It makes me happy that it's possible that future humans might live again on an earth 12,000 years in the future which has cooled again after our civilisation has boiled the planet.
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12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
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Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not being snarky but the big deal is we're pushing back the line (read: year / era) dividing pre-history from history. These discoveries became history now, yes?
Nope. > Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory The big deal is that these art works are far more sophisticated that anything else we have seen so early.
This is one common definition of the term history, but it's not a very good one and largely relegated to outdated encyclopedia entries rather than describing how professionals investigate history. It's very poor as a technical definition. For instance, does "history" in an area start when someone writes something, or does the writing have to survive to the present day? Does only one person need to write, or does it need to be socially widespread? Does it have to be full writing or does protowriting count? Do we have to be able to read the writing? Do partial readings count? These ambiguities weren't issues back when it was being used as a criterion for "civilization" ala childe, but that time has long since passed.
Today, it's best to ignore all these difficult and largely unnecessary questions by simply using a descriptive definition where "history is the human past".
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#33Two things: how is is dated? and was that NSFW 12000 years ago?
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#34You know there is already a conspiracy about its phallus [0]? Which might be broken for unknown reasons.
[0]: https://arkeofili.com/karahantepede-bulunan-insan-heykelinin...
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#35That's not what I consider a "realistic human statue" ?
I maybe wasn't expecting Bernini level of realism, but "Augustus of Prima Porta" is around 2000 years old which greatly predates Renaissance tooling.
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#36[flagged]
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#37That's not what I consider a "realistic human statue" ?
> That's not what I consider a "realistic human statue" ?
the HN title is wrong, TFA says "realistic facial expression". Of course, it's neither a realistic facial expression, so all the comments are still valid. Carry on.
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#38Here's to another year of the word Göbeklitepe playing on repeat in my head.
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#39[flagged]
Brilliant
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#40> featuring a lifelike facial expression
Notice that, although it was a completely alien culture in a very far away time, before agriculture and writing, we still know what a lifelike facial expression looks like.
Many things vary from culture to culture. Facial expressions, at least many of them, are consistent across humanity. If someone stubs their toe or tastes something delicious, you'll know without words.
Look up 'human universals' in anthropology, evolutionary psychology, and in other fields. Donald Brown (see below) gives some opinionated background here, including a literature review (of Brown's own writings, and more):
https://literary-universals.uconn.edu/2017/06/25/human-unive...
The seminal book is Human Universals by Donald Brown:
https://archive.org/details/humanuniversals0000brow/
(I don't know how fully accepted it is; there seems to be at least some disupte over Brown's theories.)