Artifacts that could rewrite history of Paleolithic art discovered in California

An amateur archaeologist from Southern California discovered something in the Mojave Desert that could change how we see prehistoric artistic creations forever. 

Richard Dempsey, who is a retired insurance salesman and avid archaeologist, identified “previously unobserved and unknown” Paleolithic artifacts nearly six years ago. He decided to call them Paleo Story Stones. 

The Paleolithic Era, also known as the Old Stone Age, started 3.3 million years ago and ended around 10,000 BCE, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. 

“These artifacts, crafted from stone, bone, and other materials, depict effigies of two human faces – one young and one old – as well as two mammoths or proboscideans, also represented as young and old,” Dempsey’s website’s “About” page states.

A press release issued Tuesday by a representative for Dempsey called the discovery one “that has grown into the one of the most ambitious archaeological investigations of the past decade.” 

To be specific, Dempsey was surveying Paleolithic sites along the ancient shoreline of Pleistocene Lake Manix in October 2020 when he noticed something “that generations of collectors, archaeologists, and geologists had overlooked.” 

“Certain flaked stone artifacts consistently displayed recognizable images of young and old human faces alongside juvenile and mature mammoths,” the press release explains. “More remarkably, the same visual patterns appeared repeatedly on artifacts made from completely different materials and recovered from widely separated locations.” 

In the ensuing years, Dempsey compiled thousands of examples made from a wide variety of materials: chert, jasper, quartz crystal, rose quartz, citrine, obsidian, volcanic glass, meteorites, fossil coral, bone, antler and more. The artifacts come from all over the world – six continents to be exact (all except Antarctica).

According to Dempsey, a native of Long Beach, there is recurring imagery on the artifacts that “follows remarkably consistent pattern regardless of geography or material.”  

“Unlike conventional projectile points or scrapers, these objects were intentionally shaped around their outer edges to create symbolic imagery,” the press release further explains. “Many also display fine engraving, grooving, and smoothing that Dempsey argues were previously unrecognized elements of flaked stone Paleolithic craftsmanship.” 

Dempsey also stumbled upon another discovery while researching the Paleo Story Stones; glass long marketed commercially as “Andara” was found to contain naturally occurring volcanic glass that had been intentionally worked into the Paleo Story Stones. Testing by scientists at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas confirmed that the specimens are made up of the naturally occurring volcanic glass – as opposed to “modern man-made industrial slag.” 

His discovery has also attracted the attention of others in the archaeology community, including the former curator at the Buffalo Museum of Science, Dr. Michael Gramly, who documented Dempsey’s work in his “Guide to Palaeolithic Artifacts and Features of the Americas.” 

“This scientific data proves the material is an extraordinary, natural geological stone, previously overlooked in the scientific community. It’s time for the institutional narrative to catch up to the physical evidence,” Dempsey says. 

Overall, Dempsey’s work suggests that Paleolithic peoples, regardless of geographical location, may have “shared a symbolic artistic tradition spanning much of the globe for hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of years.” 

“Rather than viewing early humans primarily as toolmakers, the evidence raises the possibility that they were also accomplished artists, storytellers and symbolic thinkers who encoded recurring imagery into the very tools and offerings they created,” Dempsey’s research concludes.

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