Lower Palaeolithic Art in Britain?

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 4:05 pm

Now you've got me seeing birds in rocks! This is all messin' with my head.

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 4:13 pm

Now you've got me seeing birds in rocks! This is all messin' with my head.

...Lol...welcome to my world...

Sorry to say, but once you see them, they don't go away...

Post by **Minimalist** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 4:22 pm

Didn't Freud say that "sometimes a banana is just a banana?"

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 4:58 pm

Didn't Freud say that "sometimes a banana is just a banana?

Ha! Or, maybe, Freud's therapist...

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 5:12 pm

Didn't Freud say that "sometimes a banana is just a banana?

Actually......I'm pretty sure he said cigar.

Post by **Minimalist** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 5:15 pm

I don't smoke cigars.

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 5:41 pm

I don't smoke cigars.

Good to know!!

AD · Post by AD » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:32 pm

Hi Richard...

Looks like you have a great discussion started here, and very quickly! I want to contribute a few thoughts - intend to do it soon, starting with the infamous birds - but have my hands full right at the moment.

I better say one thing immediately, though. I second Minimalist's recommendation that you, whenever possible, provide a link to a photo rather than uploading it into a forum. A large quantity of photos embedded in a discussion thread really clutters things up, devours a lot of bandwidth, and makes things very difficult for the many folks still on a dial-up connection (broadband is not available everywhere). What I do if something is not already posted on my own website is simply add a dedicated page, post the photo(s), and give the URL as reference. Since you clearly have a good handle on the "webmastering", you can do this easily. (You already know this, of course, but for the others my website is http://www.daysknob.com . Please do not make the mistake of many by not reading to the last character in the website's title, which is a question mark, denoting uncertainty. As Albert Einstein said, "If we knew what we are doing, it would not be called research".)

So far, I like what I see on Archaeologica.org. I've generally been disappointed with archaeology forums, as most seem to be one of these:

- Professional/academic discussion groups reflecting, in large part, a hermetically sealed intellectual environment characterized by vested interests, circular reasoning, and a lot of bluff and puffery.

- Arrowhead collector forums in which suggesting the possibility of artifacts in North America other than the popularly recognized "Indian" material brings forth a giggle fit like the one caused by proposing that the earth is a large ball revolving around the sun.

- Groups in which the participants seize on just about anything as proof of UFOs, Bigfoot, The Flood, return of Elvis, etc.

This forum seems to be sane, open-minded, and reasonable.

Later... Alan

Post by **Minimalist** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:35 pm

a hermetically sealed intellectual environment characterized by vested interests, circular reasoning, and a lot of bluff and puffery.

I call that "The Club", Alan.

Some people....probably Club Members, get pissed off about that.

AD · Post by AD » Tue Oct 31, 2006 11:38 am

Greetings...

As promised, here are some more comments and observations.

Richard's title for this discussion thread, "Lower Paleolithic Art in Britain?", reflects a debate that has persisted on and off in Europe for some time now. Only Americans have commented here so far, and I hope that some Europeans in addition to Richard, as well as people from other parts of the world, will venture into this.

Improbable as it may seem, the simple but consistent iconography in Richard's lithic artifact material, down to the arrangement of subcomponents, is identifiable also in such material here in North America, as well as, somewhat to my surprise, in Australia, judging from professionally verified (by a doctorate-level petrologist) sandstone artifacts I hauled back from a visit there last April. While all these artifacts from widely diverse venues can hardly be seen as temporally associated, some cultural affiliation, however remote, from the very distant past seems quite likely. (The context of image-bearing material in Europe seems to indicate an age of at least a couple hundred thousand years, while similar imagery is identifiable in much more refined artifacts recently unearthed at a site - not my own - in southern Ohio, identified as Late Archaic, or roughly 2500 years old.)

So, what is this so-called imagery? Read on...

My interest and involvement (such as it is) in the very old European material came quite unexpectedly in 2003 after I finally had time to look more closely at artifacts I had first noticed in 1987 beneath the surface of wooded hilltop property I own in here in sparsely populated southeastern Ohio. These were simple stone tools, not "Indian"-like, but readily identifiable as not of natural origin (I had some formal archaeological training and field experience in the Middle East long ago - at least some idea of what I was seeing). Although it seemed counterintuitive, I began to perceive a generally bird-like or at least wing-like form in these, and was really scratching my head about all this. By this time I had launched a simple website for the purpose of communicating my finds to the professionals, having become frustrated trying to do this by e-mail. A fellow in Tennessee, Larry Nichols, an amateur like myself, contacted me via this website, saying he had seen similar material on his property, consisting largely of simple bird forms. After reading what he had to say and looking at his photos, I saw the reality of this in my own material - the overall form and the placement of eyes and beaks were consistent and unmistakable, however subtle.

To make a long story short (not really), I fairly quickly recognized that stone figures I had been finding in abundance, strongly resembling the faces of animals or quasi-humans, incorporated bird images (typically round-faced, quasi-anthropomorphic) resting over the forehead, emerging from the mouth, the belly, and/or egg-like from the posterior - altogether, a composite bird-human figure presenting an apparent theme of rebirth and regeneration that showed up over and over again. Strange indeed, but undeniably there, and heavy magnification revealed clear fabrication marks in the rock. I uncreatively dubbed this creature the "Bird Spirit". As the weather turned cold, I spent a lot of time on the internet, looking for images resembling what I had. To my amazement, I saw that modern but traditional Inuit/Yupik (Eskimo) "transition" art incorporated virtually all of the same iconography. Then further, a look at Dr. James Harrod's http://www.originsnet.org website led me to the finds of the late Dr. Walther Matthes (University of Hamburg), who had amassed a large collection of Paleolithic stone artifacts in northern Germany, with similar imagery and a lot of birds.

When I posted the photos and observations on the website, I was soon getting e-mails and photos from others in North America - and later Europe - who had been seeing (or were just starting to see) similar imagery. Among these was Charlie Hatchett, a frequent poster to this forum, who just last year sent me photos of material that he had begun to see and understand in terms of what was presented on the website (birds, etc.). He jokingly expressed relief in realizing that he was not crazy. (Well, like me, he still could be quite mad, but at least he is not mistaken in what he is seeing...) Charlie has, of course, come up with some fascinating material in the artifact-rich environment he has been exploring. It's a shame the many professionals in his immediate area are unwilling to help in sorting out the stratigraphy and temporal associations.

In England, Richard Wilson, Simon Parkes (who has been at this for quite a while), and David King are, as far as I know, the only ones actively pursuing the matter of art (or at least symbolic representation) in Paleolithic artifacts. Take a look at Richard's website http://www.palaeolithicart.co.uk The Germans have been particularly active in this field, and have even received some professional/academic authentication of their finds. Mrs. Ursel Benekendorff, quite a pioneer, picked up on the work of Dr. Walther Matthes, and has a huge display of artifacts at http://www.stoneage-art.de In Germany there is also http://www.hekoverlag.de and http://www.hans-grams.de In Holland is http://jan.innoxia.com and in France http://perso.wanadoo.fr/charles.belart/index.html

In another discussion thread in this forum, Charlie Hatchett asked me what my take is on this "bird thing" in a worldwide context. Quoting oneself is in poor form, but I'll do it anyway (saving some typing), copying and pasting from my website:

--------------------
"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."
--------------------

Giving thought to the topic that Richard has presented here, one might consider recent discoveries like Pakefield in England (human presence 300,000 years earlier than assumed) and Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia (homo erectus present a million years earlier than thought to be out of Africa). Given a few extra hundred thousand years, humans (or maybe even precursors thereof) certainly could have covered a lot of territory, including crossing to North America. And I think we may underestimate the capacity of our early predecessors for symbolic thought and representation, just as we grossly overestimate our own ability to say for certain what people thousands of years ago would or would not have been doing.

Regards, Alan

http://www.daysknob.com

Post by **Minimalist** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 12:28 pm

Provocative, Alan. I have to search through some of those links you provided.

The obvious reaction to any sort of 'bird fetish' is the rather natural human interest (or obsession) with the ability to fly. Just the other day I found myself enthralled just watching a humming bird do its thing.

We have been told that only HSS had the mental capacity for abstract thinking. Perhaps that is wrong, too?

War Arrow · Post by **War Arrow** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 1:07 pm

With regards to the bird obsessions of early humans, it might be worth adding the appeal of the coloured feathers. Central Americans associated birds with the heavens because of flight (obviously) and also due to the iridescent quality of the more spectacular plumed species (the Quetzal being an obvious one) wherein the "shimmering" quality was seen as an earthly manifestation of the sacred.

Manystones · Post by **Manystones** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 1:33 pm

War Arrow wrote: the "shimmering" quality was seen as an earthly manifestation of the sacred.

This is an interesting angle. The zoomorphs (multiple images, animals, faces - often ambiguous) I believe may represent the "transformative" stage of transcendence? I am thinking in particular of David Lewis-Williams take on the origin of Rock Art ("The Mind In The Cave, 2002) and the possible link between geometric patterns and entoptic phenomona.

I'll be bold and state that Homo Erectus's cognitive abilities have been largely "dumbed" down (despite evidence to the contrary) in order to support the contention that Homo Sapiens Sapiens are somehow "better" or unique. These people must have had some organisation and intelligence to a) survive for so long and b) populate such far reaching locations from Africa.

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:37 pm

In another discussion thread in this forum, Charlie Hatchett asked me what my take is on this "bird thing" in a worldwide context.

Welcome aboard, Bro. I think you'll find this forum a lot of fun. A lot of differing views, and honest, open discussion...

Folks, I remember when I first met Alan about a year ago:

From: Alan Day
Date: 07/31/05 00:55:54
To: charlie@bandstexas.com
Subject: Your Message

Hello, Charlie...

Thank you very much for your interesting message via the web site!

Well, it's no guarantee that you aren't deranged, of course, but from what I've seen of your photos, you almost certainly are not mistaken. (I hope you will fill the "limestone bird form" folder for me.)

I knew I liked him from the second sentence, on.

Again, welcome Alan. I look forward to reading more of your posts.

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:49 pm

A fellow in Tennessee,

Alan, do you know generally where in Tennessee these rocks were found. If you think this persons' privacy should be respected, maybe you could private mail me.

Thanks.