Examination of "Old Route 66 Zoo" site's suspected figures establishes it as a prehistoric sculpture mega-site

Stacy Dodd's find from south west Missouri, Old Route 66 Zoo site

(click photos to expand)

Confirmed artifact by a top national master flintknapper and stoneworking expert.  From central Ohio, it has a similar construction to the Missouri find

Please compare these two sculptures, top from Missouri, bottom from Ohio featured in a prior post.  The morphological similarities between these two rodent or rabbit creatures, especially the expression of the tail, suggests they were created within the framework of culturally defined parameters, perhaps the same cultural tradition.  They were found about 700 miles, or 1,125 km, from each other. 

Stacy Dodd and his family traveled from Memphis, Tennessee, to Zanesville, Ohio, with about 150 suspected sculptures from the "Old Route 66 Zoo" site in south west Missouri.  We met Saturday, March 3, and I had a chance to examine and photograph some of the 150 suspected sculptures selected from this site.  The number of pieces was overwhelming and was too much material to study in one day.  So, in my initial exposure to this collection, my goal was look for attributes which I thought could relate to finds from other American and European sites.

Mr. Dodd and the landowner of the site are having difficulty getting the attention of local archaeologists due to the unique nature of their finds.  This 5 acre parcel is open to archaeological science, to qualified investigators who have interest in recovering portable rock art sculptures in situ.  There are hundreds more suspected sculptures in the ground as they are visible near surface level and then "are packed" in mass over many square feet, according to Mr. Dodd.  Several verified flaked tools have been discovered at the site, but their association to the sculptures is not yet confirmed. It is very possible additional tools will be recovered along with sculptures if an archaeologist wishes to pursue a test dig at this site.

Like the Ohio example, this sculpture appears to exhibit polymorphic properties. When one adjusts the angle of view just 15 degrees to the right as compared to the photo at very top, the rabbit or rodent head morphs into a fish image as if leaping from the water. Here is that view, slightly more from the rear, and then a mark up of the same photo to illustrate the fish. The "water" is the body of the rodent, indicated by the blue line. The "ear" of the rodent in this perspective is the flaring dorsal fin of the leaping fish.

This kind of transforming optical illusion polymorphism is a defining characteristic to this kind of art. It's a case of the classic double entendre, an implied double-meaning, which is so revered among "the witty" of contemporary cultures. The old artists had the ability to include multiple images in one object, as if displaying their wits in the permanency of stone to others of cultures long gone. (click photos to expand).

Alan Day  Mar 5, 2012 02:03 PM

Hi Ken...

Spotting this stuff in a photo is usually a bit risky, but from here it seems Stacy's lithic rodent might be a classic janiform - with a face profile at each end looking in opposite directions, typically one being zoomorphic and the other more or less anthropomorphic. See http://www.daysknob.com/Janus.htm for some fairly distinct examples of this. Mac Poole's excellent quartz bird from North Carolina seems thematically particularly similar.
 

More icons, further interpretation made, of Peter Cottontail Has Left the Building

Peter Cottontail Has Left the Building (further interpreted)

click photo to expand size

artifact is sitting on a CM grid for scale

After the first posting of this artifact a few days ago, a bird icon was detected at the crest of the rabbit's back.  Thanks to visitor Lyn Niday of Marion, Ohio, for reporting the bird she saw.  The bird has a beak and an eye and shares its crested head with the rabbit's pointed back.  It could be taken as a "cardinal" because of the crested head and red color.  The "bird overseer" motif is also seen in the posting "Giant Cosmic Egg."  It is not marked up in the posting but may be seen on top of the man's head/woman's head.  It is strikingly similar to the one here, being separated by 2000 miles and an unknown period of time.  One must look carefully to see the bird.

 

A proboscidean representation is seen on the rabbit's hind quarter, the rabbit leg is also the trunk of the mammoth or mastodon.  An elephant eye is also worked into the flint and is marked up on the photo above.

On the right side of the artifact is yet another rabbit, looking straight on at the viewer.  The sparkling silver, lightning bolt-like, inclusion in the stone appears to have been integrated a "blade of grass" the rabbit is munching on.  The orange triangle is what would be the nose area of this rabbit face eating grass.

The red rabbit head profile inclusion of the grey background stone material is also highlighted in the top photo.  The entire piece seems centered around this iconic inclusion.  It is likely what inspired the artist to work the flint to further represent a rabbit.  This rabbit head in profile also serves as the ear of the elephant.  Click this photo to expand size.  Photos taken on a CM grid.

For those who could not see the smiling rabbit's face in the original post, I have made the markup above to compare to the original unmarked photo as seen at left.  Click photo to expand.

Dennis Boggs of Oregon detected this face on the artifact as he highlighted in the photo here.  Thanks for reporting this Dennis and for rotating the photo and marking it up so a nice comparison may be made.

Rabbits, birds and elephants are thought to be major maternal and fertility icons in Paleolithic art.

-kbj

Peter Cottontail has left the building... Peter Cottontail has left the building.

Peter Cottontail has left the building

click photo to expand size

Found at the same site as the Peter Cottontail posting prior to this one, I did not think this was an intended artifact initially.  After examination under lighted 10x magnification, I detected several stroke marks or incisions in a series of lines going up the neck to the bottom of the head in the above photo.  On the opposite side of the artifact, facial details were detected which are worked in the flint and seen in the photo below.

I also detected a break spot where it looks like a "front leg" was attached to this item at one time.  The shadow of the break may be seen square #3 from right on the bottom row of the CM grid.  It also has two different rabbit views depicted, one on each side.  These three factors, along with the resemblance to a hopping rabbit at a site which has produced another rabbit icon, weigh as factors in assessing artifactuality here.

Peter Cottontail has left the building

(face toward viewer, Flopsy-like ear)

click photo to expand size

artifact on a CM grid for scale and perspective

Looks like rabbit's right ear is "floppy" from this perspective. In this view, the rabbit has turned its head to face the viewer.  Click photo to expand size to view the cartoon-like face of the rabbit, including eyes, nose, whiskers and an apparent smile- a look foretelling of the Trix cereal advertisement character rabbit. The front leg has broken off.  The rabbit has a pointed back to invoke a sense of swift, springing, movement.  Paleolithic representations of animals and people often have what we would call a cartoonish look.  It has been a part of the human aesthetic long before the Sunday newspaper comic section.

Here comes Peter Cottontail....

Peter Cottontail
click photo to expand size

Polymorphic rabbit/feline/bear/deer/human sculpture
from Licking County, Ohio USA

lithic material is from Flint Ridge

photos taken on a CM grid for scale and perspective

This photo is an aide to refer back to the above to see a feline visage as highlighted here in blue.  Relax your focus, "look through your eyelashes," or stand at a distance from the screen to best see the big cat.

Closer view of rabbit's head

This is back half of the rabbit.  Back of the ear tip is seen in black material in upper left corner.  Two animal head images are seen here, taken to be a lion face and bear head in right profle.  Because they share common features in the stone, it may be difficult to percieve.

This is a bear head in right profile view.  Here, I have whited out a portion of the lion's face which is distracting to the bear image because they share features.  Orange arrow points to ear (serves also as the right eye of the second lion visage).  Blue arrow points to tip of nose.  Purple arrow points to tip the bear's chin.

 Short faced bear (Arctodus)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctodus

   

The tip of the bear's face may also depict the face of a man in right profile so this could be taken as a "synthesis of man's face with a bears head."  The man and bear share the same mouth. If one pays visual attention to the front of the faces like shown in this photo, the human depiction becomes more clear.  It looks like the face has a mournful frown.   

Pink and black are lion's eyes, yellow is the nose.  The nose also looks like a caprid (deer?) icon with its head turned as if looking behind it.  It appears there is a chunk or "bite" out of the hind quarter of the deer.  The deer is squarely in the eyes of the lion, being its nose.  Blue is the snarling mouth of the lion.
  

The maroon band of flint which is the face-on lion's snarling mouth, also seems to serve as red hairdo, or a turban style wrap, atop a grinning woman's face.  There appears to be an ear decoration on the woman, like an earring.  Maybe the woman is being consumed by the lion, the lion's red lips grasping her head to begin a meal?

Arrow points to earring looking stone feature.  I hypothesize the frowning man's face (fourth photo above) is mourning the loss of his partner, shown here at the lion's mouth, to predation.  Based on the paleo-anthropological record of skeletal remains, it is estimated 6% to 10% of early humans died at the jaws, paws and claws of carnivores.  So, humans were more in the food chain than solely at the top of the food chain in pre-modern times.

In final, the interpretations of images here are of two lion faces, a bear head, a man's face, a woman's face, one deer and one two-sided rabbit.  A third lion image, with paw extended toward the viewer and a tooth showing, has not been marked up in the photos.  Can you find it?

North American lion (Panthera leo atrox) reconstruction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Lion

Photo looking down on artifact as it stands on its base.  Without recognition, art pieces like this are being overlooked, forsaken by archaeologists, passed off as debitage or other debris, suitable for the pile of "burden stones."  

A similar looking sculpture with animals on two sides.  This side looks like the artifact featured in this post.  Also from Licking County, Ohio.

This side looks like a rabbit with a crystal inclusion perhaps representing the "magic womb" of the reproductive proclivity of this animal.  This is one of seven sculptures found in immediate proximity (a hoard) in Licking County Ohio and featured at the web site: http://subtleartifacts.com

Side two of the featured figure stone (on CM grid)

Side two again

Flint Ridge is the source for the raw material in this post.

Click photo to expand size

-kbj