24 June 2012
Ohio Paleolithic point has "pair of eyes" like Siberian bird figurine
Coschocton County, Ohio, Paleolithic point
The two indents in this point with pre-Clovis morphology (Cactus Hill type similarities) raise the question with respect to a possible owl image, "A pair of eyes or pareidolia? Did someone in Paleolithic times symbolically give this point the deathly stealth of an owl by animating it with a set of eyes?"
I located an analog identified as a bird figurine, presumably also an owl because of the forward looking eyes. It is in M. A. Kiriyak's Early Art of the Northern Far East - The Stone Age , page 57, figure 28, artifact 1, from the Tytyl' V site. There is also a bone point carved with eyes and face in the same book from another Siberian site.
A Russian Siberian bird figurine with "eyes" like the Ohio point
Collectors of American Paleolithic artifacts should carefully examine their points for indents as are seen here. Other examples may help answer the question about possible symbolic use of this pattern to express owl eyes. Use of the indents for hafting purposes would need to be ruled out, but the Russian example does not look like it would have been hafted the way the Ohio point would likely have been.