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This material is presented for consideration by anyone with an interest in the early habitation of North America, describing artifacts first recognized and re- corded in 1987 at an unglaciated hilltop site in southeastern Ohio. These have appeared in large quantity, at depths of from near the surface to well below, and the surface of this large site has only been scratched. At this time, five doctorate-level professionals - geologists, petrologists, anthropologists, and a forensic biologist - have identified human agency in both lithic and organic material. The Ohio Historic Preservation Office has included the site in the Ohio Archaeological Inventory, recognizing evidence of prehistoric habitation, although they are unable at this point to identify temporal or cultural associa- tion. Since they lack the funding and staffing needed even to keep up with Ohio's many popularly recognized "Indian" sites, this is as far as their involve- ment seems likely to progress. Some of the Artifacts - click images to expand:
The age of these artifacts has not yet been determined, but their quantity, con- sistency of form, distinctive carving marks, and representation of bird and shaman-like hybrid bird-human images indicate that they are of human manu- facture. Several spirally fractured deer bones have been unearthed, strongly suggesting human activity. Human hair, usually dark brown and often uncut, has appeared in direct context with the lithic artifacts. Some of the hairs were submitted to the Center for the Study of the First Americans, where the late Dr. Robson Bonnichsen identified them as human. Genetics researcher Dr. Tom Gilbert attempted mitochondrial DNA analysis of other hairs from the site, but unfortunately none of their DNA had survived, despite their outward appear- ance of being in good condition. It is hoped that hairs might appear that have been adequately protected from moisture, and freezing and thawing. One of the hairs remaining after the necessarily destructive attempt at DNA extraction has been verified by Dr. Scott Moody, professor of forensic biology at Ohio University, as being obviously human and apparently quite old. Dr. Moody has also identified artificially dyed plant fibers in context with the artifact material.
Whatever the age of this material might prove to be, it seems to point to an important if unrecognized anthropological and cultural phenomenon - the virtually ubiquitous shaman-like bird-human figure characterizing the rock art at this site, remarkably consistent in its arrangement of readily identifiable sub- components. Strangely, this figure incorporates iconography quite evident in modern but traditional Inuit/Yupik art, and also present in European Paleolithic artifacts, as well as in Australian material of unknown age. The presence of "portable rock art" or "mobile rock art" has been recognized in European arti- fact material, and is starting to be seen for what it is at sites in North America. At this site and others, it is often incorporated into simple lithic tools. From the huge quantity of lithic artifact material, it seems that this site, with its commanding view and ample water supply, must have seen more than just part-time habitation. The possibility that it might predate the "Clovis" period is suggested not so much by the relative crudeness of the tools as by the ab- sence, so far, of spear heads and projectile points associated with big game hunting. The likely functions of these implements suggest an economy based less on hunting than on foraging and scavenging, although human-modified bones of animals as large as deer have appeared at the site. This author's guess, based partly on geological and stratigraphic factors and largely on speculation, is that the material at this site dates from several thousand years before the present. If not temporally "pre-Clovis", it certainly is technologically, and may represent the lithic tools from which Clovis and later technology evolved (proto-Clovis). Or, it may simply have coexisted for some time with the currently more recognized and familiar flint implements, serving when and where these were not readily available. (Several small picks and scrapers of non-local flint are present at this site.) At this point, the actual age of this officially unrecognized yet professionally verified artifact material is of less interest than the simple fact that it is present. Scatterings of similar material bearing the characteristic carved imagery have been found in parts of Ohio that, unlike this site, were flattened by glaciation, suggesting that the material in the northernmost of those areas is less than 14,000 years old (unless, of course, it simply survived where it was earlier, or was carried in by a glacier). Dave Gillilan in Pickaway County, Ohio (glacial boundary) recently discovered, at a depth of about 1.5 m (5'), a deliberately buried cache of artifacts quite similar in form and composition to those at Day's Knob, but generally more refined, and accompanied by flint and quartz points, blades, etc. characteristic of the Late Archaic Period (roughly 2000 years BP). And some of the other artifacts in context are very strange, including non-utilitarian objects of iron that have been tentatively radiocarbon dated to roughly 400 AD.
The lithic artifacts found so far at Day's Knob are carved, chipped, split, and/or abraded mainly from the local limestone, sandstone, hematite, and soft yellow ochre. Heavy V-profile incision and carving marks (probably decorative or symbolic in most cases) are a distinctive characteristic of this assemblage. A few of the simple tools are made from non-local igneous (sometimes volcanic) or metamorphic rock. The site is well south of the glacial boundary, beyond even the extent of glacial outwash; also, it is on a hill rising about 120 meters (400') above any creek beds in which such material might appear. It seems reasonable to assume that this material was imported by the site's inhabitants.
There are a few small flint tools, several
scrapers
and one gouge or pick, as well as numerous apparently imported flint
pebbles. Why there are not more flint implements is
somewhat of a mystery, but it is evident that the hard lime- stone abundant
at the site was adequate for the population's needs at the time (it is
quite capable of cutting wood, for example); they just
used what was there, and flint does not occur
naturally in Guernsey County. Apparently they were unaware that 21st
century AD lithics experts had not approved their material for tool making.
The original expectation was to deal here only with the
artifacts appearing at Day's Knob, but it has subsequently (and not surprisingly)
become clear that material of very similar form and incorporated
iconography is to be found in many
places in North America (as far away as California), and, rather unexpec-
tedly, in other parts of the world.
Among professionally excavated potentially "pre-Clovis" sites in North
America, it almost certainly is present (even if not recognized) at Topper
beneath the Clovis-age strata, and at Gault among
diagnostically Clovis-age material.
Several
visitors to this website, collectors and amateur archaeologists in the USA
and even Europe, have contacted this author to show very similar material
they have found. At least two in the USA
had already independently identified their finds as obvious artifacts, and
the European contributors (apparently having fewer preconceptions) have been doing this
for some time now (for example, among other longtime investigators, Ursel Benekendorff
in Ger- many). Individual interpretations of the material vary
(typically as "literal" de- pictions of various animals, less
evolved human physiognomies, etc.) and usually differ from those of this
author, but this is not important now (the "experts" will
eventually pontificate endlessly on all this once they have be- come aware
of it) - the objects are clearly artificial and
of essentially the same morphology
and incorporated symbolic motifs, particularly significant in the context of the early habitation of North America.
And the overall implications for the worldwide migration timeline are
obvious. The visitors' contributions, and some of this
author's finds from Scotland and Australia, can be seen
by clicking these links:
At Day's Knob the lithic artifact material
so far gives the probably deceptive appearance of a single cultural layer, and very likely this is the case at
other North American habitation sites that have been overlooked because the
objects are not
typically "Indian". Aside from the largely discredited "Clovis first" theory, two (among many)
assumptions stand in the
way of recognizing much of the Native American artifact
material. These are the notions that all smaller tools must be made of flint
or similar rock, and that the remains of very early habitation must in all
cases be overlain by more recent artifacts. Neither of these
assumptions is logical or supported by evidence in other parts of the
world, but they are part of the belief system forming the basis of American
archaeology.
____________________
Bird Forms
____________________
Strangely enough, in
most cases the functional tools
at Day's Knob are formed at least abstractly in the shape of birds or
bird-humans, which clearly played
a dominant role in the belief system (animism/shamanism?) of the people that left these
mysterious objects behind. Most of the bird forms have a rounded or even
anthropomorphic face, but
the overall morphology, and an eye distinctly carved in the appropriate place, are unmistakable when one even casually looks for
them.
Tools
and/or decorative/symbolic objects ("portable art") of this form have
also appeared in other
parts of the world; some of these are claimed to date from several hundred
thousand years ago, and the easily recognized form persists in tools well
into the Neolithic.
______________
Decorative Besides being fashioned from
rock, some of the primarily symbolic or decor- ative bird figures at
Day's Knob are fashioned from various organic materials.
(Click
images below for details:)
Plant
Fossil(?)
Wood
Walnut Shell
Clay/Hair
________________The Bird Spirit
(Bird-Human)________________
Even more frequently
than the actual bird form, the image of a hybrid bird-human creature
appears - referred to here as the "Bird Spirit". (Since
this author seems to have discovered it, at least in this context, he
presumably can call it whatever he likes.) Whatever the age of this
site might prove to be, the Bird Spirit image in itself is probably of
considerable anthropological signifi- cance, being apparently of quite
ancient and primal origin. In artifacts of the European Paleolithic
it appears consistently, resembling in small detail the image here, and
persists quite identifiably into modern but traditional Inuit/Yupik
("Eskimo") "transformation
art". (Actually, it has subsequently come to this author's
attention that the Inuit and Yupik have been calling this bird-human figure
"Bird Spirit", or even just "bird", for a very
long time. Oops! So much for this author's originality...)
The figure also appears in Australia, and almost
certainly in many other parts of the world.
For a
while, this author was tentatively identifying numerous figures on stone
tools as animals such as bear and wildcat. Then came the
discovery of what appeared to be the image of a human head made of a hard
clay/ochre/plant amalgam, half buried at the bottom of a washed out rut in the
"driveway" up the knob, and quite distinct in composition from the
surrounding mud. In its mouth were two distinctly detailed
birds joined together, and it was adorned with several other small
bird figures. Looking more closely at the mischaracterized
"animal" images on the tools and large stone figures then revealed that these usually had
mouths abstractly or distinctly shaped like birds, leading to the recognition
of a highly standardized bird-human figure. The constant repeti- tion of
a complex and recognizable pattern was unmistakable.
The head of a
Bird Spirit may be strongly anthropomorphic, with distinctly human
nose and eyes at the front of the face, or more bird-like
with an elon- gated head. In either case, it usually has a mouth rather than a beak. Below is a sketch
of the general form, a simple schematic showing most of the typical components
described in following paragraphs. (Unlike the people that created these objects, this author has no artistic
talent. Do not laugh.)
The sketch below shows the general form of the bifrontal image appearing
constantly in the carved rocks at this site, with the quasi-anthropomorphic
shaman-like face at one end and a more zoomorphic one at the other: A Bird Spirit
figure typically exhibits at least some of the following features: (Click on the underscored
terms or the "thumbnails" for photos.)
____
A
bird facing forward on top of the head, often suggesting shaman headgear.
____
One
or more birds or quasi-human faces emerging from the mouth, an apparent theme of
regeneration, like the figure-emerging-egg-like and
figure-from-the-belly imagery also shown below. Sometimes there is a succession of figures, each emerging from the one
preceding it.
____
A
bird or Bird Spirit emerging from the posterior in the manner of an
egg, when the
figure appears in full-length bird form.
____ The
head of a bird or Bird Spirit emerging beneath the primary figure (when in
full length form), as if from the belly.
____
A
face at one end of the figure, another at the the opposite end, giving a bifrontal or Janus-like
effect; typically one face is more or less anthro- pomorphic,
and the other
is more bird-like.
____
A
mouth consisting of two birds conjoined most of the way back
from their heads, and facing away from each other with their heads forming or occupying the corners of the mouth. When the
figure is depicted only in profile (more common), the mouth has the form of a bird
facing toward the back of the head. This gives an appearance
that easily causes the image to be misidentified as an animal such
as a bear or wildcat.
Sometimes
the mouth takes the form of a big toothy grin. ____ Eyes
typically circular
or diamond-shaped, very often with a distinct raised or indented iris in the center.
When the face appears in frontal view, the two eyes are often
different in shape, or one eye is partly or fully closed.
Sometimes they are intricately carved into
the form of a bird or bird-human head. The eyes seem to have received particular attention to detail, and are
among the most quickly recognizable evidence of human agency in
the lithic artifact material.
____
A
nose consisting of a bird or bird head facing outward or downward.
____
A
chin, if significantly present, in the form of a bird
or Bird Spirit head.
____
A
bird or Bird Spirit riding on the back of
another one, often suggesting copulation.
____
A
bird or Bird Spirit at the side of the
primary figure.
____
The
figures typically exhibit symmetry in that the reverse side usually
bears a similar image, at least thematically.
____
As
is obvious from the features described above, the
figures are typically polymorphic - multiple images in one. The
details of an image and its multiple components are often not deeply or distinctly carved, and
are usually best visible (sometimes only visible) with the light source above
the figure when positioned vertically. Often, when the figure is
rotated 180 degrees, one image or set of images virtually disappears, and another comes
into view. The artisans clearly understood the interplay of
light and shadow. Likewise, rotating 90 degrees quite often has
the same effect, or sometimes turning to an intermediate angle,
depending on the geometry of the rock. While often varying
markedly in overall appearance, the figures appearing almost always
exhibit the same general arrangement of subcomponents.
____
____
The Bird Spirit image appears
often in a simplified form on very
basic hand tools, as well as on much larger rocks.
This is a face in profile, usually lightly carved, sometimes deep and
obvious, consisting
only of a mouth and an eye, the mouth sometimes being the usual bird
silhou- ette, and
sometimes just a smile. This also appears frequently and
consistently in other places around the
world.
The image of
the Bird Spirit, with its mouth shaped like two conjoined birds, a bird emerging from
the mouth,
and a bird on the head, appears to
be of very ancient and primal origin, visible in stone images from Europe,
Asia, Australia, and
Africa, often dating far back into the Paleo- lithic. It would
seem that it survived pretty much intact from its origins in the very earliest art of the "old world" to the
Paleolithic in
the western hemisphere, and in quite recognizable form into the
Mississippian period, as is clearly visible on the well known Cahokia Birdman
Tablet:
Inuit/Yupik (Eskimo) "transformation
art" incorporates many if not most of the features of
the Bird Spirit at Day's Knob:
It
is interesting to speculate on the origin of the Bird Spirit image.
Cave paintings of the Paleolithic, with their magnificent
depictions of animals of all sorts, often include people only as simple
"stick" figures,
if at all. It has been conjectured that humans of that time
considered themselves to be essentially separate from the natural world, having come
from above. One of this author's possibly strange hypotheses is that
this Bird Spirit figure is the manifestation of a sort of "collective
unconscious". Many or perhaps most of us have had vivid flying
dreams, particularly in childhood. It seems reasonable to think that
if we do it, people hundreds of thousands of years ago did it also, and
took it much more seriously and literally. And early humans poking
around on the ground must have regarded birds with more than a little
wonder. When people first began to think of themselves as transcending their earthbound condition, birds must have quickly come to
mind, and a "morphing" of human and bird in their physically rendered imagery seems a logical extension of this.
Given its wide geographical distribution and
apparently great antiquity, one might tentatively speculate that the
bird-human image originated in Africa, then was carried into Europe and the
Middle East, then on into Asia and Australia,
and across Beringia to North America.
Click
image for details.
__________________Human Images
__________________
____________________Petroglyphs
____________________ ____________________ Rock
These
are usually explicitly or abstractly a bird or bird-human image, but may
contain these images within a larger figure that looks like another animal.
___________________ Personal
Ornamentation ___________________
These are two pendants - one the image of a bird, the other
a disk. The holes drilled in each are of the same size,
and appear to have been produced in the same manner.
____________________
Micro-Art ____________________
Many symbolic
or decorative images are as small as a couple of millimeters, indicating remarkable visual acuity.
____________________
One of the
more unusual (and certainly controversial) features of the site is the
large number of bird and
bird-human figures made from clay or a compressed amalgam of mud, ochre, and plant material. Many of these have
ochre, stones, plant material, or seeds forming the eyes, and
some contain verified human hairs and/or artificially colored plant fibers.
Leaves and other plant material -
including a piece of pine cone in one case - were often attached as feathers.
(There are no pine trees at the site.) Appar- ently,
packing the objects into the dense clay created a more or less
anoxic environment that protected the decorative plant
material.
____________________
Nutshells
____________________ Nutshells often appear deeply buried in context with artifact material,
some- times bearing clear evidence of human carving.
____________________
Mystery Glass ____________________
Black
glass artifacts appear at the site. Their origin is unknown,
although their composition has been determined by x-ray fluorescence
spectroscopy. ____________________
Obvious wooden bird figures, as
well as cleanly cut and carved
wooden sticks, often appear buried in the clay, rather well preserved in
context with other artifact material.
____________________Tools
____________________
Among the
assemblage, several very general tool templates are evident. These
do not fit very well into the classic "Indian" taxonomy, so this
is just a tentative attempt at classification. Click on the links
below for photos and/or expanded descriptions. (Please
note: This part of the website is poorly developed, showing mainly
low resolution photos of just a few of the earliest tool finds. There are
better examples that will be posted later.)
Small
Gouges and Picks: These are pointed implements contoured for right-handed thumb and finger
grasp, typically in the form of a bird or bird head.
Large
Gouges:
These are pointed or chisel-shaped right-hand implements contoured either for downward or for forward thrusting.
Like the hand axes, they often exhibit the characteristic grooves and
ridges for thumb and fingers.
Hand Axes:
These have a bifacial bit edge and a wider, rounded proximal edge for
right-handed grasping. The sides of the implement are often grooved
and/or ridged for thumb on one side and fingers on the other.
Wing-Shaped
Implements:
These are flared trianguloids in a generally birdlike form, including scrapers, hand axes, gouges, and abraders.
This is one of the most common templates in the assemblage, and maybe a
precursor of the well known bannerstone.
Misc.
Scrapers and Cutting Tools:
These vary considerably in size and form. Most are more or less in the
shape of a bird or bird head.
Semilunar
Implements: These are celts,
scrapers, or abraders with a bifacially beveled bit edge
along the circumference, and a flat or more-or-less flat proximal grasping end.
They are usually very simple, but are sometimes well detailed with contours and/or flanges for
right-handed holding. The size range is considerable.
Burins:
Sharp finger-held cutting
implements usually made from hard limestone.
Sandstone
Abraders: Hand-held or
finger-held grinding tools apparently for surface reduction and forming of other
implements and decorative/symbolic objects. These appear in huge quantity across the site.
Click image
for details.
____________________
____________________
Although the implements are sometimes bizarre in appearance, close inspec-
tion reveals
genuine skill, creativity, and attention to detail in fabricating a functional tool from the material at hand.
It seems reasonable to assume that these tools were, when actually used,
applied with considerable force over an extended period of time, and that
sharp or rough edges against the hand or fingers would have been
intolerable. On this assumption, an object at this site is very
seldom classified as a tool unless it meets these simple
criteria:
It must fit firmly and comfortably in the right hand, or, if small, in the
fingers of the right hand. When the object is held in a position in which there is
such a fit, the bit edge or point must be in the appropriate orientation
to perform its func- tion. It is remarkable that, with the exception
of some of the more amorphous sandstone abraders, the tools present at this site
both meet these require- ments and manage in most cases to
recognizably if abstractly incorporate the ever-present bird or Bird-Human image. It seems that cutting the image was an integral part
of the manufacturing process, as much so as making the point or edge and
the grasping surface. It was seldom an intentional display of
artistic virtuosity - just part of the routine, perhaps like forming
the cross on hot cross buns. Assuming an animistic
belief system, maybe it was just putting the spirit's image on the rock it
was believed to inhabit. In any event, it seems that a rock was
carved to incorporate both utility and symbology.
In contemplating whether a given lithic artifact is a "tool" or a piece of simple "art", a fair amount of confusion has arisen because the concept of art is, relatively speaking, a very recent one in the course of humans' physical and cultural evolution.
Seeing and judging what was left behind by people many thousands of years ago only through only the lens of one's own culturally conditioned perceptions will never lead to an understanding of what was really happening.
This author would propose that many of the puzzling worked stones (often called "portable rock art") that have been examined at this site and throughout much of the world, probably most of which do not show clear evidence of use wear, are both "tools" and "art" but actually neither - just potentially if not always utilitarian objects that also routinely incorporate rudimentary iconography.
It has long been recognized, as in the Rift Valley in Africa, that early humans
("hominins") produced and left behind vastly more stone implements than were ever actually used, what would seem to be an almost compulsive behavior deriving from the fact that the manufacture of stone tools was a matter of everyday survival.
Perhaps an evolving animistic belief system (i.e., everything is inhabited by a spirit) and intellectual capacity for symbolic representation gave rise to the routine incorporation of simple imagery into potential tools.
(This seems to have been in full swing by at least 450,000 years ago, judging from some of the European finds from reasonably secure stratigraphic context.) It is interesting and significant that just recently professional European
archae- ologists have announced with great fanfare their realization that simple tools at Wilczyce and
Lalinde/Gönnersdorf,
showing no signs of use wear, are in the form of the long recognized "Venus" figurines that have appeared at various sites.
The fact of the matter is that amateur archaeologists, free of the long-
standing preconceptions, have been recognizing and
publishing this relation- ship for decades. While the perceptiveness and insight of the
professional archaeologists in this recent discovery certainly is to be
commended, it seems that this announcement is, as is so often the case, a matter of assigning
impor- tance to a given discovery less on the basis of its
archaeological significance than on the academic credentials of the observers.
The presence of rudimen- tary "portable rock art" in the form of "tools" has long been rejected in Europe and elsewhere, this being
"argumentation from absence"; no one (with a very few unpopular exceptions) in the professional/academic archaeological
com- munity had reported it, so
it was assumed not to exist.
____________________
____________________
The artifacts
unearthed so far at Day's Knob have appeared mainly in these locations:
Along
the 130m (425') access path from the ridge road to the top of the
hill, after years of erosion and maintenance grading, from roughly
25 cm (10") to 60 cm (24") below the current terrain
surface. In
a large hole dug out by deer around a salt block at the top of the hill.
In
several small test holes at random locations.
On and below the surface of a large, relatively flat, crescent-shaped terraced area near the spring on the east (sheltered) side of the hill. On
or near the surface, or eroding from banks in quarried or
otherwise disturbed areas of
the site. Characteristic artifact material has, in some cases,
been retrieved from far below the
current terrain surface.
Most of the
artifacts collected at this site have been cataloged or at least sorted by the location of their
appearance, but a controlled dig remains to be com- pleted. One
1x1 m square was started in 2003, with lithic objects logged by XYZ
coordinates. This has been left on hold, mainly because of
the large quan- tity of artifacts that suddenly appeared as the
result of heavy rains eroding the deeply rutted "driveway" up the hill,
requiring full-time attention. Although barely started, this square
has produced numerous clearly fabricated sand- stone objects, most of them
bearing the ubiquitous bird/human image.
____________________
____________________
Day's
Knob would have been
highly favorable for habitation, with its com- manding view in all
directions, ample
water supply, and abundant lithic ma- terial, and it clearly was the site of
much activity. However, it is hardly
unique. There are probably many other such sites in North America waiting to be
dis- covered by professional or amateur archaeologists willing and able to see
beyond the current and rather rigidly orthodox paradigm for aboriginal
Amer- ican artifacts. (Topper
in South Carolina is almost certainly such a site.) Many photos of similar artifact material,
resembling that here in minute detail, have been e-mailed to this
author. If one were given to wild speculation, one might present
the heretical hypothesis that North America was well populated before the advent of the
diagnostically
"Clovis" implements. One way or another, it is seems
likely that the ground of North America will yield quite a large body of
heretofore unrecognized artifact material related to but morphologically
distinct from that popularly seen as Native American. Up
to this point, the response from the American archaeological/academic
"establishment" has been rather negative, but
"Know
what you see - don't just see what you know."
____________________
____________________
Click
here to send
Comments, Questions, and Flaming Arrows to the Author.
____________________
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