Did Native Americans make "portable rock art"

[Dsno54]

I found these 2 stones next to each other in our yard (new home / yard that overlooks a lake to the South in south Central Minnesota). I noticed the big one was flat on 2 sides and lone behold the smaller stone fits on top.

What was remarkable is that the stones can flip to make a duck standing / perched or sitting on the water looking at the sky.

Just curious if anyone has thoughts, feelings, or insight into this one.

Thanks

[clovisoid]

Did ancient people stack rocks? Yes. Can you be certain they were originally stacked or that they represented something? Probably not. I'm sure they looked at clouds in the sky and saw shapes, and stacked rocks were probably similar in that they may been something some people noticed, but there probably wasn't much significance put into them.

When ancient Native Americans wanted to make art, they did. Some of it was likely temporary (drawing in the sand on a beach, making snowmen, etc.), and some was durable. They were fully capable of carving very accurate representations from very hard rocks when they wanted to. They also wove fibers and feathers, painted things, carved wood, made beads, etc. Lots of expressions of art.

[utilized flake]

Oh that's totally a duck transformer...you would do better to spend more time looking for artifacts than stoking paredolia by playing Tetris with rocks

[tomclark]

Get off the bad drugs, mmmmKay? I've had it with this type of post and I believe you are lucky someone didn't already delete this post. There is no value to this post to anyone on this forum or anyone looking for "real" NA effigies and "portable art".

[Darkdazie]

You are just nasty! Would love nothing more than to see you proven wrong.

[Lindenmeier-Man]

Easy guys, what if the stones were several Clovis stacked.. Just asking if they were anything....

[CMD]

Get off the bad drugs, mmmmKay? I've had it with this type of post and I believe you are lucky someone didn't already delete this post. There is no value to this post to anyone on this forum or anyone looking for "real" NA effigies and "portable art".

I quite agree. And here is some actual portable rock art. The Robbins Museum, Massachusetts Archaeological Society.....

[utilized flake]

Those are really neat!

[Quartzite Keith]

At its core it is a legitimate question and a theme we commonly see in forums like this. "Could it be...?" At least when dealing with New World artifacts we have an advantage: The only hominids known to be here are "fully modern Homo sapiens". That means people just like us. Same body, and more importantly, same brain. If you had a time machine and went back 13,000 years and picked up a Clovis dude out hunting woolly mammoth he wouldn't be some half-wit, knuckle dragging caveman. Bring him with to to modern time and in a few years he would be doing everything we do, driving a car, playing golf and typing on a computer trying to sound smart on some online forum. So its just like clovisoid says above, If they wanted to make art, they made art. If they wanted to make a tool, they modified the stone to their specific needs, etc., etc...

[SGT.Digger]

If your finding rocks that aren’t native or natural to your homesite or area or at least only found in the river bottom/creek or river . Then and only then could you suspect that they were carried there and used as tools but they don’t seem to be any sort of artistic expression of an adult ,nor do they look modified but I could see a kid playing with them smashing ants 🐜 . Next time please add something for scale so we can get a better idea of size

[Dsno54]

I find Tom Clark's response to be straight up not nice to put it kindly. I have had conversations with multiple archeologist and had found that they all are very knowledgeable with what they know. I have found some to be very arrogant in stating that they know everything about things they know nothing about. I find comfort in knowing ones who acknowledge that they don't know everything.

Clovis 1st has been highly scrutinized up until recently due only to evidence that has shown preclovis populations did exist. Makes me wonder how many arrogant people were bothered by being wrong about Clovis as well as its implications for the land bridge migration theory. Furthermore, I am sure some individuals likely can't fathom acknowledging that these theories are wrong and only work to discredit the growing evidence (cue Tom). How many people do you think lost credibility and careers for even suggesting that there were people on this continent prior to the Clovis people...

I believe that science is important and respect that there is limited evidence in definitively saying that what I presented was "artifact." My hope is to at least get some discussion consideration and openness for the topic. I believe that there is a lot more we don't know then what we do know and particularly with Native American art, spirituality, and religion.

As a side note to the topic. My yard is about .5 acres. Last summer I was picking out rocks for the new lawn. I found dozens of rocks that depict human faces or animals. They all appear natural cobble with minor chipping to enhance features such as mouth, eyes, nose. Most of the rocks in the yard were limestone and almost every rock that was not limestone and bigger then a ping pong ball was consistent with what I described. I get the "seeing faces" aspect of our mind and I am open to that being the case; however I have not seen faces or animals or chipping on stones to make features in any other stones.

I collect rocks and pick agates as a hobby. I have found a few "artifacts" over the years as well. One artifact is a beautiful Hixton Silicified Sandstone thumbnail scraper (orange). I had no idea what it was and only recently found out. I have since found numerous scrapers because my brain knows what to look for. The same is also true about our Lake Superior Agates, which are sometimes hard to find until you know what you are looking for.

[Volfannumber1986]

First off, I would like to applaud your well thought out post and I agree with several of your points. Dr. Jeffery Chapman is a retired professional archaeologist from the University of Tennessee, he has several published reports on various topics regarding Native American archeology that can still be viewed online. I have met with him numerous times BC I needed a question/s answered and although very knowledgeable, he was also very arrogant it's almost like he was showing off and intentionally trying to show me that he was more knowledgeable than me. I also like the idea that we don't know more than we know. I believe that this is very possible with a pretty high likelihood. Despite all of this, most all of the "rock art" that is found online is clearly and visibly just rocks. If you or I fashioned just about anything into an effigy of something else I don't think many people would have trouble visually being able to tell it had been modified. They may not be able to tell our vision for it, but I believe you understand my point. You sound very educated and also very intelligent. You wouldn't have to turn it around, get a magnifying class, squint your eyes, or anything just to see if a human had attempted to modify it. Other real Native American art can also be easily found online and it looks nothing like these "rock art" examples. I told a friend of mine who buys the whole "rock art" conspiracy that he was "looking at clouds" with his "artifacts" he would show me. Were Paleoindians capable of making art, absolutely, it would be asanine to think otherwise. I just think believing this conspiracy, at least what I've seen, would almost be disrespectful to say someone from the Paleo period made it. If someone did it would be done with an attractive material and would likely have very good worksmanship. Just like Clovis, Cumberland, Quad, Wheeler, ect...projectile points. If our first people left crude tools with little worksmanship behind then maybe I could buy in, but they didn't. They left these beautiful points. How could someone that made one of those also make an effigy that hurts your eyes to see? I say all of this respectfully, I enjoyed reading your post.

[SurfaceHunter]

Let's see your rocks

[gregszybala]

Dsno, you are far from the first to make the suggestion that a couple of rocks you found if you stacked on top of each other make native art. Nor are you far from the first to propose that out of your half acre you have found dozens of rocks that "depict human faces or animals". It is extremely unlikely finding that many pieces on a half acre all crafted by man to represent art or figures or animals and the odds are well, astronomical. That is unless you live on maybe a mound site with pieces that would be easily recognizable as art and figurines.
The fact that no body can disprove your theory has little to do with the fact that your theory is hog wash. there isn't a serious collector or archaeologist that will back you up.
You sound knowledgeable about early man in the America's and what we are finding out about pre Clovis. Do yourself a favor and study up on actual Native art and also Pareidolia while your at it.
And I for one would like to see that Hixton scraper.

[utilized flake]

I see people stacking rocks along rivers that I have rafted on! They and the pictures have no correlation with artifacts. One would have to view these things for sale on line to appreciate the anger that as my opinion is justified...because of the epidemic of eppigies!! Miss ya butch!

[oldrocks2]

Sorry, I see 2 rocks. Would probably sell for big bucks on e-bay.

[Dsno54]

I posted the Hixton under artifacts if you wanted to see.

I have lots of "rocks" I collected over the years. Some artifacts, some pretty, some intriging, some for utilitarian purposes. Are there any in particular you want to see surface finder?

I am also familiar with pareidolia, I have a graduate degree in psychology and I can acknowledge that our brain sees things like faces in the clouds. By chance are you familiar with confirmation bias. It applies to me no doubt. It also applies to you as well. Your brain looks for things to confirm what you think you know. It can drastically impact how you preceive things. I believe that if you see things like an archeologist your brain will look for what an archeologist looks for.

I try to see things as an ancient Native American sees them. Just think how crucial rocks were to the indigenous or how important a spring or wildlife were. I think they honored the spirits off all things natural and that doing so was very important to their existence.

There's a place I know of where they say the natives would walk miles out of the way just to visit a rock. If a lake was drying up or there are fewer ducks I wonder how they might perceive that (confirmation bias for the native American as well).

I also think they likely had it easier in the summers and likely invested more time to honor spirits (and prep for winter) at their summertime migration stops...the lakes. When resources were not as abundant or to help ensure that they stay abundant, I would speculate that they might want to honor or pay homage to the spirits. This is actually a normal human behavior assuming they believe in spirits.

[SurfaceHunter]

Which ever you think are your best ones would work for me. There are sites out there that believe in your theory but this isn't one.

[Hal Gorges]

life is short,, when a person finds two stacked rocks in life they make a decision,,let them consume their time or possibly do something different and in this case have a nicer collection of artifacts to enjoy,,after all isn’t that one reason we collect,,ya gonna spend a lota lota time trying to figure those rocks out p.s. i also have a nice fil.agate collection I enjoy so I relate to the rock hound thing,,I’m also an old fossil myself..hal.g.