12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed • Hacker News Board

Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed

#171

Post by permo-w » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 9:39 AM UTC

p-e-w wrote: post #107

bluehorizon2 wrote: post #102

It feels like the significance of this is lost on many people. My understanding is that complex things like statues were not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago. I think it’s supposed to be more like 6000 years ago. The fact that it has been carbon dated to 12,000 tears should means that we have to rewrite the theories on the start of human civilization. These statues needed to be carved out of tools and the edu…

> My understanding is that complex things like statues were not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago. Huh? The Venus of Willendorf[1] is twice as old, and to my eye displays a higher degree of artistry than the statue shown in the article. Several such Venus figurines have been found in central Europe. Compared to the intricacy of the Venus' limestone carving, the statue from the article looks downright crude. Th…

look, if you take the two things in isolation, then you may have a point. the Venus is certainly a more beautiful artistic piece

but you're trying to argue that an 11cm tall figurine with no facial features is a civilisational achievement on par with a massive 'temple' complex full of metres-high sculptures, reliefs and symbols that would require significant societal organisation and advancement: protection, education, food surplus, likely division of labour. decades of work at least

the Venus of Willendorf could indicate some of those things, but it equally could have just been made by one especially advanced human

Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed

#172

Post by tralarpa » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 9:39 AM UTC

bluehorizon2 wrote: post #102

It feels like the significance of this is lost on many people. My understanding is that complex things like statues were not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago. I think it’s supposed to be more like 6000 years ago. The fact that it has been carbon dated to 12,000 tears should means that we have to rewrite the theories on the start of human civilization. These statues needed to be carved out of tools and the edu…

> I think it’s supposed to be more like 6000 years ago

There is also the Urfa man, dated 9000 BC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urfa_Man

Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed

#173

Post by fecal_henge » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 9:47 AM UTC

hnfong wrote: post #151

bluehorizon2 wrote: post #102

It feels like the significance of this is lost on many people. My understanding is that complex things like statues were not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago. I think it’s supposed to be more like 6000 years ago. The fact that it has been carbon dated to 12,000 tears should means that we have to rewrite the theories on the start of human civilization. These statues needed to be carved out of tools and the edu…

> My understanding is that complex things like statues were not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago. I think it’s supposed to be more like 6000 years ago. Recently I keep wondering whether people have thought about this from a statistical perspective. Like, if I suddenly find a dead rat in my kitchen, what should I think about it? Should I consider that maybe I have had a pest problem for months or possibly year…

You could look at multiple points and try to generate a distribution of when this kind of activity happened. You might find that the number of points results in a pitifully poor confidence level in an expected probability though. Not enough rats and not enough kitchens.

Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed

#174

Post by bazoom42 » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 9:54 AM UTC

permo-w wrote: post #171

p-e-w wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My understanding is that complex things like statues were not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago. Huh? The Venus of Willendorf[1] is twice as old, and to my eye displays a higher degree of artistry than the statue shown in the article. Several such Venus figurines have been found in central Europe. Compared to the intricacy of the Venus' limestone carving, the statue from the article looks downright crude. Th…

look, if you take the two things in isolation, then you may have a point. the Venus is certainly a more beautiful artistic piece but you're trying to argue that an 11cm tall figurine with no facial features is a civilisational achievement on par with a massive 'temple' complex full of metres-high sculptures, reliefs and symbols that would require significant societal organisation and advancement: protection, educatio…

Nobody is arguing that. You are wildly fighting strawmen.

But the claim that “complex things like statues” were “not possible” is clearly BS.

Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed

#175

Post by vanderZwan » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 10:00 AM UTC

maratc wrote: post #168

p-e-w wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My understanding is that complex things like statues were not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago. Huh? The Venus of Willendorf[1] is twice as old, and to my eye displays a higher degree of artistry than the statue shown in the article. Several such Venus figurines have been found in central Europe. Compared to the intricacy of the Venus' limestone carving, the statue from the article looks downright crude. Th…

What I think you might be missing is that Venus could be a pet project of a single person, done in their free time over some period. The statues, especially in the context of the greater site, could not be made by one person — many people should be working there for quite a long period of time, while physically staying in the place. Since they were working on the temple complex, (a) they could not be themselves parti…

I fully agree with what you're saying, but I just want add something to your comment in case people might misinterpret this sentence:

> What I think you might be missing is that Venus could be a pet project of a single person, done in their free time over some period.

Yes, a single Venus figure is likely made by a single person. But the Venus of Willendorf is not unique. There are 200 over known "Venus figurines" from a period of 300,000 BC to 11,00 BC. So they were a wide-spread phenomenon indicating some form of shared socio-cultural connection among the early humans despite how far we were spread out and how much lower the population density was compared to now.

This is of course tangential to the point you were making.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurine

Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed

#176

Post by bazoom42 » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 10:01 AM UTC

hnfong wrote: post #151

bluehorizon2 wrote: post #102

It feels like the significance of this is lost on many people. My understanding is that complex things like statues were not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago. I think it’s supposed to be more like 6000 years ago. The fact that it has been carbon dated to 12,000 tears should means that we have to rewrite the theories on the start of human civilization. These statues needed to be carved out of tools and the edu…

> My understanding is that complex things like statues were not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago. I think it’s supposed to be more like 6000 years ago. Recently I keep wondering whether people have thought about this from a statistical perspective. Like, if I suddenly find a dead rat in my kitchen, what should I think about it? Should I consider that maybe I have had a pest problem for months or possibly year…

There is no way to calculate that, since current finds are not random digs. Archeologist search where they have reasons to think something of interest can be found.

Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed

#177

Post by M4v3R » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 10:05 AM UTC

bluehorizon2 wrote: post #102

It feels like the significance of this is lost on many people. My understanding is that complex things like statues were not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago. I think it’s supposed to be more like 6000 years ago. The fact that it has been carbon dated to 12,000 tears should means that we have to rewrite the theories on the start of human civilization. These statues needed to be carved out of tools and the edu…

> My understanding is that complex things like statues were not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago. I think it’s supposed to be more like 6000 years ago

I think your understanding was just incorrect. Here's a video [0] from Kurzgesagt that explains in a nutshell when the human civilisation started (spoiler: as far back as around 20,000 years ago, but definitely the case 12,000 years ago, though the boundary is very fuzzy). But also note that even before a proper civilisation started to form people already made art.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWu29PRCUvQ

Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed

#178

Post by p-e-w » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 10:28 AM UTC

maratc wrote: post #168

p-e-w wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My understanding is that complex things like statues were not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago. Huh? The Venus of Willendorf[1] is twice as old, and to my eye displays a higher degree of artistry than the statue shown in the article. Several such Venus figurines have been found in central Europe. Compared to the intricacy of the Venus' limestone carving, the statue from the article looks downright crude. Th…

What I think you might be missing is that Venus could be a pet project of a single person, done in their free time over some period. The statues, especially in the context of the greater site, could not be made by one person — many people should be working there for quite a long period of time, while physically staying in the place. Since they were working on the temple complex, (a) they could not be themselves parti…

> The statues, especially in the context of the greater site, could not be made by one person

Why not? Sculptors sometimes make dozens of sculptures per year, by themselves.

> they could not be themselves participating in hunter-gathering activities

Why not? Hunting and gathering doesn't occupy all of a person's time. I see no reason whatsoever to assume that those sculptures weren't created by part-time artists.

> implying there was some sort of a social structure (aka civilization)

Social structure exists even in apes, and is not at all synonymous with what the term "civilization" is usually taken to mean.

As a sibling commenter has explained, there is nothing substantially new in this archeological find, and it fits well into our existing model of how people lived back then. Claims of an incoming paradigm shift triggered by this find lack any substance.

Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed

#179

Post by anon-3988 » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 10:30 AM UTC

It always sounded strange to me when I learnt in high school that the "earliest" civilization had rock structures, ziggurats, temples and the like. It gives an impression that human suddenly that converged together at some point, decided to have priests and kings, and construct large structures for no practical worldly reason.

Take the discovery of fire. It is not like some ape suddenly discovered fire and suddenly learnt how to cook. It probably took thousand of years of "consistently being able to create fire" before realizing that it can be used for cooking. The ability to create fire also implies that the prehistoric human was already able to think of risk/benefit. Since fire is obviously dangerous it leads me to think that they already have some sort of culture/philoshopy. Critical thinking cannot exist in a vacuum i.e. they have to had to used it for other purposes as well.

This is obviously unscientific and extremely speculative, but I just think that these things cannot exist in a vacuum is all.

Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed

#180

Post by anon-3988 » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 10:36 AM UTC

tonyvince7 wrote: post #134

Graham Hancock must be feeling vindicated

I feel like there's way too many discoveries of ancient civilization dated 10-15k years ago to not think that "some" of his ideas must have some truth to it.

Obviously I understand that he might have exaggerated a lot of it.