This particular stone i think was used to help teach children how to gather food safely.
It doesn't seem to be a rock used to ally it's owner with a particular animal but seems instead to be telling a story.
In the first photo the young bear is staring longingly at a mushroom on the far left of the stone, fixated and imagining how nice it would be ..... What i find particularly interesting are the dots coming from the young bears head. It is exactly how we would represent the imagination or mind.
The photo below shows the image rotated 180°. The mushroom has now turned into a wolf and the young bear is venturing out. His mother is above but looks to be hibernating
The reverse side shows someone crouching down maybe to pick the mushroom but importantly they are looking straight ahead and not down at the ground while picking.
Was this to help teach the young to be aware of their surroundings when picking mushrooms or to be aware of not picking a particular mushroom?
How were these stones decorated?
The bear, mushroom wolf etc seem to have been scored on the surface of the stone, and it appears black. You can see evidence of the scoring in the bottom right of the zoomed photo below where you can see three distinct lines.
It is also possible to see darker shaded areas of orange, brown and black which are more diffuse in appearance showing additional images. Were these shaded areas created with natural dyes, plant material, mineral pigments or some sort of glaze?
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