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Horse
Head Figure in Limestone |
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This horse-like
figure, uncommonly naturalistic down to abrading of the muzzle
area for a lighter color, was provided with two eyes on one
side, one above the other. The bottom (round) eye was,
like the nostril, pecked into the surface, and the top eye was
painted on, apparently with an iron oxide paste (red ochre)
as on other rock paintings
at this site.
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| This artifact may have
some potential in the problematic matter of determining the
temporal association of the site. Horse ancestors in the
western hemi- sphere apparently became extinct sometime between
10,000 and 13,000 years ago. This stone figure is
intriguing in the context of another one at the site, a
petroglyph in which natural features of the rock have been
enhanced by professionally verified carving to depict what looks very much like the head of a
mammoth (on sandstone bedrock about 60 cm / 24" below the
current terrain surface), also long extinct:
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| Of course the horse head
figure, like the apparent mammoth petroglyph, is anomalous in
the context of compelling evidence of Early or Middle Woodland
age in surface and near-surface artifact material, but then this
particular object was found eroding from a steep bank above an
apparently artificial terrace, so its actual stratum of origin
is unknown. |
| In the two-facebifrontal
("janiform") style quite characteristic of the
image-bearing material at this site, the right edge of the horse
stone
displays the classic simple face consisting of a mouth and a
diamond-shaped eye. |
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The obverse
side of the stone, a sitting sphinx-like figure. |
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