DAVID C. REICHELT
PECOS RIO GRANDE MUSEUM OF EARLY MAN
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The craft of pottery, one familiar to all of us, has proven to be the most difficult of all to tell. Unlike the story of man’s hunting tools, or his weaving, pottery is a history in itself.To even attempt to tell it’s story we must step back many thousands of years. To grasp the events, we must first understand the terms to be offered. The very name of this museum, Pecos Rio Grande, Museum of Early Man, is our first clue. The term “Early Man”, here it refers to man of North America, man as he lived during the archaic era. That suggest man of 2,000 to 10,000 BP. Before present, or BP. This is used due to the fact all the world history is not guided by the Christian calendar. This is just one of the several terms we must introduce, if the story of pottery and early man are to be understood. The old world and the new world. Starting back some fifteen thousand years or more, our earth became two worlds. At least when we tell the story of man, we must think of it as two unrelated worlds. And man? He also must be viewed as two different species. Not in his physical self, but in the two worlds he lived in. That is his prehistoric story. Two worlds. It began as man, the big game hunter, entered new lands. A history of evolution would have man move out from Africa into Europe, and Asia. and in time into the lands of North America. Unlike the paths between Africa and Europe and Asia, the route to North America was available for only a brief period. Due in large part, to the ice ages, man that ventured to the east out of Asia, would be forever, or at least fifteen thousand years , separated from the old world. Thus we have the two worlds of man. The old world and the new world. Two lands, two people. As separate as if on Mars and Venus.
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Amazingly, it can be demonstrated, as separated as these worlds were, man would in many ways walk a parallel path in the history of his crafts. The bow and arrow, his skill at weaving, and at fist glance his pottery. But with pottery it is only skin deep, the two worlds offer a craft of similar use and appearance, but are in fact worlds apart.When we here at the museum speak of early pottery of the Americas, we do not include pottery of the rest of the world. The parallels of pottery, between the old world and the new world, do not match. The story of pottery in the new world, is unique in it’s self. This must be explanded, the story of pottery in the new world of prehistoric times, that prior to man of the old world again joining with his species of the past, is one of two unrelated potteries. Yes, two potteries, prehistoric and historic. The history of pottery in the new world is one of a craft developed in the Southeast United States, and it’s parallel in South America. Our interest here will be directed to the craft as it developed in the southeast of North America.
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The history of American pottery is best told in two parts. In addition to the craft of making the vessels, there is the story of the development of the materials used. Not unlike making an automobile, the development of the car came only after the story of the materials used. Thus pottery making was presided by the basic materials used in it. Clay.The history of pottery in the southeast United States, is some two thousand years in the telling, but it is predated by by at least a thousand years of clay development. No, man did not just pick up clay and make a bowl. He made vessels for over a thousand years, before he turned to clay.
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THE VELIKOVSKY ZONE
The history of pottery is one told around the world. Only it’s one of different times and unrelated starts. If a example of pure parallelism were to be offered, pottery would not be the subject.
To day it is the craft of many variations, of many art forms. But it is the pottery of the new world, the North American pottery, we are going to offer a history of. And it will be the Velikovsky Zone, that will aid in the understanding of those first steps, the use of clay. What is the Velikovsky Zone? And why the name it bares?
Immanuel Velikovsky, author, scholar, respected psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. His books, including Worlds in Collision, Ages in Chaos, and Earth In Upheaval, to name but a few, have been vigorously rejected by the academic community. Among the orthodox he is referred to as “The Velikovsky affair”.
It is the data, facts and reasoning, offered in his “Earth in Upheaval”, that led to the naming of the Velikovsky Zone. Within his book he offers “The vivid documentation of cataclysmic evolution”, or a earth in upheaval. While this author would be far beyond his skills, to either support or reject Mr. Velikovsky’s work, he did find, at his research site, in Mississippi, evidence that supported at least one event offered. It, as well, aided in the understanding of events related to the early history of clay use.
Near the delta of the Pearl River, the river being the state line between Mississippi and Louisiana, and only a short distance east of the Mississippi River delta, the work at a late archaic site, offered many facts on man’s early use of clay. In texts the term “clay balls” is used.
Shaped and or decorated objects of clay, recovered by the tens of thousands. From a site near the Mississippi River, an estimated four million or more were encountered. Their recovery is recorded as far to the east as the coast of South Carolina. As common as these clay balls were, even their story must be offered in two parts. At the Pearl river site, the story or development was divided by a zone of silt, this zone now referred to, by this author, as the Velikovsky zone.
It was clear, a major event had caused this deep deposit of silt. While the upper habitation zone, issued artifacts of close resemblance to the lower zone, beneath the silt, a major change had taken place, the clay balls had evolved.
CLAY IN USE
Clay use, yes clay was in use long before pottery became a craft. At the Zueberbueler shelter in West Texas, a archaic site, clay was recovered. Small, odd shaped objects, toys perhaps, were recovered. Only a few, and of material not normally recovered in the area.
It was to the east, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the data and artifacts suggest clay became almost as important to man, as stone had been for a million years and more. What task could equal hunting to early man? The cooking of what he killed. The story of how he cooked his food, was one of the artifacts recovered by the museum. Half was demonstrated amidst the debris of the Texas shelter. The second part settled in the sand dunes along the Gulf coast. Now we have three subjects to study.
Clay, pottery and cooking. How were they related? One thing that became very clear, man’s first trade item was his skills. East, west or north and south, man moved among other men, as be traveled so did his skills. If your new friend had a better hunting point, and you could improve yours in some way, try.
This trail of related introduction of a new craft, is the most important archeological tool available. It allows the artifacts recovered at one site, to be given a date and history, when compared to recoveries a continent away. And so it will be with clay and cooking. Their story will be as one. and that will tell the story of pottery in the Americas. The force behind all, will be man’s desire to cook his food. He could have just tossed his kill upon the fire, and may have done so, far in the past. But a new tool was introduced, clay. And in the Americas, it had it’s start in two, totally unrelated locations.
If ever a set of parallels are to be offered, that are unrelated and most unexpected, it would be facts. Pottery in the form of clay vessels had a similar start in South America and North America. In material used and time. But there is now added one most unusual fact. This author spent many years recovering early clay use and man’s first pottery vessels. This would include one of the very few fiber tempered vessels ever recovered. What would seem, to my self, a fact that demonstrates even life can prove most unpredictable. My name is Reichelt, not rare, but far from common. The archeologist in South America, most noted for his work in early clay use, and first pottery development, in that part of the world, spells his name Reichel, opps, no “T”.
Cooking
We associate prehistoric pottery with cooking, for this reason, we will first offer the history of cooking. Again we will return to the Zueberbueler shelter in West Texas. A time capsule of 8,000 years of man’s history. Man made it his home about 10,000 BP. It was the start of the archaic era of man, in North America. From it’s depths, we would learn of the skills and tools of man at the start, of this era, and those that he would leave it with, around 2,000 BP..
When man first entered, the then new world, he had few skills, and possibly only a single craft. He was a hunter, The now extent mastodon and mammoth were his main source of food. His skill as a hunter was aided by his skill at making his hunting tool. Other that a few crude tools, such as scrapers, knifes and hammers, we have little to turn to, for aid in knowing him.
As a hunter of large animals, he was also a nomad, he made his home where the game roomed. For this reason we have very little knowledge of his skills other than as a hunter. Did he have fire, possibly, but how he made it can only be offered by conjectures. Did he even cook his food, same base of information, none. At the Texas shelter all this would change, a full disclosure of his new way of living, would be offered.
As stated, the tools of man, some 10,000 BP., were crude. If a larger stone would brake a smaller stone, than the bigger stone was then his tool of choice. If it could be grasped, and did the job, what more could be asked? At the base of the shelters floor, beneath over seven feet of man’s discards, such were the tools in use. But things changed rapidly. The hunting point, in use for thousands of year, was of little use to our new cave man, he was now a gatherer. Deer were to fleet for him, at best, he could snare a rabbit.
Unlike other creatures of the time, man was able to change. Where other species would become extent, due to the lose of their pray, man was able to develops new ways to hunt. The introduction of the Atlatl, or throwing stick, made a hunter of him again. Thus, his need to cook, would be as great as ever. The tools for fire were now recovered. The degree of human abilities was made clear, no small trick, fire making. A new tool of several parts, a skill was required. As the museum display will demonstrate, fire making was more than a simple striking of a match. Several millennium prior to the bow and arrow, the fire making bow was employed. Yes man had new hunting tools, tools to make fire, but how did he cook the meat he had acquired? Did he just toss it upon the embers of his fire?
The walls of the Pecos River, the Rio Grande River and the Devil’s River, rise as much as 300 feet. It could be suggested that there were at one time as many as a thousand shelters in the area. Many small and some vast, almost cathedral in size. The Zueberbueler site, some 100 meters across. All distinguished by their common talus slope. After eight thousand years of habitation, and discards from a hundred times that many hearths, the slope would be enormous. Tons of broken rock. Rocks from the cooking fires of early man.
Man did not just toss his kill into the fire, he cooked it upon his new hot plate, a slab of rock. Placed upon the glowing embers of his fire, this permitted the food to cook, and yet not be destroyed. The story of cooking along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, is strikingly similar. We find the skill of the cave dweller, had traveled hundreds of mles. Only there was a major obstacle. No rocks.
There was a vast amount of sand, to place his fire upon, and wood to burn was plentiful, but no rocks. What was available was clay, pure and moldable clay. Man had his cook tops, dried clay pads.
This use of clay was recovered at a site in Northwest Florida. Sand dunes, shifted by hurricane winds, reviled old cooking hearths of Archaic man. Evidence suggest such clay cooking pads saw only a short history. Like their counter part in Texas, they shattered from the heat. The decision was made. Why make a large clay pad, only to have it shatter, when a batch of preshaped clay balls would be easer to form, and with less cooking mess? So began the clay cooking balls or clay objects. As well the story of pottery.
As with all of early man crafts, art was soon to be added. The pure clay was easily molded, and the new form used was potato in shape and size. Decoration was done by placing finger groves from pole to pole, or end to end. This form of decorated clay balls are today referred to as Elliot' Point balls. The name given by their first recovery near Fort Walton Beach, Florida, along the Gulf Of Mexico coast.
It would not be long before a new form of decoration was employed. The playable clay would take easily to tool decoration. Patterns in many forms were placed on the exterior of the new cooking balls. First molded decoration, now applied decoration. Very important feature in the early history of clay use.
As with his other new crafts, man’s cooking balls were to gain wide spread use. To the east, they were recovered at a site in the Piedmont area of South Carolina. And to the west, the Pearl and Mississippi rivers and their bayous. This brings us back to the Velikovsky zone. The lower habitation level, some two feet under silt, yielded clay balls. The same in basic form as used in Northwest Florida. Potato shaped, but only the tools decorated and not the finger grooved.
Additionally a new form was present. The majority were given a barrel shape. These also were tool decorated and, as with the Florida balls, the clay used was very pure. As with Florida balls, pure clay permitted incise decoration to be applied. A additional form of ball was recovered, in small quantity. Finger grooved barrels. No tool decoration, just a set of finger groves around the sides of the barrel. All ball were of a similar size, about three inches long. About two thirds the size as the first balls that replaced the early clay cooking pad.
It was clear, the lower zone at the Pearl River site, was a westward trade of a cooking craft. And the clay cooking pads in Florida a eastward movement of the cooking hearth with a safe pad to cook upon. Clay had been the material of choice in the east. Like rock pads, it also shattered from the great heat of the hearth.
Now the Velikovsky zone enters the story. The upper habitation zone, atop the two feet of silt, offered many important changes. Not in the hunting points or stone tools, just the clay balls. The lower zone was thin, suggesting man had lived there only a short time. the upper zone was more than a foot thick. The need was to establish any relation between the two zones. It was clear the Velikovsky zone had been deposited by a major hurricane. The question was now one of duration. Had man left the site for an extended period of time, his crafts and life style would demonstrate it. But no change could be seen, other than that offered in the clay cooking balls.
It was now clear, clay was the primary raw material in use by early man. The estimate of over four millions balls put in use at the Poverty Point site, would require great amounts of it. A used and somewhat intact hearth, at the Mississippi site, suggested as many as a fifty balls may have been used in each. With a history of hundreds of years of use, no surprise such a vast amount were encountered.
The original hearth, noted at the Peal River site, offered evidence as to why the recovered clay calls were of differing colors. The majority were a red to orange on their exterior. Many were more yellow and a rare survivor was black.
The old hearth demonstrated that man made a pad of balls, placed his food on top, then covered the total. Much used like a Dutch oven. On complication of cooking, the dome shape oven was opened, to retrieve the food.
The balls being discarded about the hearth, demonstrated the reason for their several colors. Those at the base were black. Only a rare sample would survive the heat the balance would shatter. Not so unlike the original rock or clay pads had done.
The red to orange balls, had been the objects placed around the outer edge of the food. Here the hearth heat would fire them, and their survival was enhanced. Those placed on the top, were only warmed and well dried during the cooking. There yellow color due to this, and they also survived well.
The black and destroyed balls, were as they been placed, the remainder had been tossed to the side, and so they were, when the new ages of sand were removed.
The balls had changed. No longer made from the pure clay of the pre storm era, there matrix had changed to a sand clay
No longer able to decorate with tools, man had applied his art by molding the balls, a verity of forms were recovered. No longer the potato shape, the round basic ball had been introduced. molded to a verity of common shapes. Along with round balls there were cone or conical, bi conical, conical with three side and four side groves. A almost square form best described as mulberry in shape, due to the placing some six grooves in a round call. And one form encountered at the lower zone. The finger squeezed barrel.
Two questions faced the research, why the change of paste used, and why the new decorations. The answer was offered by one additional set of balls. The rare to almost unique forms that were recovered. Unusual in that they mimic the lower zone. As well they offer a feature not common on any of the basic balls. Numbering less than one in a hundred, They tell their own story.
Most are made using the pure paste, not unlike the lower zone material. A almost common feature is they are pierced. A small hole from pole to pole. Or it may be a almost pierced hole, from pole to pole. Was this just an added decoration? The more striking were the miniatures. less than a third the size of the basis balls, they were of a common material, the pure clay paste.
The holes, these were the easiest to explain. Similar holes had been encountered in the lower zone, and like the lower zone, the samples from above were tool decorated. Recall, they again used the pure paste clay. An occasional sample of a tool decorated ball would be recovered that showed it had lied upon a mat. The weaving impression would be evidence of this. To avoid this problem, man had inserted the small stick into the wet ball and stuck it into the sand to dry. On many he would pierce the total ball, pole to pole, and rest the new wet ball between two resting points, again, to allow it to dry.
On those with only a partly periced hole, it was not uncommon to find a short hole pirced into the opposite pole. This may have been done to give the dried ball a balanced decoration, a hole at each end.
The big question, the change from a pure paste to the new sandy material? The two feet of silt may offer us the answer. The Velikovsky zone had covered man’s deposits of pure clay. Even today, zones of sandy clay, is common along the Gulf Coast. But such clay would not accept the incised lines of a tool, at best it would crumble. Thus the same craft, only new forms and decorating methods.
The last group, the miniatures, can only be offered as either toys or special event use. We need consider ,this was late in the archaic era. The Southern Cult had begun to the west, God had entered man’s life.
Now The Vessels
Vessels in the form of bowls, or containers, had been in use long before pottery was introduced. among the clay balls of Florida and other Gulf Coast sites, stone bowls were recovered.
Two kinds of stone were put to use. Sand stone was a rare material, the single shard in the Pecos Rio Grande Museum, bares the cutting marks on the exterior, and is well polished on the interior. More common, but still very rare is the use of Steatite, or soap stone.
Several of the steatite shards in the museum have handles cut into them, near the rim. These bowls could weight up to forty pounds, and were not a easily transported vessel. Their lose by braking was followed by the reuse of the shards. Beads and pendants were common. The ease that Steatite could be cut and formed, made them a popular art material, for early man.
Eventually, around 3,000 BP., the use of clay was added. Clay was used in two ways, plan or untempered, and fiber tempered. One of the rare few, recovered and restored fiber tempered bowls, is displayed in the museum.
The term temper is misused in early pottery. The corpusals in the recovered shards, suggest that Spanish Moss was added to the clay paste. These early vessels were not fired, only sun dried. The moss added possiby to give support to the clay, as it dried. Along the gulf coast, it would me years before true fireing of potterey was the norm. it was not uncommon to recover shards from early pottery sites, so soft they could be remolded into any shape. Than placed in the sun to dry, as hard as other shards of the time.
Shards that demonstrate heat was used, their colors, more likely were placed near a hearth and the result was a uneven firing. About 2,500 BP., man grasped the adding of temper to his paste, and the added strength of firing.
From this point on, each new improvement, suggested a new era. The Gulf Coast series, then the Deptford, the Santa Rosa Swift Creek, the Weeden Island, and just prior to man form the old world arriving, the Fort Walton series.
Samples of these forms, can be seen in the museum displays. It was the arrival of the white man, and his pottery, that ended the story of the American pottery. The visitor from the east, as had man here in the old world, introduced his trade item, a new way, a new tool, the potters wheel.
The new world pottery had been constructed by the coil system. Coil after coil was added to a clay base. Even legs, tetropods were added during the early eras. And each period, was distinguished by it’s own form of decoration.
Yes even pottery had it’s own set of tools. Decoration was applied in a number of ways. A paddle of wraped with cords, or weaving, the early basket pattern. Drag and jab, any pointed sick would do. The rocker stamp, here a shard of a sea shell worked fine. Even the finger nail was employed.
One rare tool to be recovered would be the potter's stone. Used to smooth the paste, to hide the coils and add strength, this would be small and of a oval shape. Size and shape being governed by the need to use the tool inside the new vessel. The ground outer edge of these stones tells of their repeated use. They were needed to smooth the inner walls of a incurving vessel sides. Keep in mind, that there was not the potters wheel, a flat tool would not serve well to smooth a new bowl, one that needed to be turned, by hand, continually as it was polished.
There you have it, a true new world craft, from birth, spurred by need, to it’s demise, due to old world technology
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July 1, 2009
A few foot notes should be added. American pottery, would by 1200 BP. move out to the far west, of North America. But it was not till historic time, that it would gain any acknowlagement, for it’s excellence.
By then the coil methoid had been droped and the new potters wheel had become the norm. But only as a trade craft, the toriest of the twentieth century would find it irresistible, and never know what they were buying was a redo of a Euporian art form.
The full display of clay balls, pottery of the Gulf Coast, shard samples of decorations and a few tools can be viewed.
Would suggest your visiting the display of prehistoric pottery of the eastern Americas, at
pecosrio/pottery
Visit the pottery art of Mr. Moore, this display is only rarely seen, in American libraries.
The author having one of the few remaining set of books.
pecosrio/moore
Or you may wish to see the early cave art,
pecosrio/kirkland
or return to main directory
The Author
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The history of pottery is one told around the world. Only it’s one of different times and unrelated starts. If a example of pure parallelism were to be offered, pottery would not be the subject. To day it is the craft of many variations, of many art forms. But it is the pottery of the new world, the North American pottery, we are going to offer a history of. And it will be the Velikovsky Zone, that will aid in the understanding of those first steps, the use of clay. What is the Velikovsky Zone? And why the name it bares? Immanuel Velikovsky, author, scholar, respected psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. His books, including Worlds in Collision, Ages in Chaos, and Earth In Upheaval, to name but a few, have been vigorously rejected by the academic community. Among the orthodox he is referred to as “The Velikovsky affair”. It is the data, facts and reasoning, offered in his “Earth in Upheaval”, that led to the naming of the Velikovsky Zone. Within his book he offers “The vivid documentation of cataclysmic evolution”, or a earth in upheaval. While this author would be far beyond his skills, to either support or reject Mr. Velikovsky’s work, he did find, at his research site, in Mississippi, evidence that supported at least one event offered. It, as well, aided in the understanding of events related to the early history of clay use.
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Near the delta of the Pearl River, the river being the state line between Mississippi and Louisiana, and only a short distance east of the Mississippi River delta, the work at a late archaic site, offered many facts on man’s early use of clay. In texts the term “clay balls” is used.Shaped and or decorated objects of clay, recovered by the tens of thousands. From a site near the Mississippi River, an estimated four million or more were encountered. Their recovery is recorded as far to the east as the coast of South Carolina. As common as these clay balls were, even their story must be offered in two parts. At the Pearl river site, the story or development was divided by a zone of silt, this zone now referred to, by this author, as the Velikovsky zone. It was clear, a major event had caused this deep deposit of silt. While the upper habitation zone, issued artifacts of close resemblance to the lower zone, beneath the silt, a major change had taken place, the clay balls had evolved.
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CLAY IN USE
Clay use, yes clay was in use long before pottery became a craft. At the Zueberbueler shelter in West Texas, a archaic site, clay was recovered. Small, odd shaped objects, toys perhaps, were recovered. Only a few, and of material not normally recovered in the area.
It was to the east, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the data and artifacts suggest clay became almost as important to man, as stone had been for a million years and more. What task could equal hunting to early man? The cooking of what he killed. The story of how he cooked his food, was one of the artifacts recovered by the museum. Half was demonstrated amidst the debris of the Texas shelter. The second part settled in the sand dunes along the Gulf coast. Now we have three subjects to study.
Clay, pottery and cooking. How were they related? One thing that became very clear, man’s first trade item was his skills. East, west or north and south, man moved among other men, as be traveled so did his skills. If your new friend had a better hunting point, and you could improve yours in some way, try.
This trail of related introduction of a new craft, is the most important archeological tool available. It allows the artifacts recovered at one site, to be given a date and history, when compared to recoveries a continent away. And so it will be with clay and cooking. Their story will be as one. and that will tell the story of pottery in the Americas. The force behind all, will be man’s desire to cook his food. He could have just tossed his kill upon the fire, and may have done so, far in the past. But a new tool was introduced, clay. And in the Americas, it had it’s start in two, totally unrelated locations.
If ever a set of parallels are to be offered, that are unrelated and most unexpected, it would be facts. Pottery in the form of clay vessels had a similar start in South America and North America. In material used and time. But there is now added one most unusual fact. This author spent many years recovering early clay use and man’s first pottery vessels. This would include one of the very few fiber tempered vessels ever recovered. What would seem, to my self, a fact that demonstrates even life can prove most unpredictable. My name is Reichelt, not rare, but far from common. The archeologist in South America, most noted for his work in early clay use, and first pottery development, in that part of the world, spells his name Reichel, opps, no “T”.
Cooking
We associate prehistoric pottery with cooking, for this reason, we will first offer the history of cooking. Again we will return to the Zueberbueler shelter in West Texas. A time capsule of 8,000 years of man’s history. Man made it his home about 10,000 BP. It was the start of the archaic era of man, in North America. From it’s depths, we would learn of the skills and tools of man at the start, of this era, and those that he would leave it with, around 2,000 BP..
When man first entered, the then new world, he had few skills, and possibly only a single craft. He was a hunter, The now extent mastodon and mammoth were his main source of food. His skill as a hunter was aided by his skill at making his hunting tool. Other that a few crude tools, such as scrapers, knifes and hammers, we have little to turn to, for aid in knowing him.
As a hunter of large animals, he was also a nomad, he made his home where the game roomed. For this reason we have very little knowledge of his skills other than as a hunter. Did he have fire, possibly, but how he made it can only be offered by conjectures. Did he even cook his food, same base of information, none. At the Texas shelter all this would change, a full disclosure of his new way of living, would be offered.
As stated, the tools of man, some 10,000 BP., were crude. If a larger stone would brake a smaller stone, than the bigger stone was then his tool of choice. If it could be grasped, and did the job, what more could be asked? At the base of the shelters floor, beneath over seven feet of man’s discards, such were the tools in use. But things changed rapidly. The hunting point, in use for thousands of year, was of little use to our new cave man, he was now a gatherer. Deer were to fleet for him, at best, he could snare a rabbit.
Unlike other creatures of the time, man was able to change. Where other species would become extent, due to the lose of their pray, man was able to develops new ways to hunt. The introduction of the Atlatl, or throwing stick, made a hunter of him again. Thus, his need to cook, would be as great as ever. The tools for fire were now recovered. The degree of human abilities was made clear, no small trick, fire making. A new tool of several parts, a skill was required. As the museum display will demonstrate, fire making was more than a simple striking of a match. Several millennium prior to the bow and arrow, the fire making bow was employed. Yes man had new hunting tools, tools to make fire, but how did he cook the meat he had acquired? Did he just toss it upon the embers of his fire?
The walls of the Pecos River, the Rio Grande River and the Devil’s River, rise as much as 300 feet. It could be suggested that there were at one time as many as a thousand shelters in the area. Many small and some vast, almost cathedral in size. The Zueberbueler site, some 100 meters across. All distinguished by their common talus slope. After eight thousand years of habitation, and discards from a hundred times that many hearths, the slope would be enormous. Tons of broken rock. Rocks from the cooking fires of early man.
Man did not just toss his kill into the fire, he cooked it upon his new hot plate, a slab of rock. Placed upon the glowing embers of his fire, this permitted the food to cook, and yet not be destroyed. The story of cooking along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, is strikingly similar. We find the skill of the cave dweller, had traveled hundreds of mles. Only there was a major obstacle. No rocks.
There was a vast amount of sand, to place his fire upon, and wood to burn was plentiful, but no rocks. What was available was clay, pure and moldable clay. Man had his cook tops, dried clay pads.
This use of clay was recovered at a site in Northwest Florida. Sand dunes, shifted by hurricane winds, reviled old cooking hearths of Archaic man. Evidence suggest such clay cooking pads saw only a short history. Like their counter part in Texas, they shattered from the heat. The decision was made. Why make a large clay pad, only to have it shatter, when a batch of preshaped clay balls would be easer to form, and with less cooking mess? So began the clay cooking balls or clay objects. As well the story of pottery.
As with all of early man crafts, art was soon to be added. The pure clay was easily molded, and the new form used was potato in shape and size. Decoration was done by placing finger groves from pole to pole, or end to end. This form of decorated clay balls are today referred to as Elliot' Point balls. The name given by their first recovery near Fort Walton Beach, Florida, along the Gulf Of Mexico coast.
It would not be long before a new form of decoration was employed. The playable clay would take easily to tool decoration. Patterns in many forms were placed on the exterior of the new cooking balls. First molded decoration, now applied decoration. Very important feature in the early history of clay use.
As with his other new crafts, man’s cooking balls were to gain wide spread use. To the east, they were recovered at a site in the Piedmont area of South Carolina. And to the west, the Pearl and Mississippi rivers and their bayous. This brings us back to the Velikovsky zone. The lower habitation level, some two feet under silt, yielded clay balls. The same in basic form as used in Northwest Florida. Potato shaped, but only the tools decorated and not the finger grooved.
Additionally a new form was present. The majority were given a barrel shape. These also were tool decorated and, as with the Florida balls, the clay used was very pure. As with Florida balls, pure clay permitted incise decoration to be applied. A additional form of ball was recovered, in small quantity. Finger grooved barrels. No tool decoration, just a set of finger groves around the sides of the barrel. All ball were of a similar size, about three inches long. About two thirds the size as the first balls that replaced the early clay cooking pad.
It was clear, the lower zone at the Pearl River site, was a westward trade of a cooking craft. And the clay cooking pads in Florida a eastward movement of the cooking hearth with a safe pad to cook upon. Clay had been the material of choice in the east. Like rock pads, it also shattered from the great heat of the hearth.
Now the Velikovsky zone enters the story. The upper habitation zone, atop the two feet of silt, offered many important changes. Not in the hunting points or stone tools, just the clay balls. The lower zone was thin, suggesting man had lived there only a short time. the upper zone was more than a foot thick. The need was to establish any relation between the two zones. It was clear the Velikovsky zone had been deposited by a major hurricane. The question was now one of duration. Had man left the site for an extended period of time, his crafts and life style would demonstrate it. But no change could be seen, other than that offered in the clay cooking balls.
It was now clear, clay was the primary raw material in use by early man. The estimate of over four millions balls put in use at the Poverty Point site, would require great amounts of it. A used and somewhat intact hearth, at the Mississippi site, suggested as many as a fifty balls may have been used in each. With a history of hundreds of years of use, no surprise such a vast amount were encountered.
The original hearth, noted at the Peal River site, offered evidence as to why the recovered clay calls were of differing colors. The majority were a red to orange on their exterior. Many were more yellow and a rare survivor was black.
The old hearth demonstrated that man made a pad of balls, placed his food on top, then covered the total. Much used like a Dutch oven. On complication of cooking, the dome shape oven was opened, to retrieve the food.
The balls being discarded about the hearth, demonstrated the reason for their several colors. Those at the base were black. Only a rare sample would survive the heat the balance would shatter. Not so unlike the original rock or clay pads had done.
The red to orange balls, had been the objects placed around the outer edge of the food. Here the hearth heat would fire them, and their survival was enhanced. Those placed on the top, were only warmed and well dried during the cooking. There yellow color due to this, and they also survived well.
The black and destroyed balls, were as they been placed, the remainder had been tossed to the side, and so they were, when the new ages of sand were removed.
The balls had changed. No longer made from the pure clay of the pre storm era, there matrix had changed to a sand clay
No longer able to decorate with tools, man had applied his art by molding the balls, a verity of forms were recovered. No longer the potato shape, the round basic ball had been introduced. molded to a verity of common shapes. Along with round balls there were cone or conical, bi conical, conical with three side and four side groves. A almost square form best described as mulberry in shape, due to the placing some six grooves in a round call. And one form encountered at the lower zone. The finger squeezed barrel.
Two questions faced the research, why the change of paste used, and why the new decorations. The answer was offered by one additional set of balls. The rare to almost unique forms that were recovered. Unusual in that they mimic the lower zone. As well they offer a feature not common on any of the basic balls. Numbering less than one in a hundred, They tell their own story.
Most are made using the pure paste, not unlike the lower zone material. A almost common feature is they are pierced. A small hole from pole to pole. Or it may be a almost pierced hole, from pole to pole. Was this just an added decoration? The more striking were the miniatures. less than a third the size of the basis balls, they were of a common material, the pure clay paste.
The holes, these were the easiest to explain. Similar holes had been encountered in the lower zone, and like the lower zone, the samples from above were tool decorated. Recall, they again used the pure paste clay. An occasional sample of a tool decorated ball would be recovered that showed it had lied upon a mat. The weaving impression would be evidence of this. To avoid this problem, man had inserted the small stick into the wet ball and stuck it into the sand to dry. On many he would pierce the total ball, pole to pole, and rest the new wet ball between two resting points, again, to allow it to dry.
On those with only a partly periced hole, it was not uncommon to find a short hole pirced into the opposite pole. This may have been done to give the dried ball a balanced decoration, a hole at each end.
The big question, the change from a pure paste to the new sandy material? The two feet of silt may offer us the answer. The Velikovsky zone had covered man’s deposits of pure clay. Even today, zones of sandy clay, is common along the Gulf Coast. But such clay would not accept the incised lines of a tool, at best it would crumble. Thus the same craft, only new forms and decorating methods.
The last group, the miniatures, can only be offered as either toys or special event use. We need consider ,this was late in the archaic era. The Southern Cult had begun to the west, God had entered man’s life.
Now The Vessels
Vessels in the form of bowls, or containers, had been in use long before pottery was introduced. among the clay balls of Florida and other Gulf Coast sites, stone bowls were recovered.
Two kinds of stone were put to use. Sand stone was a rare material, the single shard in the Pecos Rio Grande Museum, bares the cutting marks on the exterior, and is well polished on the interior. More common, but still very rare is the use of Steatite, or soap stone.
Several of the steatite shards in the museum have handles cut into them, near the rim. These bowls could weight up to forty pounds, and were not a easily transported vessel. Their lose by braking was followed by the reuse of the shards. Beads and pendants were common. The ease that Steatite could be cut and formed, made them a popular art material, for early man.
Eventually, around 3,000 BP., the use of clay was added. Clay was used in two ways, plan or untempered, and fiber tempered. One of the rare few, recovered and restored fiber tempered bowls, is displayed in the museum.
The term temper is misused in early pottery. The corpusals in the recovered shards, suggest that Spanish Moss was added to the clay paste. These early vessels were not fired, only sun dried. The moss added possiby to give support to the clay, as it dried. Along the gulf coast, it would me years before true fireing of potterey was the norm. it was not uncommon to recover shards from early pottery sites, so soft they could be remolded into any shape. Than placed in the sun to dry, as hard as other shards of the time.
Shards that demonstrate heat was used, their colors, more likely were placed near a hearth and the result was a uneven firing. About 2,500 BP., man grasped the adding of temper to his paste, and the added strength of firing.
From this point on, each new improvement, suggested a new era. The Gulf Coast series, then the Deptford, the Santa Rosa Swift Creek, the Weeden Island, and just prior to man form the old world arriving, the Fort Walton series.
Samples of these forms, can be seen in the museum displays. It was the arrival of the white man, and his pottery, that ended the story of the American pottery. The visitor from the east, as had man here in the old world, introduced his trade item, a new way, a new tool, the potters wheel.
The new world pottery had been constructed by the coil system. Coil after coil was added to a clay base. Even legs, tetropods were added during the early eras. And each period, was distinguished by it’s own form of decoration.
Yes even pottery had it’s own set of tools. Decoration was applied in a number of ways. A paddle of wraped with cords, or weaving, the early basket pattern. Drag and jab, any pointed sick would do. The rocker stamp, here a shard of a sea shell worked fine. Even the finger nail was employed.
One rare tool to be recovered would be the potter's stone. Used to smooth the paste, to hide the coils and add strength, this would be small and of a oval shape. Size and shape being governed by the need to use the tool inside the new vessel. The ground outer edge of these stones tells of their repeated use. They were needed to smooth the inner walls of a incurving vessel sides. Keep in mind, that there was not the potters wheel, a flat tool would not serve well to smooth a new bowl, one that needed to be turned, by hand, continually as it was polished.
There you have it, a true new world craft, from birth, spurred by need, to it’s demise, due to old world technology
.
July 1, 2009
A few foot notes should be added. American pottery, would by 1200 BP. move out to the far west, of North America. But it was not till historic time, that it would gain any acknowlagement, for it’s excellence.
By then the coil methoid had been droped and the new potters wheel had become the norm. But only as a trade craft, the toriest of the twentieth century would find it irresistible, and never know what they were buying was a redo of a Euporian art form.
The full display of clay balls, pottery of the Gulf Coast, shard samples of decorations and a few tools can be viewed.
Would suggest your visiting the display of prehistoric pottery of the eastern Americas, at
pecosrio/pottery
Visit the pottery art of Mr. Moore, this display is only rarely seen, in American libraries.
The author having one of the few remaining set of books.
pecosrio/moore
Or you may wish to see the early cave art,
pecosrio/kirkland
or return to main directory
The Author
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Clay use, yes clay was in use long before pottery became a craft. At the Zueberbueler shelter in West Texas, a archaic site, clay was recovered. Small, odd shaped objects, toys perhaps, were recovered. Only a few, and of material not normally recovered in the area. It was to the east, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the data and artifacts suggest clay became almost as important to man, as stone had been for a million years and more. What task could equal hunting to early man? The cooking of what he killed. The story of how he cooked his food, was one of the artifacts recovered by the museum. Half was demonstrated amidst the debris of the Texas shelter. The second part settled in the sand dunes along the Gulf coast. Now we have three subjects to study. Clay, pottery and cooking. How were they related? One thing that became very clear, man’s first trade item was his skills. East, west or north and south, man moved among other men, as be traveled so did his skills. If your new friend had a better hunting point, and you could improve yours in some way, try. This trail of related introduction of a new craft, is the most important archeological tool available. It allows the artifacts recovered at one site, to be given a date and history, when compared to recoveries a continent away. And so it will be with clay and cooking. Their story will be as one. and that will tell the story of pottery in the Americas. The force behind all, will be man’s desire to cook his food. He could have just tossed his kill upon the fire, and may have done so, far in the past. But a new tool was introduced, clay. And in the Americas, it had it’s start in two, totally unrelated locations. If ever a set of parallels are to be offered, that are unrelated and most unexpected, it would be facts. Pottery in the form of clay vessels had a similar start in South America and North America. In material used and time. But there is now added one most unusual fact. This author spent many years recovering early clay use and man’s first pottery vessels. This would include one of the very few fiber tempered vessels ever recovered. What would seem, to my self, a fact that demonstrates even life can prove most unpredictable. My name is Reichelt, not rare, but far from common. The archeologist in South America, most noted for his work in early clay use, and first pottery development, in that part of the world, spells his name Reichel, opps, no “T”.
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We associate prehistoric pottery with cooking, for this reason, we will first offer the history of cooking. Again we will return to the Zueberbueler shelter in West Texas. A time capsule of 8,000 years of man’s history. Man made it his home about 10,000 BP. It was the start of the archaic era of man, in North America. From it’s depths, we would learn of the skills and tools of man at the start, of this era, and those that he would leave it with, around 2,000 BP.. When man first entered, the then new world, he had few skills, and possibly only a single craft. He was a hunter, The now extent mastodon and mammoth were his main source of food. His skill as a hunter was aided by his skill at making his hunting tool. Other that a few crude tools, such as scrapers, knifes and hammers, we have little to turn to, for aid in knowing him. As a hunter of large animals, he was also a nomad, he made his home where the game roomed. For this reason we have very little knowledge of his skills other than as a hunter. Did he have fire, possibly, but how he made it can only be offered by conjectures. Did he even cook his food, same base of information, none. At the Texas shelter all this would change, a full disclosure of his new way of living, would be offered. As stated, the tools of man, some 10,000 BP., were crude. If a larger stone would brake a smaller stone, than the bigger stone was then his tool of choice. If it could be grasped, and did the job, what more could be asked? At the base of the shelters floor, beneath over seven feet of man’s discards, such were the tools in use. But things changed rapidly. The hunting point, in use for thousands of year, was of little use to our new cave man, he was now a gatherer. Deer were to fleet for him, at best, he could snare a rabbit.
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Unlike other creatures of the time, man was able to change. Where other species would become extent, due to the lose of their pray, man was able to develops new ways to hunt. The introduction of the Atlatl, or throwing stick, made a hunter of him again. Thus, his need to cook, would be as great as ever. The tools for fire were now recovered. The degree of human abilities was made clear, no small trick, fire making. A new tool of several parts, a skill was required. As the museum display will demonstrate, fire making was more than a simple striking of a match. Several millennium prior to the bow and arrow, the fire making bow was employed. Yes man had new hunting tools, tools to make fire, but how did he cook the meat he had acquired? Did he just toss it upon the embers of his fire?The walls of the Pecos River, the Rio Grande River and the Devil’s River, rise as much as 300 feet. It could be suggested that there were at one time as many as a thousand shelters in the area. Many small and some vast, almost cathedral in size. The Zueberbueler site, some 100 meters across. All distinguished by their common talus slope. After eight thousand years of habitation, and discards from a hundred times that many hearths, the slope would be enormous. Tons of broken rock. Rocks from the cooking fires of early man. Man did not just toss his kill into the fire, he cooked it upon his new hot plate, a slab of rock. Placed upon the glowing embers of his fire, this permitted the food to cook, and yet not be destroyed. The story of cooking along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, is strikingly similar. We find the skill of the cave dweller, had traveled hundreds of mles. Only there was a major obstacle. No rocks. There was a vast amount of sand, to place his fire upon, and wood to burn was plentiful, but no rocks. What was available was clay, pure and moldable clay. Man had his cook tops, dried clay pads. This use of clay was recovered at a site in Northwest Florida. Sand dunes, shifted by hurricane winds, reviled old cooking hearths of Archaic man. Evidence suggest such clay cooking pads saw only a short history. Like their counter part in Texas, they shattered from the heat. The decision was made. Why make a large clay pad, only to have it shatter, when a batch of preshaped clay balls would be easer to form, and with less cooking mess? So began the clay cooking balls or clay objects. As well the story of pottery. As with all of early man crafts, art was soon to be added. The pure clay was easily molded, and the new form used was potato in shape and size. Decoration was done by placing finger groves from pole to pole, or end to end. This form of decorated clay balls are today referred to as Elliot' Point balls. The name given by their first recovery near Fort Walton Beach, Florida, along the Gulf Of Mexico coast. It would not be long before a new form of decoration was employed. The playable clay would take easily to tool decoration. Patterns in many forms were placed on the exterior of the new cooking balls. First molded decoration, now applied decoration. Very important feature in the early history of clay use. As with his other new crafts, man’s cooking balls were to gain wide spread use. To the east, they were recovered at a site in the Piedmont area of South Carolina. And to the west, the Pearl and Mississippi rivers and their bayous. This brings us back to the Velikovsky zone. The lower habitation level, some two feet under silt, yielded clay balls. The same in basic form as used in Northwest Florida. Potato shaped, but only the tools decorated and not the finger grooved. Additionally a new form was present. The majority were given a barrel shape. These also were tool decorated and, as with the Florida balls, the clay used was very pure. As with Florida balls, pure clay permitted incise decoration to be applied. A additional form of ball was recovered, in small quantity. Finger grooved barrels. No tool decoration, just a set of finger groves around the sides of the barrel. All ball were of a similar size, about three inches long. About two thirds the size as the first balls that replaced the early clay cooking pad. It was clear, the lower zone at the Pearl River site, was a westward trade of a cooking craft. And the clay cooking pads in Florida a eastward movement of the cooking hearth with a safe pad to cook upon. Clay had been the material of choice in the east. Like rock pads, it also shattered from the great heat of the hearth. Now the Velikovsky zone enters the story. The upper habitation zone, atop the two feet of silt, offered many important changes. Not in the hunting points or stone tools, just the clay balls. The lower zone was thin, suggesting man had lived there only a short time. the upper zone was more than a foot thick. The need was to establish any relation between the two zones. It was clear the Velikovsky zone had been deposited by a major hurricane. The question was now one of duration. Had man left the site for an extended period of time, his crafts and life style would demonstrate it. But no change could be seen, other than that offered in the clay cooking balls. It was now clear, clay was the primary raw material in use by early man. The estimate of over four millions balls put in use at the Poverty Point site, would require great amounts of it. A used and somewhat intact hearth, at the Mississippi site, suggested as many as a fifty balls may have been used in each. With a history of hundreds of years of use, no surprise such a vast amount were encountered.
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The original hearth, noted at the Peal River site, offered evidence as to why the recovered clay calls were of differing colors. The majority were a red to orange on their exterior. Many were more yellow and a rare survivor was black. The old hearth demonstrated that man made a pad of balls, placed his food on top, then covered the total. Much used like a Dutch oven. On complication of cooking, the dome shape oven was opened, to retrieve the food.The balls being discarded about the hearth, demonstrated the reason for their several colors. Those at the base were black. Only a rare sample would survive the heat the balance would shatter. Not so unlike the original rock or clay pads had done. The red to orange balls, had been the objects placed around the outer edge of the food. Here the hearth heat would fire them, and their survival was enhanced. Those placed on the top, were only warmed and well dried during the cooking. There yellow color due to this, and they also survived well. The black and destroyed balls, were as they been placed, the remainder had been tossed to the side, and so they were, when the new ages of sand were removed. The balls had changed. No longer made from the pure clay of the pre storm era, there matrix had changed to a sand clay No longer able to decorate with tools, man had applied his art by molding the balls, a verity of forms were recovered. No longer the potato shape, the round basic ball had been introduced. molded to a verity of common shapes. Along with round balls there were cone or conical, bi conical, conical with three side and four side groves. A almost square form best described as mulberry in shape, due to the placing some six grooves in a round call. And one form encountered at the lower zone. The finger squeezed barrel. Two questions faced the research, why the change of paste used, and why the new decorations. The answer was offered by one additional set of balls. The rare to almost unique forms that were recovered. Unusual in that they mimic the lower zone. As well they offer a feature not common on any of the basic balls. Numbering less than one in a hundred, They tell their own story. Most are made using the pure paste, not unlike the lower zone material. A almost common feature is they are pierced. A small hole from pole to pole. Or it may be a almost pierced hole, from pole to pole. Was this just an added decoration? The more striking were the miniatures. less than a third the size of the basis balls, they were of a common material, the pure clay paste. The holes, these were the easiest to explain. Similar holes had been encountered in the lower zone, and like the lower zone, the samples from above were tool decorated. Recall, they again used the pure paste clay. An occasional sample of a tool decorated ball would be recovered that showed it had lied upon a mat. The weaving impression would be evidence of this. To avoid this problem, man had inserted the small stick into the wet ball and stuck it into the sand to dry. On many he would pierce the total ball, pole to pole, and rest the new wet ball between two resting points, again, to allow it to dry. On those with only a partly periced hole, it was not uncommon to find a short hole pirced into the opposite pole. This may have been done to give the dried ball a balanced decoration, a hole at each end. The big question, the change from a pure paste to the new sandy material? The two feet of silt may offer us the answer. The Velikovsky zone had covered man’s deposits of pure clay. Even today, zones of sandy clay, is common along the Gulf Coast. But such clay would not accept the incised lines of a tool, at best it would crumble. Thus the same craft, only new forms and decorating methods. The last group, the miniatures, can only be offered as either toys or special event use. We need consider ,this was late in the archaic era. The Southern Cult had begun to the west, God had entered man’s life.
|
|
Vessels in the form of bowls, or containers, had been in use long before pottery was introduced. among the clay balls of Florida and other Gulf Coast sites, stone bowls were recovered.Two kinds of stone were put to use. Sand stone was a rare material, the single shard in the Pecos Rio Grande Museum, bares the cutting marks on the exterior, and is well polished on the interior. More common, but still very rare is the use of Steatite, or soap stone. Several of the steatite shards in the museum have handles cut into them, near the rim. These bowls could weight up to forty pounds, and were not a easily transported vessel. Their lose by braking was followed by the reuse of the shards. Beads and pendants were common. The ease that Steatite could be cut and formed, made them a popular art material, for early man. Eventually, around 3,000 BP., the use of clay was added. Clay was used in two ways, plan or untempered, and fiber tempered. One of the rare few, recovered and restored fiber tempered bowls, is displayed in the museum. The term temper is misused in early pottery. The corpusals in the recovered shards, suggest that Spanish Moss was added to the clay paste. These early vessels were not fired, only sun dried. The moss added possiby to give support to the clay, as it dried. Along the gulf coast, it would me years before true fireing of potterey was the norm. it was not uncommon to recover shards from early pottery sites, so soft they could be remolded into any shape. Than placed in the sun to dry, as hard as other shards of the time. Shards that demonstrate heat was used, their colors, more likely were placed near a hearth and the result was a uneven firing. About 2,500 BP., man grasped the adding of temper to his paste, and the added strength of firing. From this point on, each new improvement, suggested a new era. The Gulf Coast series, then the Deptford, the Santa Rosa Swift Creek, the Weeden Island, and just prior to man form the old world arriving, the Fort Walton series. Samples of these forms, can be seen in the museum displays. It was the arrival of the white man, and his pottery, that ended the story of the American pottery. The visitor from the east, as had man here in the old world, introduced his trade item, a new way, a new tool, the potters wheel. The new world pottery had been constructed by the coil system. Coil after coil was added to a clay base. Even legs, tetropods were added during the early eras. And each period, was distinguished by it’s own form of decoration. Yes even pottery had it’s own set of tools. Decoration was applied in a number of ways. A paddle of wraped with cords, or weaving, the early basket pattern. Drag and jab, any pointed sick would do. The rocker stamp, here a shard of a sea shell worked fine. Even the finger nail was employed. One rare tool to be recovered would be the potter's stone. Used to smooth the paste, to hide the coils and add strength, this would be small and of a oval shape. Size and shape being governed by the need to use the tool inside the new vessel. The ground outer edge of these stones tells of their repeated use. They were needed to smooth the inner walls of a incurving vessel sides. Keep in mind, that there was not the potters wheel, a flat tool would not serve well to smooth a new bowl, one that needed to be turned, by hand, continually as it was polished. There you have it, a true new world craft, from birth, spurred by need, to it’s demise, due to old world technology |
.
July 1, 2009
A few foot notes should be added. American pottery, would by 1200 BP. move out to the far west, of North America. But it was not till historic time, that it would gain any acknowlagement, for it’s excellence.
By then the coil methoid had been droped and the new potters wheel had become the norm. But only as a trade craft, the toriest of the twentieth century would find it irresistible, and never know what they were buying was a redo of a Euporian art form.
The full display of clay balls, pottery of the Gulf Coast, shard samples of decorations and a few tools can be viewed.
Would suggest your visiting the display of prehistoric pottery of the eastern Americas, at
pecosrio/pottery
Visit the pottery art of Mr. Moore, this display is only rarely seen, in American libraries.
The author having one of the few remaining set of books.
pecosrio/moore
Or you may wish to see the early cave art,
pecosrio/kirkland
or return to main directory
The Author
|
A few foot notes should be added. American pottery, would by 1200 BP. move out to the far west, of North America. But it was not till historic time, that it would gain any acknowlagement, for it’s excellence. By then the coil methoid had been droped and the new potters wheel had become the norm. But only as a trade craft, the toriest of the twentieth century would find it irresistible, and never know what they were buying was a redo of a Euporian art form. The full display of clay balls, pottery of the Gulf Coast, shard samples of decorations and a few tools can be viewed. Would suggest your visiting the display of prehistoric pottery of the eastern Americas, at pecosrio/pottery Visit the pottery art of Mr. Moore, this display is only rarely seen, in American libraries. The author having one of the few remaining set of books. pecosrio/moore Or you may wish to see the early cave art, pecosrio/kirkland
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