 million years old. Again elephant half and combined thumb motifs can be seen.

Is this neolithic? polished hand axe carrying comparatively modern traces of figurative art?

Image source: The British Museum, link has further details about the find.

USA stone below: The bottom picture also shows the Elephant and front leg motif, thumb shape and claw.

Prehistoric Stone Toy or Decision making Device?

Another stone from my site that shows various face profiles, hominid, ape and feline and other prehistoric language elements. But is there a little more to this piece of portable rock art than first meets the eye? The stone has a kind of trigger/lever which can be used to spin the device and a gouged chevron, which presumably was used to indicate direction. The Item could of been used rather like spin the bottle, as a toy or gaming device, or to make decisions about direction of travel or who should go and collect the dinosaur stakes for supper.

Russian Mammoth Flint Sculpture

Yesterdays post of one of my finds got me searching for other examples of clearly worked flint portable rock art. I came across this example in Early Art of the Northern Far East a book by Russian author M. A. Kiriyak (Dikova) (English Translation by Richard L. Bland). The find was found in Ushki which is far to the east of Russia. Check page 66, Dikova talks of other mammoth finds being covered in paint and having traces of red ocher, and even seated, just like mine.

This mammoth sculpture is also in the form of a flint tool, a very subtle feline face can be seen on the posterior of the mammoth motif. The white lines making a triangle for the ear shape, the white spot to the right of that becoming the 'eye' the vertical line on the rump making a triangle muzzle of the suspect feline motif. You can also see a feline like head profile on the posterior of the mammoth motif shown on my example in the previous post.

I would like you to think about what this could possibly mean, as far as prehistoric people from very distant parts of the world sharing common symbolgy and common conventions within that symbology.

Flint tool shows Mammoth Iconography?

This piece of portable rock art from my find site shows the possible outline of a mammoth and also has a a subtle face profile on its posterior (probably sub-human), as well as other iconography. Unlike any other suspected mammoth interpretation I am aware of, this flint also doubles as a cutting tool, so its an artifact in its own right.

Other amateur portable rock art collectors have also recognized the mammoth with face on posterior convention, mainly in North America, the clearest example of this convention can be seen here (last image), although I suggest that the motifs in this example show Elephant and Human.

Canadian Swan Motif

This Piece found in Grand Falls NB by Carol Cyr shows the same swan motif as shown in my previous post of a find from my site here in the UK. Both could also show the elephant head and front leg motif, if rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise whilst covering  the 'head' of the 'swan'.

Carol an artist has been collecting Portable Rock Art for 10 years, and has amassed a large collection. The fact that matching motifs can be found in places all over the world points to a common unknown culture way back in Earths history. More of Carols collection can be seen at the Rock Art Museum.

Swan and Ape Portable Rock Art

Here we have the carved and possibly painted image of a water bird. The Swan like bird impression is shown bending its head backwards and cleaning its feathers, this is a well known portable rock art motif, others found in Canada and America. To the left of this flint artwork a face profile of an ape can be seen.

I thought I would share this with you also, this is the piece shown in an earlier post Standing Cloaked Figure. A complete face profile can be seen facing right, could this be an artistic impression of the head and neck of a relative to the Spinosaurus? An ape face profile can also be seen, facing left, just to the left of center.

Cretaceous Portable Rock Art Find Recovery.

The Cretaceous period runs from 66 to 145 Million years ago, or there about, it gets its name from the German word for chalk. A friend filmed me finding and recovering an artifact embedded in a cretaceous layer, so I thought I would share it. You may notice a strong resemblance to a motif found in an earlier find, the same heavy set brow ridge and bump on the back of the 'head' as in this piece, showing a suspected Australopithecus.

Prehistoric Animated Robed Figurines

A selection of seven recent flint finds from my site collected from my last two visits.  All can be manipulated in the hand to show an animated cloaked figure likeness, as though walking both right and left. They all share some common characteristics, the four shown in the top row (pictures at end of the post) have a protrusion to one side, this can be used as a lever to rotate each piece in the hand to create the animations.  I've long theorized that many of these artefacts are held between thumb and forefinger and rotated with the middle finger in order to reveal the hidden animations, the side protrusions can be used in exactly this way to rotate the pieces clockwise and anticlockwise in order to create the walking figure effect. Other common features seen here are a double chevron in order to describe the hood of the robe and a downward slant from the top of the hood to the front, the point of the hood becoming an axle on which to rotate. This topology can most likely be found in hand axes and other flint tools.

Although these finds are not the the finest of modified flints from my site the visual impression they can produce is more than adequate to describe a cloaked figure walking both left and right. These are not my only finds that show walking animations. The stone featured in this recent post Standing Cloaked Figure  could also be manipulated in the hand to make the stone describe a figure walking both left and right.

Above a prehistoric robed figure likeness is shown walking rightwards.

The same flint artefact as shown in the previous animation, this time as though walking left.

These next two animations from the same flint find also show a similar cloaked figure likeness, again as though walking both left and right.

Above, this stone also seems to have a subtle walking hominid impression, as though walking right, as well as the cloaked figure animations. Its not as fine as an artwork as this gorilla animation from omniglyths, which I also suspect could be manipulated in order to produce a walking like effect. Another more skilfully animated gorilla impression can be seen in the old post Prehistoric Optical Illusions.

 Above and below, two more walking robed figure animations from the same worked flint find.

Above and below, stills of the seven recent finds, look for the double chevrons on the hood features, this is one of the keys in creating the impression.

Fossilized Painted Ape Face profile on Flint Tool.

Another piece from my site, this worked white flint has a very good ape face profile likeness. Although no chemical analysis has been done on this piece of portable rock art, the only logical conclusion would be that the face has been painted on. The 'eye' feature has been enhanced by tiny micro fractures visible in the photo. Apart from that there are no visible signs of flake removal in order to enhance what would otherwise be considered natural inclusions in the flint. The surface is mostly smooth, indicating the 'paint' has been petrified into the patina.

Above: An ape face profile on the right facing left. Also a possible egg motif on the left of the stone.

Above: The right of the flint has many flake removal scars in order to shape and sharpen this flint tool, the cortex to the left may also describe some face profiles.

Human fossilized jawbone puts man in America not thousands but possibly millions of years earlier than thought.

More finds from The Fisher Site in Virginia, I have identified this as a piece of human mandible (jaw bone) a full set of lower front teeth are visible and the molars on the left side, it was found alongside carved stone pieces and other possible human remains beneath a layer of volcanic ash, the last volcano known to of erupted in Virginia has been dated to 35 million years ago. In Keith Fisher's own words, a brief description of his find site: 

'I have only been in a very small fraction of the permitted area. Two small areas, within 20 feet from each other. Everything that I have found is within the 20 ft. mark. Tephra has coated everything below the iron ore and sediment. Roughly 60 ' above sea level. All artifacts and ancient remains are found together. It is very difficult to know what you have found because it is hidden below the tephra surface. The jaw and teeth that is in question, has been in my possession for over a year. It took me countless inspections of this object before I could recognize what it may have been.  It takes time. 6 to 12 inches below the steam level there is a bright blue vein of fine material that contains all. I believe that the volcanic eruption ties everything together.'

Above: Note the mental foraman, the small pit in roughly the center of the photo.

Above: From left to right, the left side canine tooth, four incisors, the right canine tooth and two premolars.

It takes at minimum roughly 10,000 years for bone to become petrified but that requires special circumstances and I am unaware of any such fossilized human remains found in America , The mandible has completely turned to stone, such petrified Human remains are extremely rare anywhere on any continent.  The most striking feature of the specimen is the protruding chin, Humans and elephants are the only species to carry such a feature,  The teeth placement and alignment match the configuration of humans. The mental foramen (small hole in the front lower jaw matches human placement and parameters.

The above photo is used under Creative Commons from this scientific paper in the following link: Morpholoical and Morpometric Study of the Mental Foramen on the M-CP-18 Jiachenjiang Point

 The mandible was found alongside figurative artworks, carved stones using the same paleo language as human made artifacts from my own Site here in the UK. Many of the carved stones found in association with the human jawbone appear to show long extinct creatures such as dinosaurs, and interestingly elephants, not mammoths or mastodons as large ear shapes are present in the carved rock images, I have displayed many such elephant like carvings on this blog before to demonstrate a repeat topology in my worked flint tool finds. More finds of Keith Fisher's are detailed in these two earlier posts of mine, 35 Million Year Old Unique Lithic's and Indian Tools, Elephant, Bear And Dinosaur Likenesses 

I have long been a proponent of an ancient date for portable rock art finds, others in the field often describe ape like images as being attempts at carvings of humans, Ignoring what they see in an attempt to link such images to ice age cultures, the same goes for there mammoth interpretations often ignoring the color of the find and and large ear shapes present. North America until very recently had no fossil record of apes or monkeys, but recent finds suggest otherwise, check the following link here .  

Keith has many more finds that he suspect's to be human bone fragments, mostly teeth, all from his find site and also many figure stone pieces. More post's to come from the Fisher Site in the near future.