The Stone Coat Protocol: Global Folklore of Lithic-Armored Entities as a Signature of Robust Archaic Hominins

Abstract

This preprint presents a systematic analysis of the global "stone man" / lithic-armored entity motif in world folklore, conducted as part of the Hominin Mythology Project (OSF: https://osf.io/mdb84/). Using the Berezkin thematic classification database, North American ethnographic sources (Meriam 1910, Parker 1923, Cusick 1828, Mooney 1902), and a structured coding protocol (N=93 entries), the paper documents a circumglobal distribution of anthropomorphic beings described as stone-bodied or flint-armored, invulnerable to conventional weapons, and possessing a single anatomical vulnerability (typically cranial, ocular, or pedal). Three independent evidentiary channels converge: (1) narrative motifs across California, the Eastern Woodlands, Siberia, Australia, and Tierra del Fuego; (2) iconographic attestation via the Cusick (1828) "Stonish Giants" woodcut and Seneca False Face masks; and (3) a systematic coding comparison against the San/Bushmen control corpus (191 candidates screened, 0 hits), yielding the "Three Zeros" validation (zero biological traits, zero technology markers, zero Pattern Flags in the control group). The paper interprets the motif through the "Myth as Compressed Protocol" framework, arguing that these narratives encode intergenerational tactical knowledge for asymmetric encounters with a robust, low-visual-acuity, technologically distinct hominin population, rather than representing generic monster archetypes or universal psychological templates. Keywords: Hominin Mythology; Stone Coat; Type A; lithic armor; asymmetric warfare; folklore; paleoanthropology; Berezkin; Iroquois; Seneca; California; San control; Survival Manual; compressed protocol; experimental archaeology