LA 12609 - A PAINTED CAVATE KIVA, MORTANDAD RUIN, LOS ALAMOS COUNTY, NM:

Cavates at the Mortandad ruin, Los Alamos,

NM. Photograph Peter Faris, Aug. 30, 2003.

In 2003 we visited the Mortandad Ruin with our friends Bill and Jeanne Gibson. This is on the Pajarito Plateau at Los Alamos, New Mexico, and features rock art as well as cavates and other features. One of the most exciting features there is a painted cavate kiva, in pristine condition and virtually as good as new.

Mortandad ruin, cavates and viga holes

in the cliff. Johnson and Hoagland,

2010, Fig. 3, p. 3.

"The Pajarito Plateau was formed by a series of large volcanic ash flows erupting from the Jemez Mountains about one million years ago. The ash consolidated into a soft rock resulting into what is referred to as Bandelier tuff, which through erosion, gradually dissected into the thirteen canyons upon which LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory) and the Los Alamos townsite reside. The south-facing sides of the canyons frequently erode and fracture into vertical cliff faces. Between the twelfth through sixteenth centuries, people living on the Pajarito Plateau carved chambers into the tuff face, these referred to by archaeologists as cavates. By definition, a cavate or rock cut feature exhibits evidence of human modification (Figure 3). This evidence includes excavation marks, a shaped or modified entryway, floor or wall plaster, internal features including grooves, niches, sooting, or external features (e.g.,viga holes, hand/footholds, or staircases). Cavates, rock cut features, and other associated architectural features are carved into the soft tuff and are subject to degradation, resulting primarily from erosion. The Mortandad cavates, compared with others on the Pajarito Plateau, are relatively stable, as the tuff in this area is less friable than other tuff outcrops. Although the floors, walls, and roofs remain relatively stable, some of the Mortandad Canyon cavates are eroded and plaster and sooting that may have been present is now gone. The existing cavate deterioration indicates that the outer layer of tuff can crumble and/or spall off when touched or walked on." (Johnson and Hoagland 2010:2-3)

                                                     

Cave kiva at the Mortandad ruin,

Los Alamos, NM. Photograph

Peter Faris, Aug. 30, 2003.

                                                                

 Of particular interest at Mortandad, is a decorated cave kiva. It is extremely well preserved and the walls inside are covered with images.

"The interior of the cave is elaborately decorated with a series of bold, well-executed petroglyphs carved into the soot-blackened ceiling and walls. A dado of tan plaster extends from the floor to a height of approximately 30 in. above the floor. Figures represented by the petroglyphs include the hunchbacked flute player, the plumed serpent, masked dancing figures, birds and other animals. Apparently either there were few fires in the kiva after the figures were carved, or they were periodically cleaned, as the incised areas have little or no soot remaining in them." (Steen 1977:62)

"Arrow swallower" and club swinger at the

Mortandad ruin, Los Alamos, NM.

Photograph Peter Faris, Aug. 30, 2003.

"Mortandad Style. The almost perfectly preserved room at LA 12609 is the type site for the Mortandad Style of kiva art. To create figures in this style, the artist first blackened the cave with a dense, black coat of sooty smoke (see Fig. 18). Then, with a hard point of some sort, quite possibly a sharpened stick, he cut through the soot to the light gray tuff beneath. The resultant figures are large, rather stiff and roughly done. The Kokopellis and the club swinger - are the only figures in which any action is portrayed. This style was found from Ancho canyon to Pueblo Canyon." (Steen 1977:22)

"In an unusual, perhaps unique, representation of magic, Kokopelli is shown swallowing and arrow. It is not known whether the club swinger is aiming at the hunchback, but these are rare portrayals of action. "'Sword" swallowing is a practice of a curing society at Zuni (Stevenson 1904).'" (Steen 1977, Fig. 19, p. 25)

I am uncomfortable with the identification of this particular figure as a "Sword-swallower" or arrow-swallower. If that is actually the case, the arrow is being inserted into the throat nock end first. This means that the fletching of the arrow is going against the grain. It may be, in fact, that this was a real practice observed by Stevenson (1904) and my problem with the concept is only personal squeamishness, but I would like to know that a thorough search of Ancestral Pueblo references and pueblo mythology has been conducted to eliminate a concept such as a mythological  hero coughing up a sacred arrow. Another possibility is that the fletching of the arrow is purposely being inserted in the throat to induce vomiting. In the American southwest certain cleansing ceremonies included drinking a tea or infusion of certain herbs to induce vomiting that cleaned out the interior. Ethnographic mention of this sometimes also include the detail of using a chicken feather to tickle the throat if the onset of the purging was too slow. This might, in fact, be a portrayal of such a ceremony.

"Fig. 21. Masked figures and, at

the right, two quadrupeds kissing.

Kissing quadrupeds and birds

occur frequently in this style of kiva

art. (Meter stick shown.)"

(Steen 1977:27)

"Few geometric figures were seen in any of the kivas; the style seems to run almost exclusively to life forms. Anthropomorphic figures, either masked men or gods, are common (see de Peso's letter below), but Kokopellis are seldom seen. The most common single figure is probably the Awanyu. Birds and quadrupeds are the other figures carved on the walls, and frequently they are shown in pairs in kissing position (Figs. 20 and 21)." (Steen 1977: 22-3)

"Some of the figures seem to have a Mexican accent, so a set of photographs (Figs. 19-22) of the art work at the kiva at LA 12609 was sent to Charles di Peso of the Amerind Foundation, Dragoon, Arizona. His reply was:

"Fig. 22. On the left is a possible

representation of a Mesoamerican

Sun god and, on the right a

Kokopelli." (Steen 1977:28)

"What a lot of wonderful decoration - exciting as hell and twice as much fun! Starting at the 'sunburst' kid, who occupies the area between the two entries - isn't he something! His sun body with the center cross is an iconographic form used by the Mesoamericans to represent Tonatiuh (Beyer 1965, pp. 147 and 169). In his left hand is a perfectly good 'horned serpent' and in his right, a T-shaped club. By the 14th century, when the kiva was in use, it is believed that Tonatiuh was submerged by the Huitzilopochtli complex (Nicholson in Wauchope's Handbook of Middle American Indians, 10, pp. 424-426) in Mexico. If so, the Anasazi snake-in-hand portrait would resemble that of Huitzilopochtli, as depicted in the Codex Borbonicus 34 (Fig. 39).

Horned serpents and spotted animals

at the Mortandad ruin, Los Alamos, NM.

Photograph Peter Faris, Aug. 30, 2003.

The Kokopellis - hunched, ithyphallic flute player, and sundry sword swallowers, etc. - the 'rainbow' Plumed Serpent, which was laid out as a design over the wall niche, suggests some affinity with Quetzalcoatl. Below it are the two long-tailed, spotted, kissing characters. They are a far cry from 'tigers', but they are spotted and have long tails. Whether or not the one with the ears or 'horns' is a male and the other a female is open to one's imagination. Further, there is a relationship between this pair and the Plumed Serpent with the bifurcated tail - it remains and interesting supposition. - - Not much I can say about the kissing animals noted over the last niche and over the first niche where the horned helmet stands." (Steen 1977:23-4)

Elsewhere I have speculated that the two spotted quadrupeds may be canines, given the straight tails, lack of claws, and also the lack of feline pointed ears. Canines or jaguars ("tigers"), I really do not know.

One must not get the impression that ll the cave kivas from Ancho to Pueblo Canyon werre decorated in this manner. From more than half the hundreds of cavate ceremonial rooms, the inner surface has exfoliated so that all trace of any former designs has disappeared. At other sites, the rooms were blackened but not decorated. Where the Mortandad style figures were cut into the walls, normally only one or two figures were made. We are fortunate that the best preserved kiva also contains the most figures." (Steen 1977:24)

All in all, this is a fascinating site with an amazing array of extremely well preserved art, including a number of unique themes and images. 

REFERENCES:

Johnson, Alexander F. and Stephen R. Hoagland

2010    Mortandad Cavate Complex Baseline Study, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM.

Steen, Charlie R.

1977    Pajarito Plateau Archaeological Survey and Excavations, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory of the University of California, Los Alamos.

A DEER TRAP IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO:

Caption:  "Fig. 23. LA 12612. The deer

trap at the rim of the mesa. Note the

easy access to the pit from Mortandad

Canyon at the right." (Steen 1977:29)

The subject of this posting is not technically rock art, but it is a piece of stone work, impressive in its own way. This hole, carved into the bedrock, is believed to have been used as a pitfall trap for deer. In his 1977 report on " Pajarito Plateau Archaeological Survey and Excavations", Charlie Steen described it as follows:

Deer trap on trail to Mortandad ruin,

Los Alamos County, NM. Photograph

Aug. 2003, Peter Faris.

"Deer pits were dug on low saddles between canyons. They were probably hidden with a covering of light brush and given wing walls of juniper and pińon branches, so that a deer could be driven from a canyon up a slope to the saddle and forced to the pit where, hopefully, it would step on the cover, fall through, and break a leg or its neck.

Sometime during the late 1940s, I visited the game pit near Navawi ruin, and at that time there were vestiges of heavy brush wing walls on either side of the pit.

The only game pit in the survey area which can safely be called a deer trap is that at LA 12612. It is located on a low saddle between two mesas, at the head of a rather gently slope out of Mortandad Canyon. It could easily have made the apex of two brush wing walls and have been used to trap game driven from the canyon." (Steen 1977: 29-30)

Cavates,  Mortendad ruin, Los

Alamos County, NM. Photograph

Aug. 2003, Peter Faris.

This feature is relatively near the large prehistoric pueblo in Mortandad Canyon at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Judging from what remains at the Mortandad ruins is was a fairly large pueblo built against the cliff face. As at Long House in Bandeliere, cavate rooms were then excavated into the soft volcanic tuff to add additional space behind the constructed rooms. About all that remains to be seen now is a number of cavates illustrating various degrees of erosion. A few seem to be complete, while many provide evidence of how far the cliff face has eroded in intervening centuries. We were led to this site in 2003 by our friends Bill and Jeanne Gibson from nearby Los Alamos.

Deer trap on trail to Mortandad ruin,

Los Alamos County, NM. Photograph

Aug. 2003, Peter Faris.

Although the excavation of the hole would have been fairly easy for these Ancestral Pueblo people, it is after all not as large as the cavate rooms they excavated into the canyon walls, it is still an impressive feature. What I find interesting is that the easiest access, and the assumed drive lines, come out of Mortandad Canyon which was, as mentioned above, well occupied by people. How many wild deer would have felt comfortable enough around that many people to be in place to be driven. Perhaps the situation then was the same as the situation in many suburbs today, where suburban deer have gotten comfortable enough around people to be seen virtually daily. But then, would not the easy hunting have led to a heavy predation on the deer by hunters eliminating any of the animals that were not fully wild? I will have to leave this question to those who know deer behavior better than I do.

REFERENCE:

Steen, Charlie R.

1977    Pajarito Plateau Archaeological Survey and Excavations, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory of the University of California, Los Alamos.

A COSMIC HOAX:

Station #16, Nine-Mile Canyon, UT.

Photograph Peter Faris, 1993.

Close-up of panel at Station

#16, Nine-Mile Canyon, UT.

Photograph Peter Faris, 1993.

In this column I am presenting another egregious mistake from the book Odyssey of the Pueblo Indians by William Eaton. On page 145 he presents a petroglyph panel that he calls a "Pueblo (Fremont) Star Chart". That is his identification of the well-known petroglyph panel from Station 16, in Nine-Mile Canyon, Utah.

Bighorn sheep from Station #16,

Nine-Mile Canyon, UT.

Photograph Peter Faris, 1993.

One identification that I take exception to is what he calls the two-headed mountain sheep. Upon careful examination of the petroglyph Eaton's second head at the back of the animal is actually a conglomeration composed of its tail and a couple of curved lines descending from an unknown mark that has been destroyed by the impact of a large caliber bullet. The remains of this mark can be seen circling around to the upper right of the bullet crater.

Anthropomorph on left of panel,

Station #16, Nine-Mile Canyon, UT.

Photograph Peter Faris, 1993.

On the left of this panel is a figure that Eaton calls an "anthropomorph with a six-ball bola weapon." Now this is a very interesting figure and does, in fact, remind one of a figure holding a bola. This figure along with numbers of carefully rounded stone balls found at Fremont sites have prompted this same identification by many other rock art researchers. It is an interesting speculation, but one that has not been proven. For some reason, and absolutely without any evidence at all Eaton has claimed that "the three balls may possibly refer to the three stars now called Orion's Belt." Which three balls Mr. Eaton? As you pointed out there are six.

Eaton's analysis of panel (p. 39), 

Station #16, Nine-Mile Canyon, UT.

Then Eaton went on to identify the constellations Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Serpens, as well as a few other stars including Polaris in additional marks on the cliff face. Unfortunately, the majority of the stars that Eaton identifies in this panel are, in reality, bullet holes put there by Anglos much later than the petroglyphs. In many places, we find that petroglyphs and pictographs provided seemingly irresistible targets to gun-toting vandals. These unfortunate marks have never had anything to do with Fremont or Pueblo Native American groups. Additionally, to make the constellation Serpens out of those bullet holes Eaton had to flip the constellation entirely as can be seen in the star chart below.

Star chart of the summer sky showing

Serpens to the left of center. From

Howard, The Telescope Handbook

and Star Atlas, 1967, p. 39.

This so-called "Pueblo (Fremont) Star Chart" is just another mistaken example of someone who feels compelled to try to force the facts to fit a theory that they bear no relation to in the real world. While I applaud Mr. Eaton's enthusiasm, I do have to deplore his methods and results.

REFERENCES:

Eaton, William M.

1999    Odyssey of the Pueblo Indians, Turner Publishing Co., Paducah, KY.

Howard, Neale E.

1967    The Telescope Handbook and Star Atlas, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York. 

GLOBAL ROCK ART DATA BASE:

Global Rock Art Data Base home page.

http://www.rockartdatabase.com/v2/.

An interesting new development in rock art recording has come out of Australia with Robert Haubt's Global Rock Art Database (GRADB). Unlike most rock art Internet sites which focus on "see my pretty pictures," or using rock art to prove Creationism, or any of the other many personal goals of the creators of the websites, Haubt has built a framework for projects and data from all over the world. I believe his aim is to, in effect, build the central library for everyone's rock art studies. Even at its early stages the GRADB provides a wealth of interesting information and provides links to many projects and destinations. This project forms part of his "PhD thesis which is looking at digital data management in rock-art heritage." (Haubt 2015)

The Rock Art Data base currently has "over 200 sites, projects, and other resources currently listed on a world map. The Rock Art Database brings together hundreds of rock-art projects from around the world in one centralized hub. Find some of the most amazing rock-art places from around the world through our interactive map and explore stunning media galleries showcasing photographs, videos, 3D models and virtual tours." (Haubt 2015)

"Mission:

The Rock Art Database is a non-for profit online project at PERAHU, Griffith University in Australia. It seeks to improve theory and practice in the digital curation of rock art data through building a centralized global heritage community network. Through the use of new technologies the database offers new ways to look at heritage data and explores the potential in digital curation." (Haubt 2015)

This is a very ambitious project which I believe will prove to be of great value. It will eventually include "Interactive Media Presentations: hundreds of photographs, maps, 3D models, Virtual Tours." (Haubt 2015)

His stated goal is to provide a resource will contribute to developing a rock art community where people can "upload, manage, share, and discuss, to assist conservation, preservation and education in theory and practice by making rock-art related issues more accessible and more visible. " (Haubt 2015)

Check this out for yourself. Go to http://www.rockartdatabase.com/v2/, see the exciting possibilities, and get on board with Robert Haubt and the Global Rock Art Data Base.

                              

REFERENCES:

http://www.rockartdatabase.com/v2/

Robert Haubt (personal communication).

PALEOLITHIC HORSE DOMESTICATION?

Paleolithic Horse paintings from Chauvet cave.

Photo from www.bradshawfoundation.com.

There is an interesting school of thought today that maintains that cave paintings of horses, as well as horse effigies carved in bone or antler, contain clues that point to domestication of the horse by Magdalenian people. One of the major proponents of this interpretation is Paul Bahn. I have elsewhere expressed my great admiration for Paul Bahn for his imaginative approach to interpreting cave art, and his willingness to confront and argue against dogma. I am afraid, however, that in this instance I find myself in the position of arguing against Bahn. 

"15. Carving of a horse head from Saint-Michel d'Arudy, France, showing facial lines that indicate the line demarcating the mealy muzzle and the natural contours of the face. These lines have been interpreted by Bahn to represent a bridle. (Drawing courtesy of Randall White)" (Olsen 2003:5)

            "The strongest evidence presented for the control of horses at this early date consists of depictions of what Bahn (Paul) interprets as bridles on the heads of horses in wall engravings and effigies carved in stone or antler. These artistic renderings display lines encircling the nose and running from the nose back toward the ear (figure 15). At first glance these lines could be interpreted as part of a bridle, including the nose band, chin strap, and cheekpieces. On closer inspection, however, it is clear that these lines represent natural features on the heads of the Pleistocene horses. The wild Asiatic (Przewalski) horse, which is colored like many of the prehistoric depictions of the European Ice Age horses, has what is known as a mealy muzzle, or pale cream-colored ring around the end of the snout (figure 16). This is one of the characteristics of what is today called a Pangare' coat pattern on horses. Although there are no clear examples of a mealy muzzle in cave paintings, it is possible that some of the engravings with lines around the nose are meant to portray this change in coloration around the tip of the muzzle. The horizontal lines running from the nose back toward the neck probably represent natural contours or the horse's head. Curved lines are often incised to represent the contours of the large masseter muscle at the back of the lower jaw, and some lines indicate changes in fur patterns. Similar lines are seen on engravings of bison and other animals, although their positions are slightly different, but no one has suggested that bison were domesticated. (Olsen 2003:54)

Paleolithic baton de commandment. Public

domain photograph from the internet.

            "Bahn also believed that the Paleolithic batons de commandment were cheekpieces for a bridle. Although they bear a vague similarity to much-later Bronze Age antler cheekpieces, the batons are generally larger and heavier with only one very large perforation near one end. Bronze Age cheekpieces typically have two or three holes for the leather straps." (Olsen 2003:55)

            "Further, Bahn presented examples of damage on incisors (the anterior teeth) of Paleolithic horses that he hypothesized was caused by the nervous habit of crib-biting. This practice has been observed in horses that get bored with being penned and begin to chew on their stalls. If this behavior occurs only in situations where the animal is enclosed by a human-made structure, then surely horses were being controlled in the Paleolithic. R. A. Rogers and L. A. Rogers have shown, however, that similar damage appears on horse incisors dating to the early and middle Pleistocene of North America, long before the arrival of humans, Littauer pointed out that such wear could have just as easily been formed when the animals browse on the bark of trees." (Olsen 2003:55)

"16. A Przewalski horse showing the contours of the face and sharp color demarcation around the muzzle depicted in figure 15. (Photo by Sandra Olsen)" (Olsen 2003:5)

            "Some scholars, notably Paul Bahn, have suggested that horses were at least managed an perhaps domesticated 20,000 years ago by Ice Age hunter-gatherers who created the cave paintings, ornaments, and mobile art of the Upper Paleolithic (see chapter 3). This idea has been widely popularized by Jean Auel in her best-selling fiction books beginning with Clan of the Cave Bear. 

            Stocky, thick-legged, large-headed horses living throughout Europe during the Pleistocene Ice Ages were depicted magnificently in cave paintings and sculpted bone objects by Upper Palaeolithic artists, particularly in southwest France and northern Spain. Some of these depictions seem to show rope halters around horse heads (see chapter 3, figure 1). This interpretation is convincing at first. However, the shaggy winter coat of the modern Przewalski horse often sports a line of tufted hair running down the cheek and around the nose in exactly the positions marked by the "halter" lines in Paleolithic art. The "winter coat" interpretation of these lines is simpler and more likely than an interpretation based on bridling.

            Some Upper Paleolithic horse teeth exhibit odd wear that Bahn has suggested resembles the wear caused by crib-biting, a vice associated with stalled or penned horses. However, similar wear has been found on the teeth of Early Pleistocene equid fossils from America, animals that could not possibly have been domesticated because they predate the evolution of both modern humans and horses (see chapter 3). There has never been a controlled study that reliably identifies the diagnostic traits of cribbing wear on equid teeth so that it can be positively distinguished from natural wear or incidental damage to the incisors. The crib-biting suggestion remains untested and inherently unlikely. It would require not only domestication but long-term stalling of horses by Paleolithic hunters.

            On the whole there is little archaeological evidence even for herd management and no convincing support for domestication associated with the Ice Age horses of the European Upper Paleolithic." (Anthony 2003:69)

Wood chewing, or crib-biting, is behavior in which the horse gnaws on wood rails or boards as if they were food. This behavior eventually gives a distinctive wear pattern on the horse's teeth that a good veterinarian can identify in making his diagnosis. Wear patterns resembling this have been found on some teeth on Paleolithic (Ice Age) horse skeletons which has led some investigators to rash statements that this is proof of horse domestication that early. In other words, Cro-Magnon supposedly had built corrals and confined their domesticated horses there, where they performed crib biting. I think that nothing could be further from the truth.

Horses, both wild and domesticated, will chew wood on occasions. Where I live in the American West, if a horse corral contains a cottonwood tree it is almost invariable dead, the horses having girdled it by chewing the bark off. Inner bark is a nutritious food that they purposely seek out, especially when grazing conditions are poor. If drought has prevented normal grass growth for grazing, or if deep snow has covered the grass, horses will naturally turn to chewing the bark on trees. Indeed, ethnographic reports of Plains Indian tribes tell us that they sometimes kept their favorite horse tethered by their tipi in winter encampments which were usually in a heavily wooded area to provide some protection from cold winds. The owners of these horsed would gather branches of surrounding cottonwood trees to feed these horses which readily chewed off the bark and ate small twigs and branches. This bark was supposedly nutritious enough that the horses reportedly could put on weight on such a diet, even during harsh winter conditions. 

With reasonable explanations for the marks on the carvings and paintings that might resemble harnessing, and with a reasonable explanation for wood chewing by horses, I believe that the preponderance of evidence is against the proposed domestication of horses in the paleolithic period. Additionally, I can think of no way that evidence of crib-biting could be deduced from the paintings or carvings of the Paleolithic period. Therefore, with this analysis, I think that we can make an informed judgement on the question of domestication and, to me, all the evidence argues against it. 

REFERENCES:

Anthony, David W.,

2003    Bridling Horse Power, chapter 4, p. 58-82, in Horses Through Time, edited by Sandra L. Olsen, Roberts Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Olsen, Sandra L.,

2003    Horse Hunters of the Ice Age, chapter 3, p. 35-56, in Horses Through Time, edited by Sandra L. Olsen, Roberts Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

POSSIBLE OLDEST PETROGLYPH IN SOUTH AMERICA DISCOVERED:

Little Horny Man petroglyph,

Lapa do Santo, Brazil. from http://www.livescience.com/

An online article by Charles Q. Choi, a contributor to LiveScience, explains the discovery of what might be the oldest petroglyph in South America, in a cave named Lapa do Santo in central-eastern Brazil.

The region is home to Luzia, the oldest human skeleton found to date in South America. Discovered at Lapa Vermelha, Brazil, in 1975, by archaeologist Annette Laming-Emperaire, the skeleton has been dated to ca. 11,500 BP. Luzia's remains  were not articulated. Her skull was separate from the rest of the skeleton and was buried under forty feet of mineral deposits and debris, but was in surprisingly good condition. Although flint tools were found nearby, hers were the only human remains found. In 2013 new dating of the bones provided an age of 10,300 ± BP (11,243 - 11,070 BP). (Wikipedia)

Human remains of that age in the same region presents the possibility that the petroglyph could conceivably also be that old.

Sketch of Little Horny Man

petroglyph, Lapa do Santo, Brazil. from http://www.livescience.com/

"Lapa do Santo is one of the largest rock shelters excavated yet in the region, a limestone cave covering an area of about 14,000 square feet (1,300 square meters). Here, researchers have found buried human remains, tools made of stone and bone, ash from hearths, and leftovers from meals of fruit and small game. In 2009, a team headed by Walter Alves Neves digging about 13 feet (4 meters) below the surface, the scientists found a rock carving or petroglyph of a man packed into the side of the cave. 'The figure, which appears to be squatting with his arms outstretched, is about 12 inches (30 centimeters) tall from head to feet and about 8 inches (20 centimeters) wide'. The engraving is also depicted with a relatively large oversized phallus about 2 inches (5 cm) long, or about as long as the man's left arm. 'We named the figure 'the little horny man,' Neves said." (Choi 2015)

" 'The figure is probably linked to some kind of fertility ritual,' Neves told LiveScience. 'There is another site in the same region where you find paintings with  men with oversized phalluses and also pregnant women, and even a parturition (childbirth) scene.' Carbon dating and other tests of the sediment covering the petroglyph suggest the engraving dates between 9,000 and 12,000 years old. This makes it the oldest reliably dated instance of such rock art found yet in the Americas." (Choi 2015)

"When this carving is compared with other examples of early rock art found in South America, it would seem that abstract forms of thinking may have been very diverse back then, which suggests that humans settled the New World relatively early, giving their art time to diversify. For instance, at one site in Argentina named Coeval de lass Manos, paintings of hands predominate, while at another site there, Cueva Epullan Grande, engravings have geometric motifs. ' It shows that about 11,000 years ago, there was already a very diverse manifestation of rock art in South America, so probably man arrived in the Americas much earlier than normally is accepted,' Neves said." (Choi 2015)

And the old "Clovis first" dictum continues to crumble.

NOTE: The scientists detailed their findings February 22, 2015, in the online journal PloSONE.

REFERENCES:

Choi, Charles Q.,

2015    Little Horny Man: Rock Carving of Giant Phallus Discovered, http://www.livescience.com/, February 22, 2015.

Wikipedia.

A PALEOLITHIC PALIMPSEST:

Scratches on a stone plaque
Gonnersdorf, Germany. From
Bahn and Vertut, 1997.

"A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book that has been scraped off and used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin from Greek  παλιν + ψαω = (palin "again" + psao "I scrape"), and meant "scraped (clean and used) again." Romans wrote on wax-coated tablets that could be smoothed and reused, and a passing use of the term "palimpsest" by Cicero seems to refer to this practice. - -  The term has come to be used in similar context in a variety of disciplines, notably architectural archaeology." (Wikipedia)

In art cases the term palimpsest is usually used to describe a composition with traces of previous work (or pentimenti) showing through. In rock art or cave art it would most often refer to trying to pick a recognizable image out of a mass of marks (scratches or lines). Some early recorders picked out whatever image they could decipher and often only recorded the lines of that image, ignoring all the other markings.

Paul Bahn explained the modern attitude toward such recording in his 1997 book Journey Through The Ice Age:


"Deciphering or copying images on a cave wall is rather like an excavation, except that the 'site' is not destroyed in the process; the pictures are 'artifacts' as well as art and, if superimposed, they even have a stratigraphy. Moreover, instead of selecting and completing animal figures from the mass of marks, like early archaeologists seeking, keeping and publishing only the belles pieces and ignoring the 'waste flakes', the aim for the last thirty years has been to copy everything. This helps to reduce psychological effects akin to identifying shapes in clouds or ink-blots: faced with a mass of digital flutings or engraved lines, the mind tends to find what it wants to find, in accordance with its preconceptions, and often detects figurative images which ae really not there. In addition, one needs to counteract the psychological effect whereby the eye is drawn to the deeper lines (although these may have been of secondary importance) and to lines in concave areas which are generally better preserved than those on convex areas which are more exposed to wear and rubbing.

To eliminate lines we do not understand is an insult to the artist, who did not put them there for nothing; where there are so many lines that it is difficult to 'isolate' anything, however, it is still necessary to 'pull out' any definite figures which exist hidden in the complex mass (this is also far less strain on the eyes), though one should still try to publish the mass, leaving the reader free to make a different choice. In his herculean twenty-five year study of the 1512 slabs from La Marche with their terrible confusion of engraved lines, Leon Pales isolated and published only those figures which his expert knowledge of human and animal anatomy revealed to his eye: but he estimated that only one line in 1000 has been deciphered on these stones. Unfortunately, there are very few scholars with similar skills in deciphering and reproducing Palaeolithic engravings." (Bahn 1997:55)

Horse image from plaque, Gonnersdorf,
Germany. From Bahn and Vertut, 1997.

In his book he illustrated a detailed tracing of an engraved stone plaque (20 cm. by 18 cm.) from Gonnersdorf, Germany, and then a horse figure extracted from the mass of lines.

Horse on plaque, Gonnersdorf,
Germany. From Bahn and
Vertut, 1997.

One can search such a mass in the attempt to identify additional images as I have attempted to do. In my short examination of the detailed drawing I located a possible lion head in profile immediately behind the head of the horse. The lines are certainly there, but the question is was that actually intended to be a lion by the original creator, or is it merely a figment of my imagination. How many other figures can you find?

Horse and possible lion. Gonnersdorf,
Germany. From Bahn and Vertut, 1997.

REFERENCES:

Bahn, Paul G., and Jean Vertut,
1997    Journey Through the Ice Age, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.

Wikipedia