What freaks me out is how the hands are depicted on the statue. It’s eerily similar to the Moai statues of Easter Island [1]. I’m not sure what to make of it.
[1] https://web.stanford.edu/~siegelr/easterisland/IMG_3485%20le...
12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
221–230 of 252 posts
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
its not as lifelike as i hoped when i opened. not a Michelangelo.
IMHO it's more interesting and a greater achievement than lifelike. To me it's an expression of fertile abundance that shows more intention, more imagination, more desire to communicate, more understanding of form and humanity than a straight depiction would.
As an illustrator who has also done some non-negligible sculpting, this kind of stuff is so much easier than 'lifelike realism' that it's not even close.
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#223It 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…
Do you need special tools to do this though? Or just one rock that's harder than the other one?
That said I used to make "tools" out of sticks and rocks as a child playing outdoors. Why do we think people didn't have tools or the capacity to invent them 12000 years ago?
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why women specifically? Or did you mean humans?
Probably extrapolating from the debunked pseudoscience of "women were gatherers, men were hunters", which fuels 90% of present evopsych nonsense. For those unaware: prehistorical "hunter-gatherer" societies likely did not have strong divisions of labor and there is no evidence to suggest such a universal division across gender lines. Quite the opposite, actually. Turns out when you hunt large mammals in a group, the…
> Turns out when you hunt large mammals in a group, the statistical physical advantages men have don't really matter all that much
Even if women and men are equal in their hunting skill, it would still make evolutionary sense for women not to participate in the hunts. Hunting large mammals is dangerous, and men are more disposable than women. If a tribe loses most of its men, it can still survive since a single man can impregnate multiple women. Whereas if a tribe loses most of its women it is far more likely to die out.
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably extrapolating from the debunked pseudoscience of "women were gatherers, men were hunters", which fuels 90% of present evopsych nonsense. For those unaware: prehistorical "hunter-gatherer" societies likely did not have strong divisions of labor and there is no evidence to suggest such a universal division across gender lines. Quite the opposite, actually. Turns out when you hunt large mammals in a group, the…
That isn’t debunked, how ridiculous. It’s true not all men were hunters, but that doesn’t mean that there was an equal share of women among the hunters. They travelled as a group and everyone gathered, but men went out to get the kill.
This is attested in the Neolithic records, I suppose?
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
That isn’t debunked, how ridiculous. It’s true not all men were hunters, but that doesn’t mean that there was an equal share of women among the hunters. They travelled as a group and everyone gathered, but men went out to get the kill.
This is attested in the Neolithic records, I suppose?
Anyone making sweeping statements that applies to all of hunter gatherer society is almost certainly wrong about at least a few cultures. We’re talking 1-3 million years worth of human society and cultural evolution.
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#227I think whomever this statue represents, would get a cosmic kick out of people, 12000 years into the future, appreciating the majesty of his phallus.
It looks like it’s saying that Death is a wanker. I wonder if it was deliberately humorous, which would add another dimension. I know that the Incas had statues that were basically hardcore pr0n. I’m not sure the reason. Probably fertility stuff.
It would be funny if it was the prehistoric equivalent of the city of Dog River putting up a sign saying "Wullerton Sucks!" It could for instance represent a foreigner with the statue saying certain foreigners are wankers.
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
its not as lifelike as i hoped when i opened. not a Michelangelo.
IMHO it's more interesting and a greater achievement than lifelike. To me it's an expression of fertile abundance that shows more intention, more imagination, more desire to communicate, more understanding of form and humanity than a straight depiction would.
The problem is, how do you distinguish between "lacked the skills or tools to make a true life-like statue" and "intentionally made something more abstract"?
When I played guitar I liked doing noisy high-distortion stuff because I could play bad guitar and still make it sound kind of okay (to my ears anyway).
Not saying that everyone who plays this type of music is a bad guitar player, because many aren't, but some are.
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
These statistics regularly make it sound like everyone was dying off around 30. In reality, it is due to infant mortality rates. Once you make it past a certain age (10-15 years) your life expectancy shoots up into the 40-60's easily. However, when you average the population out, those infant deaths tank the average life expectancy. I'm not surprised they glossed over this, most researchers do, because they don't wan…
The guy in the video said "their lifespans would have only been around 35 years" which sounds not so much glossing over as being plain incorrect. I am annoyed by these slips every time because they make it seem as if we live so much longer since hunter-gatherer times... Modern medicine reduced early age mortality, sure, but funny enough it did not do much to increase max lifespan (and especially healthy lifespan).
Ah, yeah, that sounds like it was indeed just incorrect.
To add to your comment about modern medicine. Keep in mind that when you isolate out infant mortality, you get an average life span of roughly 60-ish in ancient times.
Present day mortality is closer to 85+ for the G7 countries and 75+ for other fairly well developed countries. That's a 25 year increase! Given those statistics, I would say modern medicine is actually doing quite a bit to improve life expectancy into your golden years!
Re: 12,000-year-old realistic human statue was unearthed
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is attested in the Neolithic records, I suppose?
Anyone making sweeping statements that applies to all of hunter gatherer society is almost certainly wrong about at least a few cultures. We’re talking 1-3 million years worth of human society and cultural evolution.
Anthropological studies of (some of the few remaining) contemporary hunter-gatherer societies don't show the presumed division of labor (or several other presumptions either, like pervasive hinger, or the amount of time spent on food collection) written up by 19th century European naturalists.