The Ain Ghazal statues, dating back to around 7200 BCE, are among the earliest known examples of human figures crafted from plaster, highlighting an advanced use of materials in the Neolithic period. This technique involved applying plaster, made from lime and powdered limestone, over a core of reeds and twine to create lifelike statues with detailed facial features and expressive eyes made from bitumen. The use of plaster for such artistic and possibly ritualistic purposes at Ain Ghazal predates many other known uses of the material in sculpture. While plaster had been used in simple construction and repair tasks even earlier, the sophisticated application at Ain Ghazal marks a significant development in the artistic capabilities of Neolithic societies.
Philosophy.
3 random tidbit stories in about 3 minutes.
1.
Philosophy Story.
That Philosophy Story,
2.
Philosophy Story.
The last non-mammaliaform cynodonts included the tritylodontids, an advanced family of herbivorous cynodonts. They were close to mammals and shared several mammal-like traits, but they remained outside Mammaliaformes. Their extinction around 125 million years ago marked the end of the non-mammaliaform cynodont line, while mammals—the surviving branch—continued on.
By the Early Cretaceous, around 125 million years ago, the world of the last tritylodontids was no longer the old synapsid world. It was a dinosaur-dominated landscape of warm seasonal forests, floodplains, lakeshores, and volcanic basins. Tritylodontids would have shared these environments with early birds, lizards, amphibians, turtles, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs such as small theropods and herbivorous ornithischians. In places like Early Cretaceous East Asia, the ecosystem also included mammaliaforms and true mammals that were becoming surprisingly diverse, so tritylodontids were not simply “waiting for mammals.” They were living beside them. The Cretaceous ran from about 145 to 66 million years ago, and early mammals and mammal-relatives had already diversified into many ecological roles well before the dinosaur extinction.
Tritylodontids were advanced herbivorous cynodont therapsids, close to mammals but usually placed outside Mammaliaformes. They had small-to-medium bodies, strong jaws, large cheek teeth with multiple cusps, and a well-developed secondary palate, all pointing to a specialized plant-eating lifestyle. Some later forms, such as Fossiomanus sinensis, even show digging adaptations, suggesting they could occupy burrows or fossorial niches. They were among the last non-mammaliaform therapsids, surviving long after true mammals had appeared. That makes them a wonderful “living fossil” style branch in the mammal-side story: not mammals, not primitive throwbacks, but late-surviving cousins carrying an older version of the mammal-line experiment into the age of dinosaurs.
That Philosophy Story,
3.
Philosophy FAQ.
First off, anecdotal evidence isn’t always someone’s personal story. It can also refer to isolated or unverified examples that, by themselves, don’t prove much. A single puzzle piece might be interesting, but it doesn’t complete the bigger picture. Imagine a friend claims their lucky charm brought them good luck. Fun as it is, that doesn’t actually prove the charm works.
Now, let’s not dismiss all observations. Repeatedly seeing something in nature can indeed prove it exists. But drawing broader conclusions requires more than one observation. For example, bats and birds both fly, so it’s easy to assume they share a common flying ancestor. Yet deeper study reveals they evolved from different non-flying ancestors. While evidence shows specific things, connecting those dots for larger claims requires much more.
Evaluating anecdotal evidence is a type of Idea Evaluation. Idea evaluation is one of the Five Thought Tools of the TST Framework.
That Philosophy FAQ,
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