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Comment by pelorat | Hacker News Reader

That's not what I consider a "realistic human statue" ?

In that time there is relatively little figurative art of humans. Rarely seen in cave painting, etc. The nearest would be the Venus figurines but they don't typically show facial features or internal anatomical details. It's a major major find bro.

I suspect it’s more a problem about longevity of the artifacts, rather than lack of talent or knowing one can pick up some mud and form a shape.

They had very similar general intelligence and talents as us, at that time, and tens of thousand of years before. Today, it’s not terribly hard to find artistic kids who can mold extremely good faces, ponies, or whatever else they choose, from a lump of play dough. I assume artistic people existed then too, with comparable talent and frequency, unless there was some catastrophic non-artist pruning that happened very very recently.

A statistical review would show that you are almost certainly quite incorrect.

Also, the "they" you refer to is "us".

Could you expand on that?

If they’re “us”, then that statistical review should show similar distributions to what we have now, especially in children. Can we see the artistic child’s work? It’s probably made of mud, so probably not. We only see accidents of preservation, due to the tools and final materials.

I haven't seen much art from that era either and was pretty surprised to see the statue. However looking into it, I'm even more surprised to learn of the Venus of Brassempouy.

I've heard that much of the ruins from Ancient Greeze were likely brightly colored and painted. I can't help but wonder if the Venus I mentioned had been painted as well. It's possible that they did have detailed faces, and that they simply weren't sculpted.

I'm the furthest thing from an expert of course.

I don't understand why it is so radical though. Even when I was a bored kid I could pick up a stick and whittle out a face not to far from what was in the article with a decently sharp knife and some time. Doesn't seem like a huge jump to do it in stone if the stone is easy enough to shape with a harder stone/mineral...

Me too. Why does the title claim realism when the article it points at doesn't? The article only claims a realistic facial expression.

We're talking anthropology here, not art criticism. It's leagues more realistic than anything we've uncovered. Something like the bronze charioteer which is incredibly vivid and accurate is made nearly 10,000 years later than this one.

> 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.

Yeah I was expecting something like a greek statue with very realistic human features, but I guess this is still astounding since other statues of the time are even less anthropomorphous.

We have a fairly good idea of how sculpture evolved in the past 5,000 years or so. By 2500 BCE, the Egyptians had already mastered realistic sculpture:

https://www.mfa.org/gallery/masterpieces-of-egyptian-sculptu...

But this discovery is a whopping 7,500 years older. It would have been inconceivably ancient to the pyramid builders too.

Those statues clearly show some development, but I wouldn't say the Egyptians had mastered realistic sculpture. There is clearly still some kouros-like stylized anatomy here, especially visible in the standing figures. Compare to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polykleitos#/media/File:Doryph...

It’s of course difficult to say how much of the perceived non-realism was simply about cultural aesthetic preferences with regard to style. Especially given that the statues that have survived are those with special cultural or religious significance.

The non-realist aspects were definitely tied to cultural and religious signifiers.

There's actually a fascinating case where Egyptian artists were briefly allowed to abandon the established style and adopted a quite different one during the so-called Amarna period:

https://artsandculture.google.com/usergallery/amarna-period-...

Much of the art became almost caricatures with elongated features, but there was simultaneously a realist tendency where portraits of royalty were suddenly allowed to have a likeness. The famous Nefertiti bust is from this era.

It seems clear to me that the artists' skills was not the limitation, but the permitted range of expression was quite narrow until this rebel pharaoh unleashed the short-lived style revolution.

'Recognizable' seems much more appropriate than 'realistic' in this case.

It has all the parts...

I maybe wasn't expecting Bernini level of realism, but "Augustus of Prima Porta" is around 2000 years old which greatly predates Renaissance tooling.

This predates that statute by at least 7,000 years or more.

It's kind of mind-blowing that we're three times closer to the Romans than the Romans themselves were to Gobekli Tepe. Gobekli Tepe is as much older than the pyramids, as the pyramids are themselves old.

Can you think of any artistic depiction of a human from that era that is more detailed? Humans in cave paintings are basically stick men.

Stick figure cave paintings are paleolithic graffiti. If you think artists find it hard to scratch a living these days, you're not going to find much support for following your passion when there is hunting, gathering and defending against predators to do.

But if a sharman (assuming it is a statue for their deity) has the time, then there's no reason it couldn't be perfectly proportioned. It's not like hand-eye coordination has suddenly evolved; it would more be access to better tools than a piece of flint to bang on some softer rock.

> If you think artists find it hard to scratch a living these days, you're not going to find much support for following your passion when there is hunting, gathering and defending against predators to do.

You seem to seriously overestimate the average workload of prehistoric communities (or underestimating the average workload of present day individuals). Also I don't think the concept of making "a living" transfers to gift economies. Nor do you need to spend 16 hours a day every day "being an artist" to develop remarkable artistic skill. Strict division of labor is a fairly recent development that in its present form stems from industrialisation requiring work to be split into discrete processes to enable automation.

Sash and tassel Gwion Gwion rock paintings are ~ 12,000 years old and pretty detailed for "shadow drawings" *.

They're more than just stick figures, they detail ceremonial costumes quite well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwion_Gwion_rock_paintings

* Dating the spectrum of paintings is broad.

    Experimental OSL dates from a wasp nest overlaying a tassel Gwion Gwion figure has given a Pleistocene date of 17,500 ± 1,800 years BP. The academic community generally accepts 5,000 BP for the end of the artistic style. If the date ranges are correct, this may demonstrate that the Gwion Gwion tradition was produced for many millennia.

More like anatomically correct.

I beg to differ- how does that not look exactly like us

https://i0.wp.com/themindcircle.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/...

From the better link someone posted below:

https://themindcircle.com/new-gobeklitepe-and-karahantepe-fi...

On hacker news everything is 0% or 100%.

I see you're playing the 100% end of that range, by claiming that "everything" conforms to your insight.

And the face is fucking missing!!

That’s what people looked like back then.

Weird that people don't understand evolution.

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