A RESPONSE TO MY BOOK REVIEW OF GLORIA FARLEY'S BOOK, IN PLAIN SIGHT:

On December 19, 2009, I posted a critical review on this site of the book In Plain Sight: Old World Records in Ancient America , by Gloria Farley, 1994, ISAC Press, Columbus, Georgia. This had originally been written for the Pleistocene Coalition News (PCN), Volume 1, Issue 2, November-December 2009, (http://pleistocenecoalition.com/index.htm). I was asked to write the review by the editor of PCN in order to stimulate a discussion on the subject of Old World to New World diffusion in rock art. In other words were some or many of the inscriptions on our rocks created by members of expeditions from the Old World? Their most recent issue (Volume 2, Number 1) contains some responses to my review, one of which I present below:

OCEAN TRANSPORT GOING BACK FOR MILLENIA
By Virginia Steen-McIntyre

I recommended Gloria Farley's book In Plain Sight in Issue 1 of this Newsletter, along with the 2009 book World Trade and Biological Exchanges before 1492 (Sorenson and Johannessen) because they complement one another.

How can one find evidence of New World plants and parasites in Old World archaeological sites unless there had been some form of ocean transport going on for millennia? (Example: Tobacco leaves in the body cavity of Pharaoh Rameses II's mummy, as mentioned in the preface to Farley's book.)

Peter, you are not happy with the mishmash of scripts and languages that sometimes appear on the same rock face. I see a semiliterate, polyglot crew of homesick sailors and explorers leaving their marks on a sheltered rock face in an unknown, hostile land, especially prayers to their various deities for protection and safe trip home.

Yes Virginia, there really was pre-Columbian contact. There is considerable evidence of that, above and beyond L’anse aux Meadows. I have never discounted the idea of some pre-Columbian contact between the Old World and the New World. I also do not discount the evidence of transport of organisms between them. What I discount is that the crews of ships, exploratory or trading, reached southeastern Colorado and western Oklahoma to leave inscriptions carved into the rocks. To me this question between us comes down to one of belief. I just cannot believe in that scenario and apparently you do. I honor your belief and I thank you for your reasonable response to mine.

BOOK REVIEW - World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492:

Sorenson, John L., and Carl L. Johannessen,
2009 World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492, iUniverse, Inc., New York

This very interesting book is essentially about evidence of pre-Columbian contact across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The authors find evidence in the distribution of flora and fauna found on opposite sides of the ocean. The assumption is that there had to have been a vector which caused this distribution because natural causes do not seem to be a totally satisfactory answer.

The obvious question right now would be what possible connection can that have with anything we are interested in on RockArtBlog? Well, in the study of rock art we still have to deal with the epigraphy question. Were some rock art symbols or inscriptions created by visitors from across the sea? Any information about trans-oceanic contact prehistorically potentially has bearing on this subject.

Temple sculpture holding an ear of maize, Somnathpur,
India, 11th - 13th cent., Fig. 1, p. 489,World Trade and
Biological Exchanges Before 1492. Photo: Carl L. Johannessen.

Co-author Carl Johannessen pointed out to this writer that in their book they have recorded “13 plants that came into the Americas and 84 plants left the Americas for the Asian and other tropical and subtropical zones in the Euro-African realm.” If this is, in fact, correct that would represent thirteen opportunities for the external influences which are central to the epigrapher’s theories to come into contact with native peoples of the Americas. Indeed a larger number than this 13 could be assumed because a number of the examples that went from the Americas to the Old World could have been taken back by parties that had originated in the Old World and were returning home after a voyage that had reached the Americas.

I do not question that there was pre-Columbian contact between the Old World and the New World. Since the 1960 discovery of L'Anse aux Meadows (dated to approximately 1000 AD) on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador we have had proof of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact by the Norse. There are rumors of Eskimos paddling their kayaks into the Thames River, stories of the large Chinese exploration fleets of the early 15th century, and the recent theories of Smithsonian archaeologist Dr. Dennis Stanford who postulates trans-Atlantic contact between the prehistoric Solutrean culture of Europe and the Clovis culture in North America.

What Sorenson and Johannessen have done is provide a large body of evidence of possible trans-oceanic contact based upon the evidence of flora and fauna found on both sides of oceans, and of diseases and parasites that are likewise found on both sides of oceans but which should not have been able to pass over the Bering land bridge because of the restrictions of the cold valve which assumes that a person weakened by disease would not have survived the trek across the arctic from Siberia through Alaska to carry that disease to the population of the Americas (and if they did not walk in through Beringia they must have sailed in across the Atlantic or Pacific ocean). Other evidence toward this conclusion is provided by the facts that some of these diseases do not occur in North America (considered unlikely if the disease had been carried across North America in either direction, and that many of the parasitic organisms require residence in warm, moist soil during a portion of their life cycle prior to transferring to a new host and these conditions were not available in Northern latitudes.

What is most admirable about this volume is that instead of citing a few facts and building them into a huge theoretical edifice, the authors have given us relatively few pages (90) of explanation and conclusions, and a huge amount of data. They have not allowed themselves to be sidetracked into speculating on the “who”, they have restricted themselves to the what. They have provided 396 pages of Appendixes in which they cite thousands of sources. Perhaps the best illustration of this is their section (pages 361-78) on Zea mays – Indian corn. They include some fifty sources on facts and data pertaining to evidence on the question of pre-Columbian distribution of corn in the Old World. Instead of telling us what we should believe, they give us the data and trust us to decide for ourselves. Their very extensive bibliography fills 64 pages, and they have even included a 10 page Index of Authors, both of which will be invaluable to researchers. Their 16 illustrations show visual evidence of this distribution of flora and fauna including Figure 1 (above) showing an Indian sculpture from between the 11th and 13th centuries of an Apsara holding what can only be interpreted as an ear of corn (maize).

So what have I decided for myself? As I said above I did not deny the fact of pre-Columbian contact, I just discounted it. I assume that some pre-Columbian contact beyond L’anse aux Meadows took place between the old and new worlds. My doubt has centered more on questions of transfer of culture in amounts that could lead to large numbers of inscriptions in foreign languages on the rocks in the interior of North America.

After reading World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492 no-one should be able to categorically deny the possibility of such pre-Columbian cross-ocean contact without disproving or explaining away literally thousands of pieces of data assembled by the authors, a daunting task indeed!

TURTLE ISLAND - AND TURTLES IN ROCK ART:

Paleontologist George R. Wieland and 11-foot-tall
Archelon ischyros, 1895, from South Dakota,
Peabody Museum of Nat. Hist.

In Native American mythology the world is known as Turtle Island. They see the world as existing on the back of a great turtle swimming in an endless ocean. This could seem to be quite a stretch of the imagination, where could the idea of such a gigantic turtle come from? One could well suppose that very large turtles such as snapping turtles could have influenced this belief. Another possibility however, is that it was suggested by a Native American finding the exposed fossils of one of the prehistoric giant turtles like the eleven foot skeleton illustrated. Once you have proof of a turtle of that scale, turtles of almost any size seem possible.

Turtle Island, Seri Indian, p.134, People
of the Desert, Time-Life, 1993.

This picture was painted by a Mexican Seri Indian portraying his homeland on the back of Turtle Island and illustrating the concept clearly.

Turtle petroglyph, Purgatoire Canyon, CO.
Photo: 1999, Peter Faris.

Legend Rock, WY.
Photo: 1998, Peter Faris.

The presence of turtle imagery in rock art is well documented with examples found all over North America. The examples I have included come from Legend Rock in northwestern Wyoming, and from the Purgatoire River canyon in southeast Colorado.

Fossilized mud cracks, Painted Canyon, TX.
Photo: 2002, Peter Faris.

Once while on a field trip in western Texas visiting rock art sites I came across a horizontal outcropping of stone which was patterned with fossilized mud cracks. At the time I immediately thought of the pattern of plates or scutes on a turtle’s shell, and I realized that I was seeing the real surface of Turtle Island. Here in the eroded Texas landscape the earth had washed and/or blown away , down to the surface of the rocky shell of Turtle Island. No wonder the turtle became such a symbol of strength and endurance.

THE PICKETWIRE OWL:

The petroglyph illustrated at the center of the picture is to be found in the Picketwire Canyon, the canyon of the Purgatoire River in southeastern Colorado near La Junta. It is appears to be an image of a decorated shield in what has been designated as the Rio Grande Style. I think of these decorated shield images as sort of a portrait of someone. Native American shield decoration was not like the heraldry displayed on medieval shields in Europe. A group of warriors who followed a military leader in medieval Europe might carry identical shields to show their allegiance and common identity. The imagery on a Native American shield tended to be unique to that individual and was likely to illustrate the vision in which he received his spiritual and military power. Given this, I think of a rock art image of an illustrated shield as a sort of portrait of the owner, a portrayal of an object that is unique to one individual. This portrayal would also be recognizable to other people who knew the owner, and would represent him as a form of portrait.

Purgatoire canyon, southeast Colorado.
Photo: Peter Faris.

Among Native American cultures the owl was a spiritually powerful being, and was often believed to have martial attributes. The owl was often believed to bring messages concerning enemy activities to someone with a sacred connection to them, someone who had perhaps received “owl power” during a vision quest. I feel safe then in assuming that the Picketwire Owl Shield represented a particular individual, someone whose vision had gifted him with military ability and spiritual power. I think of this individual as a warrior named Owl Shield.

It is also very interesting that above the owl shield petroglyph, another round image seems to contain a cruder imitation, or at least a variation of the image. Does this represent the same warrior, or someone else, perhaps Owl Shield Jr.? Finally, the Picketwire owl shield was adopted by the Colorado Rock Art Association about four years ago as its logo. This represents quite a legacy and memorial to our unknown warrior Owl Shield, and also his legacy to us.

THE BANDELIER STONE LION SHRINE – LIFE-SIZED 3-D STONE CARVINGS:

Perhaps the most remarkable example of rock art I know of is the Stone Lion Shrine of Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico. Carved from the volcanic tuff so prevalent in that region, there are two recumbent mountain lions, approximately life sized, lying side by side, surrounded by a circle of boulders. These are assumed to have been a hunting shrine for Puebloan peoples of the area, and are reportedly still visited by pueblo residents periodically as offerings can still be occasionally seen there.

Bandelier Stone Lion Shrine.

I have not personally made the hike to visit the Stone Lion Shrine, but there are photographs available that show it in two incarnations. In one version the stone lions, recumbent within their circle of boulders, are surrounded by a very neatly arranged ring of deer and/or elk antlers. The other version can be found at the web site of Stephen Lee where he presents his photographs of the same Stone Lion Shrine without the ring of antlers. If I had to guess I would say I have to believe that the ring of antlers was probably added by that earlier photographer to dress up the site.

Reproduction stone lions, Bandelier

National Monument, New Mexico.

Photo: Peter Faris, 1985.

During a personal visit to Bandelier about 25 – 30 years ago I was thrilled to find a pair of reproductions of the stone lions next to the visitor’s center. Obviously some early researcher had made molds from the original stone lions and later done castings of them which were used in that display. Although they lacked the ring of surrounding boulders they show the life-sized sculptures of the two stone lions in seemingly perfect detail. The original lions are carved from volcanic tuff which is relatively soft so they have eroded somewhat, and this was faithfully reproduced in the copies. You can see the features however of very leonine heads, bodies, and tails.

I have recently been informed that these reproductions were subsequently destroyed by park officials because of complaints from Pueblo peoples that having them where tourists could see them was sacriligous. Note, these were not the real images taken from the shrine, they were reproductions. How this destruction of the reproduction stone lions differs from the Afghanistan Taliban dynamiting of the world’s two largest statues of Buddha in March 2001 totally escapes me. This was also the destruction of works of art because of and religious intolerance.

Reproduction stone lions, Bandelier

National Monument, New Mexico.

Photo: Peter Faris, 1985.

The original lions are carved from volcanic tuff which is relatively soft so they have eroded somewhat, and this was faithfully reproduced in the copies. You can see the features however of very leonine heads and bodies.

These two stone lions are arguably the pinnacle of North American rock art as the best life-sized realistic stone sculptures I know of. Not the only ones in existence however. There is another stone lion shrine associated with Cochiti pueblo and reportedly significant to the inhabitants of Zuni as well. Originally also reported with two reclining stone lions, recent photos show it with only one lion now, and this has been damaged with the tail broken off. The carving on these two was much less realistic than the Bandelier lions; indeed some observers have thought they were lizards. Photos and some information on this site can be found at the blog of Travel Schlepp.

For those who think of Native American rock art as a few crude petroglyphs or pictographs the Stone Lions of Bandelier National Monument should be a real eye opener.

PETROGLYPHS – DIRECT VS. INDIRECT PERCUSSION?

It seems to be almost universal that people writing about petroglyphs assume that they are produced by indirect percussion – the use of a hammerstone to hit some form of chisel which carves the image into the rock surface. I have even seen a number of artist’s impressions showing a Native American holding some form of chisel against the cliff with one hand and holding the hammerstone in the other hand. Just a little reasoning tells us that this cannot possibly be correct. If such a stone-age culture wanted to build a chisel they would have to use a sharpened stone blade with a bone, horn, or wood shaft, assembled with lashings and possibly low quality natural adhesives.

Newton’s second law of motion (conservation of momentum) tells us that as much or more of the force from pounding on such a chisel with the hammerstone would be absorbed by that chisel than would be transferred to the rock surface. This technique would very quickly destroy the joints in the chisel leaving the rock surface essentially untouched (if the rock surface is soft enough, a deer or elk antler tine used as a chisel, a hard, tough material which would probably be successful because it would have no joints to fail under repeated impacts).

Bird Rattle carving petroglyph,1924, Writing-on-Stone,
Blackfeet, from James Keyser,Art of the Warriors
Univ. of UT Press, Salt Lake City.

It is obvious to anyone with any firsthand experience in carving stone and the required tools, that petroglyphs must have been created with direct percussion – hitting the rock surface directly with a harder hammerstone. Indeed I have found many of the hammerstones used to create petroglyphs lying on the ground at the base of the decorated rock or cliff. People with no first-hand experience generally assume that direct percussion is extremely difficult, requiring heavy blows, and that accuracy is very hard to achieve. This is, in fact, incorrect. Moderate, easily controlled blows are best, and they can be applied with considerable accuracy.

We must remember that much of the great stonework of the ancients was created in exactly this way. Egyptian stone for temples, pyramids, and obelisks was quarried from the bedrock by pounding with hammerstones. Mayan and Aztec architecture was created by pounding with a hammerstone, as was the cyclopean stone work of the Incas. Indeed, the multitude of Easter Island statues were quarried and carved with direct percussion of a hammerstone. With all of these marvelous examples why do we still question the ability of direct percussion to create the petroglyphs?

Hammerstone below petroglyph panel,
Wild Horse Draw, Canyon Pintado, CO.
Photo: Peter Faris.

I think it is because our image of carving stone comes from Hollywood style presentations of Michelangelo carving large blocks of marble with a swinging mallet and a chisel. Metallurgical technology has given us chisels made from tempered steel that can hold up to the repeated blows of the mallet and to the surface of the stone. Our cultural technological focus tends to carve with the indirect percussion of a hammer or mallet and a chisel. We have a cultural bias toward expecting the use of a chisel in carving a hard substance.

Native American Rock Art, Yvette La Pierre,
1994, Thomasson-Grant, Charlottsville, VA.,
illustrations by Lois Sloan, p.22

There is a marvelous book for children about rock art. Native American Rock Art, by Yvette La Pierre, 1994, illustrated by Lois Sloan, has two nicely painted illustrations in it which show the creation of petroglyphs correctly using direct percussion. The irony in this is that they have it correct while so many experts get it wrong. Perhaps La Pierre and Sloan are actually the experts in this. Well, with this book to show them correctly the children growing up to be the next generation of rock art experts may get it right.

“LIGHTNING STONES” AND QUARTZ HAMMERSTONES:

Some rock art researchers have noted that among the rocks used as hammerstones rounded quartz pebbles are particularly commonly used in the American Southwest. This has led to speculation that there is something special about quartz that give it special meaning for this purpose.

In his 2002 book The Mind In The Cave, David Lewis Williams discussed the importance of quartz in a spiritual context (p. 176-77). He related the findings of David Whitley who wrote about a site named Sally’s Rock Shelter in the Mojave Desert where pieces of quartz which had been used as hammerstones on petroglyphs had been dropped around the site.

Quartz hammerstone on a petroglyph
boulder, Airport Hill, St. George, UT.
Photo: Peter Faris, 2002.

Williams cited a number of other connections between Southwestern Native American spiritual practices and quartz. He speculated that the reason that quartz cobbles were considered to be special was because they possess triboluminescence, when two rounded quarts cobbles are rubbed together in the dark they generate flashes of light in their interiors, an effect that I have personally confirmed many times with quartz cobbles in a dark room. Williams confirms that striking a quartz cobble against a rock surface (in other words using it as a hammerstone) does not seem to generate those interior flashes of light, but it still might be thought to possess enough spiritual significance because of that property that it is prized for use as a hammerstone.

Petroglyph on boulder, Airport
Hill, St. George, UT.
Photo: Peter Faris, 2002.

The name triboluminescence comes from the Greek tribein, meaning “to rub”. It occurs when energy is input into atoms from external sources. The electrons absorb this energy by moving to a higher state, and when the electrons return to their normal state the energy is released in the form of light.

David Whitley had previously written essentially the same as Williams in 2000 in The Art Of The Shaman, (page 102) where he said “the reason for this selective utilization of quartz lies in shamanistic beliefs about and uses of this mineral. Quartz crystals were common components of shamans’ ritual kits. Shamans also sometimes took white quartz rocks on their vision quests. They would strike them together to release their supernatural power.”

Quartzite hammerstone, Wild Horse
Draw, Canyon Pintado, CO.
Photo: Peter Faris.

At Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, New Mexico, the Florence Hawley Ellis Museum of Anthropology had a pair of quartz cobbles on exhibit labeled as “lightning stones”. Ellis, an archaeologist who worked in the Southwest from the 1930s to the 1960s, had excavated them from a kiva and speculated that in the dark of the kiva they were rubbed together to generate their flashes of light that resemble internal flashes of lightning inside of clouds.

The illustrations accompanying this column show a quartz cobble that had been used as a hammerstone to create a petroglyph(s) on a boulder on Airport Hill, St. George, UT, and one of the many petroglyphs found on boulders on Airport Hill, in St. George, UT, which may have been produced with this hammerstone.

The final illustration is a hammerstone from Wild Horse Draw in Canyon Pintado, northwestern Colorado, which seems to be a quartzite cobble. It is possible that the close resemblance of quartzite to quartz confers some of the same special spiritual significance on it. I have reproduced the “lightning stone effect” with quartz cobbles many times and can personally attest to the magical effect. If it fascinates me, how much more entrancing must it have been in prehistoric situations in a pitch black kiva, proof of spiritual power at our fingertips.