THE OLDEST ART IN AMERICA - CLOVIS ART? - THE GAULT, TEXAS ENGRAVINGS REVISITED:

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.

THE OLDEST ART IN AMERICA - CLOVIS ART? – THE GAULT, TEXAS, ENGRAVINGS:

Engraved stone, Clovis, Gault, TX.

Drawing by Peter Faris after a

photograph by Michael Collins.

I have written previously on some candidates for the earliest art in North America. These were the Vero Beach, Florida, engraved bone and the Cooper, Oklahoma, painted bison skull. The Cooper painted skull has been dated to the Fremont period and the Vero Beach engraving is problematical at best.

Purposefully made markings on stone from the Clovis culture have been recovered from deposits at Gault, Texas. A number of limestone plaques or flakes have been modified or decorated with lines scratched into them. Interpretations of the lines range from maps of surrounding drainages to illustrations of plants. A number of these engraved stones have been recovered from with identifiable artifacts from a Clovis context dating to approximately 13,500 years ago.

The example illustrated was recovered in proximity to a Clovis point made from “Alibates flint”. It shows engraved lines on both sides. D. Clark Wernecke and Michael Collins examined over 100 other stones from this location with purposeful markings on them as well which they date from 13,500 B.P. to 9,000 B.P. and reported on this to the September 2010 IFRAO Congress Symposium: Pleistocene art of the Americas. Their description of this example is that it “is limestone and has a design, on both sides, that incorporates parallel lines meeting with lines terminating in diamonds. It may represent plants or, as often found in iconography elsewhere, fletched darts.”

Wernecke and Collins also reported that some artifacts and stones found at Blackwater Draw, the type site for Clovis, had incised lines on them.

This suggests that Clovis period engraved stones must be considered as strong candidates at this time for the oldest art in North America.

Reference:

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.