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This Wooden Sculpture Is Twice as Old as Stonehenge and the Pyramids
smithsonianmag.com ^ | MARCH 24, 2021 | Nora McGreevy

Posted on 03/26/2021 7:20:06 PM PDT by BenLurkin

Gold prospectors first discovered the so-called Shigir Idol at the bottom of a peat bog in Russia’s Ural mountain range in 1890. The unique object—a nine-foot-tall totem pole composed of ten wooden fragments carved with expressive faces, eyes and limbs and decorated with geometric patterns—represents the oldest known surviving work of wooden ritual art in the world.

More than a century after its discovery, archaeologists continue to uncover surprises about this astonishing artifact. As Thomas Terberger, a scholar of prehistory at Göttingen University in Germany, and his colleagues wrote in the journal Quaternary International in January, new research suggests the sculpture is 900 years older than previously thought.

Based on extensive analysis, Terberger’s team now estimates that the object was likely crafted about 12,500 years ago, at the end of the Last Ice Age. Its ancient creators carved the work from a single larch tree with 159 growth rings, the authors write in the study.

“The idol was carved during an era of great climate change, when early forests were spreading across a warmer late glacial to postglacial Eurasia,” Terberger tells Franz Lidz of the New York Times. “The landscape changed, and the art—figurative designs and naturalistic animals painted in caves and carved in rock—did, too, perhaps as a way to help people come to grips with the challenging environments they encountered.”

According to Sarah Cascone of Artnet News, the new findings indicate that the rare artwork predates Stonehenge, which was created around 5,000 years ago, by more than 7,000 years. It’s also twice as old as the Egyptian pyramids, which date to roughly 4,500 years ago.

(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: archaeology; beaverteeth; epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; idolworship; larch; mesolithic; radiocarbondating; russia; shigiridol; shirgiridol; siberia; totempole; uralmountains; youngerdryas
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To: BenLurkin

Look like Polynesian salad forks


21 posted on 03/26/2021 8:16:13 PM PDT by Adder ("Can you be more stupid?" is a question, not a challenge.)
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To: knarf

Not really.

Think of the Great Plains 200 years ago, teaming with great herds of buffalo, deer and pronghorn, or East Africa 100 years ago, teaming with wilderbeest, zebras, impalas and Cape buffalo.

In both cases, open grasslands came with huge herds of grass eaters.

These people—probably the early Indo-Europeans—hunted vast herds of reindeer, mammoth, bison, and horses on the tundra prairie.

The tundra grasslands turning back into forest would have decimated those herds.


22 posted on 03/26/2021 8:26:21 PM PDT by Alas Babylon! ("You, the American people, are my only special interest." --President Donald J. Trump)
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To: Adder

It is. Its from the time before they migrated. They were much bigger back then.


23 posted on 03/26/2021 8:31:24 PM PDT by gnarledmaw (Hive minded liberals worship leaders, sovereign conservatives elect servants.)
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To: BenLurkin
Just when things were getting nice they suddenly got bad about 12,800 years ago ...


24 posted on 03/26/2021 8:44:07 PM PDT by TigersEye (Will the Younger Dryas Impact you? )
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To: BenLurkin
Slender Man!!!


25 posted on 03/26/2021 9:02:12 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: Adder

Yes, indeed.

Could also be an awesome back scrather.


26 posted on 03/26/2021 9:25:32 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire. Or both.)
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To: TigersEye

Solar minimum


27 posted on 03/26/2021 9:26:13 PM PDT by miliantnutcase
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To: miliantnutcase

Comet fragments.


28 posted on 03/26/2021 9:40:33 PM PDT by TigersEye (Will the Younger Dryas Impact you? )
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To: BenLurkin

Ur-Celts.

Calling it.

:D


29 posted on 03/26/2021 9:47:00 PM PDT by Salamander (Salamander has barbaric tendencies.../Gundog)
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To: Deaf Smith

In the park.
[I think it was the fourth of July]


30 posted on 03/26/2021 9:48:09 PM PDT by Salamander (Salamander has barbaric tendencies.../Gundog)
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To: Alas Babylon!
“The idol was carved during an era of great climate change, when early forests were spreading across a warmer late glacial to postglacial Eurasia,” Terberger tells Franz Lidz of the New York Times. “The landscape changed, and the art—figurative designs and naturalistic animals painted in caves and carved in rock—did, too, perhaps as a way to help people come to grips with the challenging environments they encountered.”


Did I misunderstand ?

31 posted on 03/26/2021 10:25:47 PM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true, I have no proof, but they're true !)
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To: knarf

“A longer, more fruitful growing season was “challenging” ?”

Well sure, if all you know how to feed yourself is scavenging and hunting under certain conditions. BUT - the climate changes would have been fairly slow I would think that one could adapt.

Although perhaps not. The Vikings in Greenland left after years of cold weather ruined their crops (they were farmers by then). The natives offered to take them on fishing and seal trips. But the natives would hold their rituals ahead of the hunts, and the Vikings (also now Christian!) wouldn’t partake in their pagan worship.

Adapt or die. Or at least move.


32 posted on 03/26/2021 10:39:30 PM PDT by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant. Never Fearful!)
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To: 21twelve

I perceive this article’s verbiage to indicator the carvings are some kind of worship or “thank you” to the gods (or whatever) for life becoming pleasant


33 posted on 03/26/2021 11:53:00 PM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true, I have no proof, but they're true !)
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To: BenLurkin
Could also be an awesome back scrather.

You scrath my back, and I'll scrath yours.

Regards,

34 posted on 03/27/2021 1:09:44 AM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: BenLurkin

Tribal Wood

(Puns unlimited)


35 posted on 03/27/2021 1:14:15 AM PDT by wardaddy (P IN 1999 JIM THOMPSON WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE BUSHES ...WE WERE WRONG lz’’z:s)
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To: knarf

That would make sense. Hard to devote too much time to “art” when you are facing hardships just trying to survive.


36 posted on 03/27/2021 1:15:48 AM PDT by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant. Never Fearful!)
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To: BenLurkin

You’re right! It IS Johnny Kerry “Reporting for Dooty”.


37 posted on 03/27/2021 2:30:09 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (You can vote your way into socialism but you have to shoot your way out of it.)
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To: BenLurkin

LOL!! It has his chin and mouth, doesn’t it?


38 posted on 03/27/2021 3:45:25 AM PDT by Hardastarboard (Don't wish your enemy ill; plan it.)
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To: DannyTN; skr

There’s only so much you can carve into a 2x6.

;)


39 posted on 03/27/2021 5:50:36 AM PDT by Does so (The Media is the enemy of the people...Trial lawyers close behind...)
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To: Salamander
A man selling crystal meth

Screaming Italian slurs

40 posted on 03/27/2021 6:16:12 AM PDT by Deaf Smith (When a Texan takes his chances, chances will be taken that's for sure.)
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