A mysterious discovery buried in California’s Mojave Desert could shake up what experts think they know about prehistoric art, according to an amateur archaeologist who states he uncovered it. Richard Dempsey, a retired insurance salesman from Long Beach with a passion for digging, states he stumbled on to what he believes are“Previously unobserved and unknown”Paleolithic artifacts. The discovery, first made in October 2020 along the shoreline of the long-vanished Pleistocene Lake Manix, has since grown into what a representative described Tuesday as“One of the most ambitious archaeological investigations of the past decade.”
Dempsey states the breakthrough came when he noticed something generations of archaeologists, geologists and artifact collectors had allegedly missed: flaked stone objects that repeatedly appeared to depict the same figures. “Certain flaked stone artifacts consistently displayed recognizable images of young and old human faces alongside juvenile and mature mammoths,”the press release states. “More remarkably, the same visual patterns appeared repeatedly on artifacts made from completely different materials and recovered from widely separated locations.”
California's top news, sports and entertainment delivered to your inbox every day. Convinced he was looking at a recurring artistic tradition, Dempsey dubbed the objects“Paleo Story Stones.” According to the“About”page on his website, the artifacts“Depict effigies of two human faces – one young and one old, as well as two mammoths or proboscideans, also represented as young and old.”
In the years since, Dempsey states he has documented thousands of similar artifacts made from chert, jasper, quartz crystal, rose quartz, citrine, obsidian, volcanic glass, meteorites, fossil coral, bone, antler and other materials. He states examples have turned up on six continents, with Antarctica the lone exception. Dempsey argues the repeated imagery follows the same pattern no matter where the artifacts originated or what they were made from.
He also believes the objects served a different purpose than familiar Stone Age tools. “Unlike conventional projectile points or scrapers, these objects were intentionally shaped around their outer edges to create symbolic imagery,”the press release explains. “Many also display fine engraving, grooving, and smoothing that Dempsey argues were previously unrecognized elements of flaked stone Paleolithic craftsmanship.”
The Paleolithic Era, also known as the Old Stone Age, kicked off roughly 3. 3 million years ago and wrapped up around 10,000 BCE, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.