Archaeology interlude:

[applegrove]

This is the “Lady with the Hood.” It is 28,000 years old & perhaps the earliest depiction of a human face. Made from mammoth ivory, its delicate modelling & drapery of the hood belie the idea palaeolithic people were artistically crude. It is a beautiful piece.

🏛️📷 National Archaeological Museum🇫🇷

— Carausius (@carausius286.bsky.social) 2026-05-25T11:59:43.996Z

[surfered]

1. You would think they wouldn't have had the free time. Amazing.

Curious….where was it found?

[applegrove]

2. I don't know. I think some foragers did have some free time.

That is the latest I've read.

[bluedigger]

3. Hunter gatherer societies have significantly more free time than we do.

It's all dancing and singing when you aren't hunting for supper.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. I have read that modern hunter-gatherer societies spend about 20 hr/wk seeking and processing sustenance ...

much of the rest of the time is devoted to family and tribe -- celebrations, rituals, songs, gossip.

Agricultural societies devote more time to meeting basic needs during the growing and harvesting seasons, but have plenty of time to kill in the winter, assuming the stored food doesn't run out. That's when all the woodcarving, needlework, etc. takes place, and it provides contact between family and tribal members when they all can gather around a warm fire and swap stories.

[surfered]

6. You would think they spent all their time just trying to survive.

[wnylib]

7. Once adapted to their environment, they know how to

exploit resources with pretty good skill. But they do have greater periods of struggling to survive during harsher than usual winters, or serious drought conditions. Under such conditions, they sometimes need to migrate and adapt to new environments, temporarily or permanently.

But when things are going well, they have leisure time for family and communal events once basic necessities are met.

[PJMcK]

5. My wife volunteered at a dig in Panama this past winter

We bought a modest apartment on the Pacific coast of Panama about an hour and a half from Panama City. She found a dig about another hour and a half along the Trans American Route One.

During her tenure, they found golden artifacts from pre-Colombian times, 1,200 years ago!

Many archeologists never find gold during their careers but my “tiny dancer” scored! I couldn’t be more proud.