British/European 'Handaxe Sculpture' Symbolizing Traditon / n)swansmprtrot180

K. P. Oakley (1973: pl. 1A): "Thick flake of Isastraea chert associated with Middle Acheulian hand-axes (bifaces). Upper Middle Gravel, Barnfield Pit, Swanscombe, Kent. Length 12.5 cm. (British Museum of Natural History, London)." The Swanscombe Middle Gravels are now dated to OIS 11, c. 400,000 BP.

Comment: The same object as in preceding image, here rotated another 90 degrees, i.e., 180 degrees from image (m). There is apparently a third face on left side with eye, nose and mouth; the whole stone now appears a sculpture head looking left, vaguely zoomorphic, perhaps feline. {Note that faunal remains from Swanscombe do indicate presence of Panthera leo [Wymer, J. (1982). The palaeolithic age. New York: St. Martin’s: table 4.1]. If this is intentional, then together with the two preceding faces, one might identify a threefold figuration with opposing carnivore and herbivore motifs with 'the third' mediating them, the 'human' face. This one might expect to be represented as a manifestation of the depth psychology of a hunter-gatherer people. See further comments in slide (l).

Illus. © Oakley, K. P. (1973). Fossils collected by the earlier palaeolithic men. In Mélanges de préhistoire, d’archéocivilization et d’ethnologie offerts à André Varagnac, pp. 581-584. Paris: Serpen. Plate 1A.