> What I think you might be missing is that Venus could be a pet project of a single person, done in their free time over some period.
Yes, a single Venus figure is likely made by a single person. But the Venus of Willendorf is not unique. There are 200 over known "Venus figurines" from a period of 300,000 BC to 11,00 BC. So they were a wide-spread phenomenon indicating some form of shared socio-cultural connection among the early humans despite how far we were spread out and how much lower the population density was compared to now.
This is of course tangential to the point you were making.
Why not? Sculptors sometimes make dozens of sculptures per year, by themselves.
> they could not be themselves participating in hunter-gathering activities
Why not? Hunting and gathering doesn't occupy all of a person's time. I see no reason whatsoever to assume that those sculptures weren't created by part-time artists.
> implying there was some sort of a social structure (aka civilization)
Social structure exists even in apes, and is not at all synonymous with what the term "civilization" is usually taken to mean.
As a sibling commenter has explained, there is nothing substantially new in this archeological find, and it fits well into our existing model of how people lived back then. Claims of an incoming paradigm shift triggered by this find lack any substance.
Sculptors today are stationary and they depend on money (a mark of a civilization) and tools (same) and supermarkets (same) and demand for their work (economic surplus; same). Leonardo da Vinci, if he was a part of hunter-gatherer society (which is mobile), would not be able to paint or invent, for he would be busy with gathering (or growing, or hunting) his own food most of his time; he also would not have access to paper or canvas or colors or brushes.
> I see no reason whatsoever to assume that those sculptures weren't created by part-time artists.
As mentioned, hunter-gatherers are mobile at least part-time, because they go from where some food grows today, to where some other food roams tomorrow, to where yet other food swims the day after.
> Social structure exists even in apes
And bees, and ants; but not the kind that allows a big part of a society (capable adults) to engage in activities that are not directly related to gathering food, growing children, or fighting, but creating temples and art. A group of hunter-gatherers can provide for themselves, their children, and maybe their elders or sick (as long as these are mobile). They can even accommodate a leader or a shaman here and there; but not an apparently big group of able adults that do not hunt and do not gather and do not fight and do not move but rather sit in one place and build a temple and statues.
> there is nothing substantially new in this archeological find
Gobekli Tepe have completely changed our view of the development of the human societies, as we have previously believed the first civilization (Sumerians) to be as recent as 5,000-4,000 BCE (or 6-7 kya). This hints at a civilization twice as old as previously believed.
They move around, but would return to the same locations regularly thus potentially spending years in one location over their lifetime. Plenty of time to make dozens of life sized statues.
on what you base this one? (from what I remember this time would not be even to even produce clothes - unless it is for area of world where no clothing is needed?)
Currently the guesses are 40,000 to 3 million years ago.
These people in this article are just as intelligent as modern humans.
Processing animal skins is also a lot faster than weaving. Clothing is ~170,000 years old, weaving is very recent by comparison.
The statues, especially in the context of the greater site, could not be made by one person — many people should be working there for quite a long period of time, while physically staying in the place. Since they were working on the temple complex, (a) they could not be themselves participating in hunter-gathering activities (and we think human societies were engaged with that at the time); and (b) someone else should be providing them with the food, clothes, tools, and everything they need — implying there was some sort of a social structure (aka civilization).
This is what I think GP meant when saying "not supposed to be possible 12,000 years ago".