Rock Art Research

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 headdresses 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).