A BISON ANTIQUUS PROTRAYED IN ROCK ART?

Upper Sand Island petroglyph panel,

Utah. Ekkehart Malotki. Bison and

mammoth are seen at the far right.

On November 6, 2011, I posted a column titled The Upper Sand Island Mammoth Petroglyph, Utah, about Ekkehart Malotki's identification of a petroglyph there as representing a Paleolithic mammoth. Malotki is incredibly knowledgeable about rock art of the American west and southwest, and I would personally give his interpretation of any rock art panel a great deal of credence. Now he is back with a paper that proposes the identification of another quadruped on the same panel as a Bison antiquus of the Paleolithic period.

 

Closeup of bison and mammoth,

Photograph Ekkehart Malotki.

"The bison motif clearly dominates the scene not only due to its size but also because its more deeply scored silhouette partially cuts into the dorsal ridge of the underlying pachyderm. Anatomically inaccurate, the bison's legs are engraved all the way to its back: however, they do correctly end in split or cloven hooves. Taphonomically, the mammoth's more smoothly worn engraved lines and overall softer rock wear indicate that it must have experienced considerably more weathering than the bison, consistent with an earlier date of creation. Determining the precise temporal difference between the two manufacturing episodes is impossible; based on the bison's grooving depth, however, the likelihood is small that it was made by contemporaries of the mammoth artist. Bison did not die out in the final Pleistocene but eventually evolved into the living species American bison (Bison bison) - popularly but inaccurately called buffalo. Nevertheless, a comparison with historic bison petroglyphs (see Fig. 37.13) makes a strong case that the over-printed animal with its massive shoulder hump actually represents a Late-Pleistocene or Early Holocene Ancient Bison or Bison antiquus (Fig. 37.12)." (Malotki 2019:572)

Closeup of bison and mammoth,

mammoth, digital enhancement
(mammoth white, bison brown)
by Julia Andratschke,

Photograph Ekkehart Malotki.

Malotki generously also mentions an alternative identification proposed by archaeologist Winston Hurst, that this image illustrates an extinct musk ox, based on the observation that the creature's legs do not extend below the line of its belly, much as the long winter fur of a musk ox obscuring its legs and dragging on the ground. (Malotki 2019:573) My personal observation is that the horns are too unlike a musk ox to give this idea any credence.

"If my interpretation of a Bison antiquus depiction is accepted, its creator may have been a Paleoindian hunter-gatherer of Folsom cultural affiliation." (Malotki 2019: 574)

"While an ars-gratia-artis explanation that the bison would have been chiseled into the rock divorced of any specific function can probably be ruled out, more reasonable is the idea that it represented the totem animal with which members of a group felt a strong affinity. Carefully executed, the bison shows no sign that it was intended to desecrate or disfigure the underlying image. In the context of the universal phenomenon of sympathetic or compulsive magic which, based on the principle that "like affects like" and, in the case of rock art, that an image can stand as a substitute for its subject, the mere act of depicting it would have meant gaining control over the represented animal, both in the form of facilitating hunting success or assuring fecundity of the envisaged prey. Also by placing the bison over the mammoth, the former could have co-opted the assumed supernatural potency of the latter. Perhaps the mammoth as a mythical beast, imbued with powerful magic, was still alive in the traditional narratives of the later Folsom hunters." (Malotki 2019:575)

Bison antiquus skeleton,

wikipedia.org - Public Domain,

photo reversed digitally.

While I am personally skeptical about its role as being a participant in hunting magic per se, I feel much more comfortable with Malotki's suggestion that it represented a totem animal for a specific group. I can imagine a representative of that group creating a picture of their totem bison to share in its mystical power and to provide a visual reminder of the group's identity, in the same way that a crucifix in the front of a Christian church endows the members of the congregation with feeling blessed, and identifies them as a specific group.

Unfortunately, to my way of thinking, Malotki then explains that position by invoking the S-word - shaman. "From a shamanistic point of view, the bison could be regarded as symbolic of an auxiliary spirit with whose assistance the shaman, as a broker between this reality and that of a perceived other world, would have brought about blessings for his group. Ultimately, of course, we will never fathom what motivated the creation of the bison image. Still, it is hard to explain it depiction from a natural or functional perspective, its raison d'être is most credibly linked with the realm of ritual and spirituality." (Malotki 2019: 575)

I questioned Ekkehart on this reference to shamanism because, if I have not made it clear before, I will go on record again now as decrying the over-use of the S-word (shamanism) in explaining rock art. Not that some examples might not actually represent activities that can be attributed to shamanism, I am sure there are some - somewhere. My problem with it is that it has become the fallback position for every example of rock art that cannot be explained in some other way, the same way that the term "ceremonial" was used by archeologists and students of rock art to explain everything that they could not otherwise explain a few decades ago. If it cannot be identified as something else it is identified as shamanistic. Ekkehart told me that this paper was originally written for a conference with a focus on religion and he felt he should emphasize all religious possibilities, and it is  ". . . an interpretation that - he no longer subscribes to.” (Malotki and Dissanayake 2019, pp. 169-176).

Malotki goes on - "While the precise identification of the overlying zoomorph - bison or musk ox - will have to remain undetermined, neither Winston Hurst nor I concur with rock art specialist Polly Schaafsma's claim that the quadruped stylistically echoes historic Ute bison renderings. As Schaafsma correctly remarks, most known bison represented in the parietal art of the region, apart from a few recent examples attributable to Navajo artists, are Ute in origin." (Malotki 2019:576) I have to agree with Malotki and Hurst here, this figure does not seem to fit well with most of the Ute renderings of Bison bison from that region, although with the caveat that if we include Ute renderings from other parts of their historically occupied region we do find some wondrously strange depictions of bison. So, Ekkehart,  once again you might have something here, something wondrous. Thank you for your work - and for sharing.

NOTE: Most of the illustrations here are used with permission of Ekkehart Malotki. The photograph of the Bison antiquus skeleton was retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain pictures. I urge anyone interested in this subject to read Ekkehart Malotki's complete paper listed below, and also the new book by Malotki and Dissanayake. Enjoy the wonderful photographs.

REFERENCES:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Bison_antiquus_p1350717.jpg

Malotki, Ekkehart,

2019 Columbian Mammoth and Ancient Bison: Paleoindian Petroglyphs Along the San Juan River Near Bluff, Utah, USA, in A. Klostergaard Petersen, e.s. Gilhus, L.H. Martin, J. Sinding Jensen, and J. Sorensen (eds.), Evolution, Cognition, and the History of Religion: A New Synthesis, Festschrift in Honour of Armin W. Geertz, 562-599, Leiden, Brill.

Malotki, Ekkehart, and Ellen Dissanayake,
2018  Early Rock Art of the American West, the Geometric Enigma, University of Washington Press, Seattle.