How the World’s Oldest Wooden Sculpture Is Reshaping Prehistory

The world’s oldest wooden sculpture is even older than previously thought. A new study suggests that the 2.7-metre-tall Shigir Idol was carved more than 12,000 years ago from a tree that was already more than 150 years old. The relic was preserved in a peat bog in the Ural Mountains and is the world’s only surviving Stone Age wood carving. Its complex iconography of geometric patterns and human faces suggests that the region’s ancient societies were more sophisticated than previously thought.