The Independent has an article about a wooden statue found in peat bog which is 'twice as old as Stonehenge'. Named the Shigir Idol, it was found preserved in a peat bog back in 1890. New dating techniques suggest that it is around 11,000 years old, which would make it the oldest extant wooden sculpture.
Depicting a man with mysterious symbols inscribed on him - which scientists believe could be an ancient encrypted code - the statue is 1,500 years older than previously thought.
Scientists in Mannheim, Germany, used the most up-to-date carbon dating technology, called Accelerated Mass Spectrometry, to determine the statue's age.
Thomas Terberger, a professor at the Department of Cultural Heritage of Lower Saxony, part of the team who dated the Idol, told the Siberian Times: "The results exceeded our expectations.
"This is an extremely important date for the international scientific community. It is important for understanding the development of civilisation and the art of Eurasia and humanity as a whole.
"We can say that in those times, 11,000 years ago, the hunters, fishermen and gatherers of the Urals were no less developed than the farmers of the Middle East."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:37PM (13 children)
Are all these artifacts necessarily made by humans? Couldn't it have been made by a large bride or some other animal known for tool use like a crab?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:41PM
Most large brides I've seen are, technically, human.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:46PM (4 children)
Would a Siberian crab carve a human-shaped wooden statue?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snotnose on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:50PM
If it was a crash landed alien looking to impress the local chieftain then, yeah, sure.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:21PM (1 child)
A "siberian crab" is actually a tree, so no:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malus_baccata [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:32PM
Hmm. Pequeninos?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday May 04 2018, @01:51AM
They were actually carved by shoggoths under the direction of elder things, before they rebelled against their masters. What's depicted isn't a 5m tall human, it's Aylith.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:53PM (6 children)
This kind of typo seems to be getting more prevalent these days, as if somebody were typing on their phone and the autocorrect switched it to some other word that sounds halfway plausible but makes no sense in context.
Typo for "bird"? Enlighten us, AC!
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:21PM (5 children)
Haha that's why I cling to my ancient phone with a slide-out, physical keyboard and turn auto-correct off. Everyone rolls their eyes when they see me fish the thing out of my pocket, with pieces of duck tape holding the battery cover on and gaps in the case where segments of plastic have simply crumbled away.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:43PM
My Gemini PDA came yesterday, and the keyboard is great. It's usable either two-thumbs or proper typing style, and has a very nice hi-res screen. Android is just as annoying to use as I remembered, so you might want to wait until Sailfish 3 is released (Q3 this year according to Jolla), or the community works out the kinks of using linux as a phone OS.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday May 04 2018, @03:30AM (2 children)
It still doesn't stop you from writing "duck tape" instead of "duct tape" though...
(Score: 2) by arslan on Friday May 04 2018, @03:59AM
Umm "Duck Tape" is correct too... https://www.amazon.com/Duck-1303158-Metallic-Chrome-Inches/dp/B002TOL44Q [amazon.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 04 2018, @04:06AM
The original name [octanecreative.com] of the stuff was "duck" tape, because it was waterproof and moisture rolled off it like "water off a duck's back [wikipedia.org]."
"Duct" tape developed later when the color was changed to silver and HVAC guys started using it.
Either one's correct now, but it's slightly more oddball and fun to call it "duck" tape because somebody always says, "Gah, 'duct' tape," as you did just then. :-)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday May 04 2018, @02:38PM
I think I could type faster using my old T9word dumbphone than with Swype these days. It's practically impossible to get through a whole sentence without it picking the wrong word.
But full QWERTY keyboard using only my thumbs feels silly. Even being a completely adequate touch typist, it feels like I'm hunting and pecking.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:46PM (9 children)
"Mysterious symbols", "encrypted code", or evven... going out on a limb here... just some zig-zag and hatching decorations.
It'd be nice if they gave some hint as to why they believe there's some greater significance to the lines than just (possibly symbolic) decoration. Assuming it's anything more than attention-seeking of course.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:53PM (2 children)
Haha yeah that part leaped out at me too. So at most it is like every other religious symbol out there? Who would have the faintest idea what a cross means if there was zero info left about christianity? If they found an ancient power pole they'd think we worshipped the power grid.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by suburbanitemediocrity on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:43PM (1 child)
Reminds me of an article I read in a Reader's Digest as a kid. It was the description of a hotel room unearthed by some future archeologists with descriptions of everyday items and their deduced purposes.
Holy crap, I can't believe I found it... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108831.Motel_of_the_Mysteries [goodreads.com]
This is the very first thing I think of when I read anything relating to archeology.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday May 04 2018, @04:11AM
That appears to be a ....reworking... of Digging the Weans by Robert Nathan (1960)
https://www.amazon.com/Weans-Robert-Nathan/dp/0394451287 [amazon.com]
The original short story:
http://www.joshpachter.com/pages/weans.pdf [joshpachter.com]
See also http://authorrobertnathan.com/ [authorrobertnathan.com] (javascript required)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday May 03 2018, @07:17PM (1 child)
An ancient, encrypted code.
How can they possibly know it is encrypted, and not plaintext?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @08:39PM
What if they used a one time pad?
Wait... what if it is a one time pad?!
(Score: 2) by arslan on Friday May 04 2018, @04:03AM (2 children)
Why does it have to be always something sophisticated when we speculate on stuff like these? Can't it be something mundane and simple like a primitive dildo or some dung scoop and the patterns are just decorative?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 04 2018, @04:09AM
If you've ever spent time examining petroglyphs in the Southwest or somewhere, eventually it becomes clear that the translation generally works out to something like, "Thak has bigger one than Thud."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Friday May 04 2018, @05:11AM
Well, the thing is 5.3 meters (that's over 17 feet) in size, so I'm going to go ahead and rule out primitive dildo. I don't care how brave you are and all on this one, it's just not going to work. In other related matters, I'm also going to put the pin back into "dung scoop" for now. I get that fibre filled diets and all with the berries and grass clippings available back in the heyday of Siberia, but I am feeling pretty safe on not getting called out on this one either.
*sips coffee*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @07:27AM
It's Academia, just think of the future papers and PhD thesis work they can milk out of 'interpreting' these decorations (I've just been browsing through a book where I've never seen so much BS extrapolated from so little archaeological evidence, and we're not even talking 'Ancient Astronut' stuff here, but proper 'I've a Doctorate and lots of published papers' stuff), bet there'll be mention of 'proto-runes', attempts at shoehorning a 'lunar calendar' into it, etc. etc. (of course, as I've already mentioned the 'Ancient Astronuts' mob, that lot'll be screaming 'It's a Grey' and doing their best to fit the carvings into a depiction of the constellation of Orion..)
Before I posted the above, I thought I'd just do a search, came across this [siberiantimes.com] and this [dailymail.co.uk] [both from 2014]
Oh, and this [rense.com] as well from 2014..
Oh bollocks...
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday May 03 2018, @05:48PM (1 child)
"The statue was originally 5.3 metres tall but parts of it went missing during the Soviet Era. Now only 2.8 metres remain along with sketches drawn in 1914 by a famous local archaeologist, Vladimir Tolmachev."
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @10:27AM
This is what you asked for, isn't it? This is what I was asked to build. 5.3 centimetres. Right here, it specified 5.3 centimetres. I was given this napkin, I mean -
(Score: 1) by suburbanitemediocrity on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:03PM (5 children)
Ancient encrypted code ... or pretty floral pattern.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:37PM (1 child)
Or it could mark a claim on a good fishing or hunting spot. Or it could represent a prayer for good fishing or hunting or weather, or just about anything else. Too much time has passed. The person or people who made it are long gone as is even their society and culture. It looks to me rather similar to a seite but that's just looks. There's no way to guess at the meaning or purpose.
Ogham writing [ogham.co] and cuneiform [ancient.eu] are just a bunch of marks, too, so there is a basis for the idea that the markings are communicating something. But without a means to associate a language with the marks on just this seite-like post there is no point in speculating, they are just reducing their credibility by doing so.
Interesting and sad that the bog acids preserved the wood better than the museum did. I suspose that all artifacts held in museums will quickly be destroyed in sufficient civil or economic unrest or plain war. We've seen that for sure in Iraq.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:34PM
They've found some amazing items preserved in peat bogs. Butter [washingtonpost.com], sacrificial victims [pbs.org], and well-preserved wooden artifacts [wired.com].
On a related note, similarly amazing levels of preservation have been observed in other bodies of water that have dead zones. The Black Sea has an anoxic layer at the bottom that has kept ancient shipwrecks from all eras in pristine condition [newsweek.com]. Ballard, who explored it, even reported he found evidence of ancient buildings [nationalgeographic.com] that predated the breaching of the dam that separated the Mediterranean from the Black Sea.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @07:21PM
Floroglyphics?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday May 03 2018, @11:07PM (1 child)
Or about the best you can do with nothing more than a sharp stone you happened to find.
Its a totem pole. Those things were usually community projects, made with primitive tools, by people who didn't have any specific information to encode, and no understanding on encryption. These were verbal societies, they didn't write anything down, they had no written language, they couldn't even count the fish catch of the day if it was more than 10. They built totem poles to remind them of their stories and legends.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday May 04 2018, @04:14AM
My understanding of totem poles, at least as used in the Pacific Northwest, is that they're actually... well, billboards. They indicated what a tribe had available for trade.
The marks on the artifact may be simply counting marks.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:16PM (1 child)
We have a member who is almost as old. Aristarchus, step up, and take a bow. No, no need to make a speech, or even any comments. Just take your bow, and sit down, please.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:29PM
Hard wood hunk has a big ebony limb to cram into your tight ivory trunk hollow [wikipedia.org]. Bonsai!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by richtopia on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:42PM
In case older than Stonehenge doesn't give you a good feeling for how old this is:
1. This is the oldest known wooden statue
2. 11500 years old puts us roughly at 9500BC
3. The Neolithic age (New Stone Age, tools became common and domestication of agriculture and animals occurred) occurred around 10000BC, and ended around 4~2000BC
4. Writing systems is estimated around 3500BC
5. Jerico dates back to roughly 10000BC
This stick is old.