First identified in 2003, this is one of the most prominent motifs forming a component of what this author has dubbed Primal Imagery, persisting from "Old World" Paleolithic into Middle Woodland at this site, and into modern but traditional Inuit/Yupik iconography.  The theme is typically expressed as an animal (usually bird) or humanlike figure simply atop the head, and sometimes as full (presumably shamanic) headgear.
 

 

Above:  Figures from the Day's Knob site.

 

   

In this context, consider these early 20th century photos of Native American (Apsaroke) shamans.
 

Below:  For comparison with the above - left, a Late Woodland soapstone gorget; and right, a Mississippian limestone pipe, both in the same theme.

    

 

Below:  Left, an old Inuit or Yupik ceremonial mask; right, a print by Yupik artist Phillip John Charette.

    

 

Above, a finely chipped example of the theme in Vanport (Flint Ridge) chert, height 10 cm (4").  Here a decidedly human head, facing right, forms the crest over a more zoomorphic one.  (Surface find by Pamela Douglass in Licking County, Ohio.  Photo provided by Kenneth B. Johnston.)
 
Facing left, the theme in a flint figure from Simon Parkes in England, from a stratum indicating an age of 125,000 - 200,000 years BP.
 

Again facing left, the motif in a weathered Australian sandstone artifact.
 

Left, a limestone crested head figure from just beneath the surface of the earthwork at Day's Knob.  Right, the head of a ceramic figure from the Turner Mound  group in southwestern Ohio.

 

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