NEANDERTAL USE OF RED OCHRE PIGMENT:

Photo by Wil Roebroeks

An article written by Zach Zorich in the May/June 2012 (Vol. 65, No. 3) issue of Archaeology, Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America, and titled Neanderthals in Color, provides confirmation of the use of red ochre at a site in the Netherlands by Neandertals at least 200,000 years ago.

Zorich wrote: "In 1981, when Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University was beginning his archaeological career, he ran across some red stains in the grayish sediments on the floodplain of the Maas River where his team was excavating. The site, called Maastricht-Belvèdère, in The Netherlands, was occupied by Neanderthals at least 200,000 years ago. Roebroeks collected and stored samples of the red stains, and 30 years later he received funding to analyze them. It became apparent that he and his team had discovered the earliest evidence of hominins using the mineral iron oxide, also known as ocher. Until now, the use of ocher—as a red pigment in rock paintings, an ingredient in glue, and for tanning hides, among other things—was thought to be a hallmark of modern human behavior. While the manner in which the mineral was used at Maastricht-Belvèdère is something of a mystery, the find has had an impact on the question of whether ocher use represents modern behavior. "This whole debate is now to some degree a non-debate," Roebroeks says, "because Neanderthals were already doing this 200,000 years ago."

If these Neandertal people were using red ochre at that time they might have been creating images with it. At least they had the requisite materials to use the pigment as a paint or a crayon to create pictographs with. There is, of course, no proof of that in this report, but I think that we now have to at least allow for the speculation of its possibility and, if we accept it as possible, who is to say that Neandertal rock art may not be discovered too.

REFERENCE

© 2012, by the Archaeological Institute of America
www.archaeology.org/1205/trenches/maastricht-belvedere_neanderthals_ocher_stains.html

DANCING FIGURES:

Vermillion Canyon, Brown's Park, Moffat

County, CO. Photo Peter Faris, 1995.

 We find in some locations images that are generally identified as groups of dancing figures. Some of these are lines of figures holding hands, or all facing the same way in a line, each with a hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them. Other variations of the theme are groups of figures, perhaps facing inward in a circle, or apparently in a line all moving together.

Vermillion Canyon, Brown's Park, Moffat

County, CO. Photo Peter Faris, 1975.

 

 

Inevitably we speculate on the meaning of these figures being some sort of celebration or ceremonial activity. In his 2002 book Landscape of the Spirits: Rock Art at South Mountain Park, Todd Bostwick discussed dancing scenes in rock art. “Characteristically, several anthropomorphs in a row will be holding hands and sometimes one or more hold a cane or staff”. He also mentioned examples of “figures in lively postures suggesting rhythmic movement”. Bostwick cited an Akimel O’odham informant, Archie Russell, who identified dancers in several rock art panels.

Salt Creek, Canyonlands, Utah.

Photo Don Campbell, 1985.

If we accept that much rock art has a spiritual significance and includes spiritual components, then we must also expect to find references to spiritual ceremonies and celebrations. As we know that many (perhaps most) spiritual ceremonies and celebrations of tribal peoples involve group dancing, we may justifiably guess that such scenes are illustrations of such ceremonies and celebrations.

Village of the Great Kivas, Zuni, New

Mexico. Photo Teresa Weedin.

 

 

“The most common event centered pictographs and petroglyphs at Zuni portray ritual dancers and dances. A number of Zunis told me that Figure 3.7 (the panel from the Village of the Great Kivas) represents a group of Zuni “clowns” dancing around a pole during the winter solstice ceremony. Although I have never witnessed this ceremony, I have often seen clowns during the summer rain dances move around the plaza with their arms on each other’s waists in a manner similar to that portrayed in this rock carving. Still, one could hardly refer to this as unambiguous evidence that this particular petroglyph actually depicts part of a specific ceremony. The figures are amorphous enough that one cannot say definitively that they form a distinctive clown group. Moreover, there are only ten clowns who participate in Zuni rituals, yet there are perhaps eleven or twelve in this petroglyph. Finally, the date of the carving is highly uncertain; it could have been carved before the formation of the Zuni tribe in the southwest. In fact, the extreme difficulty in dating rock art images renders most interpretations hypothetical at best.” (Young 2004: 93)

If we accept that much rock art has a spiritual significance and includes spiritual components, then we must also expect to find references to spiritual ceremonies and celebrations. As we know that many (perhaps most) spiritual ceremonies and celebrations of tribal peoples involve group dancing, we may justifiably argue that such scenes may be illustrations of such ceremonies and celebrations. Indeed, Colorado State Archaeologist Richard Wilshusen has argued that many of these portrayals are definitely processions to ceremonial events – enter dancing!

REFERENCES:

Patterson, Alex

1992    A Field Guide To Rock Art Symbols Of The Greater Southwest, Johnson Books, Boulder.

Young, M. Jane

2004    Ethnographic Analogies in Southwestern Rock Art, p. 80-102, in New Dimensions In Rock Art Studies, edited by Ray T. Matheny, Museum of Peoples and Cultures Occasional Papers No. 9, Brigham Young University, Provo.

NEW SOFTWARE FOR PICTOGRAPH PHOTO ENHANCEMENT:

I would hazard the guess that nine out of any ten rock art enthusiasts have tried to enhance faint pictographs by software manipulation of the image in their computer. I will also hazard the guess that for at least 8 of that 9 the results were less than satisfying. There is now new software that seems to provide amazing results.

An article by Renata d’Aliesio in the Toronto Globe and Mail, Thursday, March 15, 2012, describes this apparently miraculous new tool which its developer Jon Harman has named DStretch. D’Aliesio described the circumstances leading up to its development like this: "Rock art had long fascinated Jon Harman. The American mathematician sought out pictographs on vacations, snapping pictures of stones and caves even when all that remained were indecipherable red blotches. Photo-editing programs improved the images, but not by much. A friend pointed Mr. Harman to an image-enhancement technique known as decorrelation stretch. Developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it has been used to enhance photos of Mars. Perhaps the technique would work for faded pictographs. Mr. Harman took up the challenge and, with a few modifications, DStretch was created in late 2005. He provides the plug-in at no cost through his website (www.dstretch.com) . It’s designed to work with the ImageJ program, on PCs and Macs.”

A couple of photographs from the article in the Globe and Mail can illustrate the results.

Sinclair Creek in Kootenay National Park,

B.C. Photograph Toronto Globe and Mail

The person on the left is dancing within a rayed arc, "depicting a shamanistic activity. This was a common image among central Columbia Plateau aboriginal groups, but less so in eastern British Columbia, where this pictograph is located. The triangular-shaped figure on the right is of a different rock art tradition and may have been painted at a different time. In the figure’s hand is a circle or drum, indicating a ceremonial activity."

Washout Creek along the shore of Kootenay Lake,

B.C. Photograph Toronto Globe and Mail.

 

 

Multiple figures were painted at the Washout Creek site, "often overlapping, indicating these pictographs were created over a long period of time – likely hundreds or even thousands of years. Drawings of a human figure with a drum and fir boughs suggest ceremonial activities took place here. Fir boughs were used in cleansing ceremonies of young females who had completed a vision quest. Vision quests marked the transition from childhood to adulthood for many Columbia Plateau groups. Also shown is a person hunting for sturgeon with a long spear, illustrating this was a good fishing spot."

Parks Canada has been photographically recording rock art sites to preserve the images. A spokesman for Parks Canada, a Mr. Himour said that for them DStretch proved to be a real game changer. They first used the software in the summer of 2010, applying it to photos taken at Sinclair Creek in British Columbia’s Kootenay National Park. Unlike the cross-polarization technique, pictures could be taken during the day. No special filter or flashes were required. They have taken about 2,500 photos at 30 rock art sites in Kootenay and Banff National Parks and in the foothills of Alberta as part of its Pictograph Project. Many of the known pictograph sites have faded so badly that they cannot see images that had already been recorded at the sites. With DStretch, however, these images can be retrieved and seem to jump out at the viewer. While the article in the Globe and Mail only mentions pictographs I also wonder if this software might be sensitive enough to bring out those repatinated petroglyphs that can be so hard to photograph under many lighting conditions. Perhaps those of us with a technical bent can make use of this software in our own photo collections to preserve the precious images that are inexorably fading.

REFERENCE:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/once-thought-lost-the-rock-art-images-of-ancient-peoples-are-seen-again/article2370923/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2370923&utm_source=Southwestern+Archaeology+Today&utm_campaign=53c1d2de58-SAT+Weekly+Broadcast&utm_medium=email

PORTRAITS OF CHARLES DARWIN FOUND IN PALEOLITHIC ART:

Cave drawing of an old man (A) and a modern artist's
rendition, La Marche, France. From Guthrie,
The Nature of Paleolithic Art, p.443.

The largest number of human portraits in Paleolithic art (a rare enough occurrence) have been found in the cave of La Marche, in France. Some of these are on flat slabs of stone called plaques that are covered with a veritable nest of scratched lines. Jean Airvaux teased this image of a bearded face out of the lines on one plaque. Guthrie (2005:90) likened it in his sketch to a Greek portrait of Socrates which he found on display in the Vatican museum. While I like his whimsy, and admire his courage in making this connection at all, I must disagree.

 Charles Darwin by Julia Margaret Cameron, from Wikipedia.

After studying this drawing I believe that I have uncovered the truth of this Paleolithic portrait. The image was obviously made by a shaman (there it is, the “S” word again) who had foreseen this face while in a trance and in communication with the timeless spirit world. When the shaman returns from this trance he is empowered to make predictions of future events and happenings. In this case the shaman has foreseen the future coming of Charles Darwin who was destined to explain the development of human cultures (and that other thing – what was it? Oh yes, the origin of the species) through the process of evolution to the descendants of those Paleolithic people who were unlearned enough to believe that they had been created just as they were.

Old Man from La Marche, From Guthrie,

The Nature of Paleolithic Art, p. 90.        

Charles Darwin, www.bbc.co.uk.

We know indeed that this all must be true because of the prevalence of the current theory espoused by David Lewis-Williams and others that pretty much links all rock art to the S-word (shamanism). Oh yes, what day is it again - April 1?

REFERENCES:

Guthrie, R. Dale

2005    The Nature of Paleolithic Art, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

COWBOY ROCK ART:

Cowboy “venus” petroglyph in Sego Canyon

Photo from Charles Swenson, Austin, TX.

This is another example of cowboy rock art that was sent to me by Charles Swenson of Austin, Texas. This is located in Sego Canyon, Utah, which is north of the small town of Thompson in the bookcliffs of Grand County. The rock art site in Sego Canyon itself has panels that span the centuries from Barrier Canyon painted figures, through Fremont petroglyphs and Ute painted panels, to historic including the cowboy figure shown here. That means that this particular site was in use for well over two millennia and what art museum can begin to say as much?

Additionally, this site has benefitted from a large restoration project which has brought out considerably more Barrier Canyon rock art than was visible when I first visited it thirty years ago.

REFERENCE:

http://dirtbrothercharles.blogspot.com/

A VISUAL PUN IN PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK, ARIZONA:

Near Newspaper Rock, Petrified Forest National Park,

Arizona. Photo: Peter Faris, June 1993.

We have all seen examples of rock art that we interpret as meant just for fun, images that we find entertaining with no apparent clues to any deeper meaning. Of course, it is always possible that imagery like this contains a very deep meaning, but we just cannot see it. There is, however, one form of image that I think we can probably agree was created as a joke, or form of humor. This is what I would define as a visual pun. By the term visual pun I mean an image that could have more than one identity or definition, and I also think that it would be meant to be entertaining.

I would like to present a visual pun here that is found in Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. This image consists of a hump-backed figure with a long zigzag proboscis or nose, bent over, holding his back as if it aches, and walking with a cane or staff which also consists of his nose. Now this figure might also have a very serious meaning behind him. Indeed, given the rounded nature of his back, the long projection from the front of his face, and the projections from his head resembling Kokopelli’s antenna he might be meant to remind us of Kokopelli. If so this adds a double layer of sophistication to the pun. An old man, who is at the same time Kokopelli, walking with a cane, which might at the same time be his nose or his flute. Or it might be a lightning bolt implying great power, which coupled with the apparent feebleness of the figure gives us another possible layer of meaning altogether.

Did whoever created this figure have all of the above in mind – probably not. Yet it was created as it is for a reason. And my best guess at that reason includes humor. 

KOKOPELLI:

Humpbacked flute player, Albuquerque,

NM. Photo: Peter Faris, 1988.

One of the most easily recognized kachinas because of the hump on his back. His black mask has white-rimmed eyes and a white stripe subdividing the face vertically over the top. A conical beak points up which is made of corn husks in real life. He also has feathers or antenna-like protrusions on his head. His name, the Humpback Flute Player, comes from a flute that he carries which may have its end carved in the shape of a flower. He also carries a shepherd’s staff with which to catch girls that he attracts with his flute music or a bag of candy that he carries.

Humpbacked flute player, Mesa Prieta, Rio Arriba county,

NM, Photo Peter Faris, 1997.

Bolder versions of Kokopelli portray him with a large phallus. He is then the personification of nymphomania.  Among the Hopi, Kokopelli carries unborn children on his back and distributes them to women (for this reason, young girls often fear him). He often takes part in rituals relating to marriage, and Kokopelli himself is sometimes depicted with a consort, a woman called Kokopellimana by the Hopi.

Some people believe that Kokopelli’s humped back is a pack full of seeds of beneficial and useful plants with which he populates the world. In this incarnation he also presides over the multiplication of game animals. With dominion over agriculture Kokopelli brings the season of Spring by playing his flute to chase away the Winter. The Zuni also associate Kokopelli with the rains.

Assassin fly kachina (Kokopelli).

He is sometimes also called the Robber Fly or Assassin Fly kachina because that insect is humpbacked and has long flute-like mouthparts. Kokopelli frequently appears with a Flute Kachina and sometimes carries no flute until he borrows the flute from the Flute Kachina. When that occurs the Assassin Fly Kachina becomes Kokopelli, the hump-backed flute player.

Assassin Fly Kachina (Kokopelli).

The Assassin Fly or Assassin Bug is an insect with a hump on its back. It is a blood-sucking creature with elongated mouthparts which can easily be seen as the flute. I have had the enlightening experience of being bitten on the back by an assassin bug and it was an experience I would not wish to repeat. The feeling was akin to having a red hot needle shoved into my back. Imagining living the life of a puebloan farmer, spending most of my time in the open, I would be quite aware of the assassin bug, and it could well become a focus of superstition.

Our culture has enthusiastically adopted Kokopelli with the predictable results. We have multiplied sillier and sillier kokopellis, riding bicycles, skiing, playing trombones, etc. I own a few myself given to me as gifts by friends. This may be an inevitable part of our society’s attempt to accommodate, understand, and appreciate another culture, but we should not allow this aspect of the modern kokopelli to make us forget the powerful attributes of fertility and blood which he presented to the people who first conceived of him, and that he represents a sacred image to many of our fellow citizens.