[HN Gopher] Why 15,000-year-old art may have been displayed in f...
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       Why 15,000-year-old art may have been displayed in firelight
        
       Author : helsinkiandrew
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2022-04-21 05:08 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
        
       | trasz wrote:
       | That sounds interesting. I wonder if the video from simulation
       | described in the article is available somewhere?
        
         | kritiko wrote:
         | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
         | 
         | See Supporting Information section
        
       | karaterobot wrote:
       | > That thought would be interesting enough to chew over, but the
       | researchers have gone one hypothesis further: that the fire was
       | more than mere illumination and its flickerings acted to provide
       | a primitive animation to the plaquettes' carvings.
       | 
       | I just checked, and LED lighting wasn't invented until much later
       | than 15,000 years ago. So, whether they benefited from the
       | primitive animation or not, I am confident they would have
       | displayed their art by firelight anyway.
        
         | seoaeu wrote:
         | Or sunlight...
        
           | karaterobot wrote:
           | The plaquettes are small and portable, so they may have done
           | both. But if they're enjoying the animation effect of a fire,
           | it's probably dark.
        
       | stolenmerch wrote:
       | This theory has been around for decades and keeps getting
       | "rediscovered" every few years. I think this newly published
       | finding is additional evidence but it's not a major new
       | discovery.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | mc4ndr3 wrote:
       | Paywall. No photos.
        
       | TheDesolate0 wrote:
        
       | PlotCitizen wrote:
       | Paywalled
        
         | jklinger410 wrote:
         | And it's not even a new idea.
        
           | oblak wrote:
           | Can confirm deliberately posting paywalled articles is not a
           | new idea. People have been doing it for decades!
        
             | jklinger410 wrote:
             | No, the idea that ancient paintings were designed to look
             | animated by firelight is not a new idea.
        
         | czx4f4bd wrote:
         | The Wayback Machine has it:
         | https://web.archive.org/web/20220422124053/https://www.econo...
         | 
         | Here's the actual paper, too:
         | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
        
       | jph wrote:
       | The cave firelight is fascinating in the film "Cave of Forgotten
       | Dreams" by Werner Herzog, where he documents the art of the
       | Chauvet caves of Southern France.
       | 
       | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1664894/
        
       | juanani wrote:
        
       | toraway1234 wrote:
        
       | verisimi wrote:
       | There are no photos in the article of the Palaeolithic stone
       | plaquettes!
       | 
       | Take a look at them here:
       | 
       | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
       | 
       | scroll through the images at the bottom..
        
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