Engraved limestone cobble, Clovis,
ca. 13,000 years old. From Tamara
Stewart, Paleo-Indian Art Identified
At Central Texas Site, p. 10, American
Archaeology, Summer, 2016,
Volume 20, Number 2.
On June 25,
2011, I posted a column titled "The Oldest Art In America - Clovis Art? -
The Gault, Texas, Engravings". That column was a report on a 2010 publication
by D. Clark Wernecke and
Michael B. Collins, “Patterns
and Process: Some Thoughts on the Incised Stones from the Gault Site, Central
Texas, United States”, and was illustrated with a line drawing
I had done from a photogaph by Michael B. Collins, co-author of the original IFRAO Congress, September 2010 –
Symposium: Pleistocene art of the Americas story that I was reporting on. Now another report on
incised limestone cobbles from the Gault site in Texas has enlarged the subject
considerably.
Writing in
the summer 2016 issue of American
Archaeology, Vol. 20, No. 2, p. 10, author Tamara Stewart's column
Paleo-Indian Art Identified At Central Texas Site, presented Wernecke and
Collins' recent findings from the Gault site. They now have "numerous small, weathered limestone
cobbles with elaborate engravings, nine of which are clearly associated with
Clovis technology dating to about 13,000 years ago." (Stewart 2016:10)
Nine
purposefully incised limestone cobbles "clearly associated with Clovis
technology dating to about 13,000 years ago". This gives us
13,000-year-old rock art in North America, and another strong candidate for the
oldest rock art in North America.
Engraved stone, Clovis, Gault, TX.
Drawing by Peter Faris (2011)after a
photograph by Michael Collins.
Note: I
reported on the previous hard date for the oldest rock art in North America on
Jan. 25, 2014, in "Pyramid Lake Petroglyphs May Be Oldest In North America",
on http://rockartblog.blogspot.com .
REFERENCES:
Faris,
Peter
2011 The
Oldest Art In America - Clovis Art? - The Gault, Texas, Engravings, http://rockartblog.blogspot.com, June
25, 2011.
2014 Pyramid Lake Petroglyphs May Be Oldest In
North America, http://rockartblog.blogspot.com,
January 25, 2014.
Stewart,
Tamara
2016 Paleo-Indian Art Identified At Central Texas
Site, p. 10, American Archaeology, Summer,
2016, Volume 20, Number 2.
Wernecke, D. Clark, and
Michael B. Collins,
2010 “Patterns and Process: Some Thoughts on the Incised Stones from the Gault Site, Central Texas, United States”, IFRAO Congress, September 2010 – Symposium: Pleistocene art of the Americas.
2010 “Patterns and Process: Some Thoughts on the Incised Stones from the Gault Site, Central Texas, United States”, IFRAO Congress, September 2010 – Symposium: Pleistocene art of the Americas.
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The geometrical cross hatch patterns found on some of the stones are very similar to those etched into red ochre from the Blombos Cave Site in South Africa. Those artifacts are reported to be 77,000 years old. How do we even begin to account for such a great difference in time line? Could there be any relationship?
ReplyDeleteThere are geometrical crosshatch patterns on some of the stones at Gault. These are very similar to what is etched on red ochre from the Blombos Cave Site in South Africa which dates to 77,000 years ago. Could there be any relationship? How do we account for such a great difference in timeline?
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