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Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older than Stonehenge, pyramids

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older than Stonehenge, pyramids

#121

Post by dabfiend19 »

kossTKR wrote: post #23
OJFord wrote: post #7

The linked initial (2018) find article has more convincing photos, in my opinion: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/science/camels-sculptures... Submission from the time, not really discussed (just to save you the search): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16391610

Thanks! This picture is so much better - really shows the scale and the detail. My intuitions and my knowledge of statistics hints that there's really no reason much, much older somewhat advanced "societies" couldn't have existed but have just not been excavated or have vanished because of porous materials. Does anyone know of any good podcasts / books that delves into topics like this? I've always found fringe theor…

there's always graham Hancock. he has a couple books and has done some podcasts. the JRE podcast with graham and Randall Carlson always gets my imagination going on ancient societies...

Re: Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older than Stonehenge, pyramids

#122

Post by Talanes »

afterburner wrote: post #108
simonh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you only skim read the first paragraph. The article says they were thought to be 2000 years old but have recently been found to be 6000 years older than that. The second paragraph makes the new dating range explicit.

It sounds like you didn't read the comment I was actually replying to. It links to this article, different from OP, that does not mention what you claim it mentions: https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAGAZINE-2-000-year-old-...

They didn't miss the article you were referring to, they were just assuming you had read the topic article as well.

The article your read refers to 2,000 year old sculptures because it was written years before the research that added 6,000 years, not because they're different camels.

Re: Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older than Stonehenge, pyramids

#124

Post by mkoubaa »

betwixthewires wrote: post #84
shusaku wrote: post #41

> the time of the statues’ creation, around the sixth millennium B.C.E., the Arabian Peninsula was filled with grassland and much wetter than it is now. We’re camels significantly different during this time? How much of their current features are things evolved to deal with the desert climate?

They were very much like they are now, not different physiology in any recognizable way. But they're very adaptable creatures. They're not truly native to that region, they are actually from North America, specifically the northern latitudes. That should give you an idea of how adaptable they are.

I'm pretty sure camels don't need a dry desert to survive

Re: Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older than Stonehenge, pyramids

#126

Post by ummonk »

kossTKR wrote: post #23
OJFord wrote: post #7

The linked initial (2018) find article has more convincing photos, in my opinion: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/science/camels-sculptures... Submission from the time, not really discussed (just to save you the search): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16391610

Thanks! This picture is so much better - really shows the scale and the detail. My intuitions and my knowledge of statistics hints that there's really no reason much, much older somewhat advanced "societies" couldn't have existed but have just not been excavated or have vanished because of porous materials. Does anyone know of any good podcasts / books that delves into topics like this? I've always found fringe theor…

There is also the extent to which settlements would have been on the coast and are now submerged well offshore thanks to sea level rises after the last glacial period.

Re: Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older than Stonehenge, pyramids

#127

Post by ummonk »

ducktective wrote: post #66
teleforce wrote: post #40

The northern part of saudi Arabia is actually part of the Fertile Crescent also known as 'The Cradle of Civilization' extending from Iraq where human first started cultivating and herding animals [1]. Yes it's now mostly desert but it used to be greener than it's today. This is an excellent documentary where teams of archeological experts from around the world trying to unravel the mystery of one of the earliest man…

If the climate there was different 8k years ago, why did they depict camels which dwell deserts and hot climates?

“Deserts” can have pretty wide variation ranging from barren sand (where camels don’t live) to mild shrubs and seasonal rain (where you’ll find camels) in proximity to land suitable for pastoralists and even rivers suitable for agriculturalists.

Re: Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older than Stonehenge, pyramids

#128

Post by ummonk »

smoyer wrote: post #13

Imagine how much more creative we'd tend to be if we didn't have television and Internet distractions! What do you do after a long day of herding livestock? Take your chert, grab a drink and carve some camels!

Sarcasm? I despise TikTok and the like, but you have to agree a lot more creativity goes into it than into just carving a camel.

Re: Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older than Stonehenge, pyramids

#129

Post by ummonk »

bodge5000 wrote: post #25
smoyer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd agreed that's true for a small percentage of the population and that the rest are consumers. For these projects, you probably had a "visionary" but it's stated that the creations were likely a community effort and maintained over time.

Community projects are still a thing, they're just not as grandiose, partially to do with different priorities and restrictions (making giant rock carvings is rarely top of peoples agendas, nor top of the local councils approvals), and partially due to the fact that they look lesser due to all the other amazing things people are doing on the internet.

And even there e.g. a blockbuster movie requires the collaboration of far more people than were involved in carving these camels.

Re: Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older than Stonehenge, pyramids

#130

Post by AlotOfReading »

laurent92 wrote: post #118
AlotOfReading wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the location. You usually don't release wide landscape shots if that's a major concern, but super localized photos aren't necessarily an issue. Not all areas take the same degree of precaution though (e.g., scheduled monuments in the UK are pretty much public). Anyway, if you'd like an example of an "onsite" photo, I've uploaded one from an ancient settlement (2k+ years old): https://i.imgur.com/0ITzYZD.pn…

Internet Historian is humorously documenting that it is possible to pinpoint the worldwide location of a flag with only the blue sky behind, or inside a hut lost in lapland, or inside a flat without outside light, or even a stone buried somewhere in the world (South of Spain). https://youtu.be/vw9zyxm860Q I understand it would be possible with a photo to guess which side a rock faces, thanks to the sun/shadows, and t…

To the best of my knowledge, you can only determine latitude with shadows (and even then, current state of the art requires multiple photos to resolve ambiguities). To determine longitude, you need to correlate time or match features somehow. The flagpole search did that with flight paths and honking, which isn't applicable here. Vegetation would probably be a more useful hint if imgur didn't compress the detail out of it, but be particularly challenging regardless at the true latitude.
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