The Green River Bighorn Sheep Headdress, San Rafael Swell, Utah (original) (raw)
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An amazing artifact, a prehistoric bighorn sheep headdress, is part of the Tommy Morris collection exhibited at the College of Eastern Utah, Prehistoric Museum in Price, Utah. The artifact was apparently found on the eastern edge of the San Rafael Swell near the Colorado or Green River. This region is home to both Desert Archaic and Fremont peoples and both regularly hunted bighorn sheep and created rock art imagery (both rock drawings and paintings) featuring horned anthropomorphs and bighorn sheep. The San Rafael Swell is also the core area for the distribution of Barrier Canyon Style pictographs (rock paintings), and all major river canyons in this area include painted rock art galleries containing anthropomorphs, some of which are adorned with what appear to us and other researchers as horned headdresses. This is the only bighorn headdress that exists in any museum or collection that we are aware of. The description, dating, and character of the find is of importance in understanding bighorn sheep ceremonialism in the Great Basin and the American Southwest.
The Green River Bighorn Sheep, Horned-headdress, San Rafael Swell, Utah
In this essay we address a prehistoric bighorn sheep, horned headdress from the Tommy Morris Collection which was formerly exhibited at the Utah State University Eastern Prehistoric Museum in Price, Utah. This remarkable artifact was recovered from the vicinity of Robber’s Roost in the San Rafael Desert, within an area west of the Green River. This region is considered to be the former homeland to both Desert Archaic and Fremont peoples and both regularly hunted bighorn sheep and created rock art imagery (both rock drawings and paintings) featuring horned anthropomorphs and bighorn sheep. Since no formal study of this remarkable object had been completed, a study of the headdress was begun. The rationale for this study is primarily the rarity of such a find in the archaeological record, and to help clarify some of the assertions made in the literature concerning bighorn ceremonialism. Incorporated into that study were plans for dating the object, describing it in finer detail and placing the artifact in its proper anthropological and archaeological context as to possible meaning, function, and cultural affiliation.
California Archaeology, 2012
In the early 1990s, a bighorn ram skull cap with intact horn cores, set atop a stacked rock cairn, was discovered at the Rose Spring site (CA-INY-372), located on the edge of the Coso Range at the southwestern corner of the Great Basin. In this article, we describe the character of the discovery, date the feature, and posit its meaning and function. The feature is intriguing since it might represent a prehistoric manifestation associated with Coso Representational Rock Art. The context for understanding this discovery and other prehistoric bighorn features documented in the Desert West is explored. A review of ethnographic accounts, native oral tradition and cosmology, and bighorn figurative sculptures and rock art, help us explore the religious and ceremonial significance of this animal to the aboriginal people of the region. Resumen A principios de los 1990, se descubrieron la parte superior del cráneo de un carnero cimarrón, con los centros de los cuernos intactos, ponida sobre un montículo de piedras en el sitio arqueológico de Rose Spring (CA-INY-372), situado en el borde de la Coso Range, en la esquina suroeste de la Gran Cuenca. En este artículo, describimos el carácter del descubrimiento, datamos el hallazgo, y postulamos su significado y función. El hallazgo es intrigante, ya que pueda representar una manifestación prehistórica asociada con el arte rupestre Coso Representational. Se exploran el contexto para comprender este descubrimiento y otras hallazgos prehistóricos de carnero cimarrón documentados en el Desert West. Una revisión de los informes etnográficos, la tradición oral y cosmología nativa, y el arte de figuras y rupestre del carnero cimarrón, nos ayuda a explorar el significado religioso y ceremonial que tiene este animal a la gente nativa de la región.
2012
In the early 1990s, a bighorn ram skull cap with intact horn cores, set atop a stacked rock cairn, was discovered at the Rose Spring site (CA-INY-372), located on the edge of the Coso Range at the southwestern corner of the Great Basin. In this article, we describe the character of the discovery, date the feature, and posit its meaning and function. The feature is intriguing since it might represent a prehistoric manifestation associated with Coso Representational Rock Art. The context for understanding this discovery and other prehistoric bighorn features documented in the Desert West is explored. A review of ethnographic accounts, native oral tradition and cosmology, and bighorn figurative sculptures and rock art, help us explore the religious and ceremonial significance of this animal to the aboriginal people of the region. Resumen A principios de los 1990, se descubrieron la parte superior del cráneo de un carnero cimarrón, con los centros de los cuernos intactos, ponida sobre un montículo de piedras en el sitio arqueológico de Rose Spring (CA-INY-372), situado en el borde de la Coso Range, en la esquina suroeste de la Gran Cuenca. En este artículo, describimos el carácter del descubrimiento, datamos el hallazgo, y postulamos su significado y función. El hallazgo es intrigante, ya que pueda representar una manifestación prehistórica asociada con el arte rupestre Coso Representational. Se exploran el contexto para comprender este descubrimiento y otras hallazgos prehistóricos de carnero cimarrón documentados en el Desert West. Una revisión de los informes etnográficos, la tradición oral y cosmología nativa, y el arte de figuras y rupestre del carnero cimarrón, nos ayuda a explorar el significado religioso y ceremonial que tiene este animal a la gente nativa de la región.
Rock Art Research, 2019
A bighorn sheep horned headdress discovered near the Green River, in eastern Utah within the United States is reviewed. Its history, discovery and subsequent analysis is described. It appears to have been a powerful headpiece employed in a symbolic context for religious expression, perhaps worn by a ritualist in association with the hunt for large game animals (bighorn sheep, antelope or deer). It was likely associated with the Fremont Cultural Tradition, as it was dated by radiocarbon assay to a calibrated, calendar age of 1020-1160 CE and was further adorned with six Olivella biplicata shell beads (split-punched type) originating from the California coast that apparently date to that same general time frame. Such head-dresses are mentioned in the ethnographic literature for several Great Basin and American Southwestern indigenous cultures and appear to have been used in various religious rituals. Bighorn sheep horned headdresses can be fashioned directly from the horns of a bighorn sheep and can be functionally fashioned as a garment to be worn on the head without excessive weight and with little difficulty to the wearer. Ethnographic data testifies that the bighorn sheep was applied as a cultural symbol and was employed as a 'visual prayer' relating to the cosmic regeneration of life (e.g. good health, successful human reproduction, sufficient rain and water, and ample natural resource [i.e. animal and plant] fertility).
Lines of rock cairns have been recorded in several areas in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The stone-cairn line features are sometimes associated with stone walls, either natural or built, which may represent hunting blinds. The stone features are within or adjacent to areas known to be regularly used by groups of bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis). Here, we argue that the lines of rock cairns and associated structures form complexes that were both built and used by indigenous people for procuring bighorn sheep. Several lines of evidence support this hypothesis, including behavioral characteristics of bighorn sheep, locations where stone-feature complexes have been recorded, ethnographic accounts, biological observations, and data from radio-collared bighorn sheep in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
Animal Ethology Reflected in the Rock Art of Nine Mile Canyon, Utah
1997
This study of the rock art of Nine Mile Canyon, in central eastern Utah, focuses on scenes depicting bighorn sheep and other large game animals, important resources to Great Basin Native American groups. Much of the rock art discussed is thought to have been created by members of the Fremont culture, although some was created by later Numic people. The results of this study suggest that the Native American artists who created the rock art scenes depicting bighorn sheep throughout Nine Mile Canyon had a detailed understanding of bighorn sheep behavior.
Newberry Cave (CA-SBR-199 or SBCM 102) is a large, multi-chambered, dry cave in the eastern Mojave Desert, California, in the United States. The preHistoric artefacts and paintings are unusual. The cave is important since its contents have been precisely dated and provide a window into practices of Late Archaic (2000–1000 calibrated BCE) people that used the cave. The authors posit that this was a multi-generational ceremonial site that was used by desert bighorn sheep hunters as a place for rituals and ancestor veneration. We argue that Newberry Cave is a likely example of 'increase totemism', and we further hypothesise that Newberry Cave was a site for a men's bighorn sheep, totemic, hunting society (exogamous moiety or clan). Rituals appear to have been conducted to promote the life and health of a supernatural, ancestral, totemic animal — the desert bighorn sheep. Newberry Cave rock paintings are consistent with and relate to this central principle of increase and fertility. We suggest that the predominant green colour, employed for the cave paintings and portable artefacts, may have acted as a symbolic metaphor for life renewal, vitality, increase, fertility and fecundity. Data and evidence to support these hypotheses are presented.
Coso Range rock drawings are a central subject and focus for debates positing alternative meanings and agents responsible for animal depictions in Great Basin prehistoric rock art. We present new evidence offering a middle ground between the divergent views of the ‘hunting religion, increase rites, and overkill’ and the ‘shaman, visions and rain-making’ models. We argue that rock-art images, in general, possess multivocality and manifest imbricated conceptual metaphors operating on a variety of scales simultaneously. We recognize that Coso pictures, in one sense, metaphorically represent increase and renewal, human and animal fertility, and game animal magnification. Evidence for that perspective is presented including Coso bighorn with up-raised tails, ‘spirit arrows’, those that appear pregnant, and an abundance of animals evidencing vitality and movement. Ritual adept shamans also appear to have often been the religious specialists or agents responsible for Coso rock art and the sources for fashioning these images were frequently visionary experiences.