[TrainedMonkey]

Here is a theory - survivorship bias. Humans made all kinds of things, but only small amount of it survived. Red ochre on rock faces just happened to be something that lasts a long time.

To expand on that I think there was a lot of self expression covering all possible surfaces. So the statement shifts from many human groups picked same thing to express themselves to multiple self expressive groups discovered ochre techniques and produced artwork that survived to this day. There were probably plenty of groups that did not discover that and none of their art survived.

[yholio]

To elaborate on this, the white marble statues decorating the Parthenon and Acropolis are believed to have been painted very bright colors in their day. Not a single one of those dazzling pigments survived exposed to the elements after a mere 2500 years.

[mathieuh]

I think it's past belief at this point, archaeologists have found traces of pigment on the statues.

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/12/22/ancient-statues-in...

Know nothing about this source but I googled and couldn't find a better one, I'm sure I've read about before though.

[dan-robertson]

The white marble statues were usually copies of more highly regarded bronze statues. But you can’t melt the marble down to make weapons so those statues survived

[handmodel]

It is a good theory.

Even things like arrowheads which are used to mark progress or reach of Native American populations in the US are useful because they survive and are dug up all the time while digging. I'm sure there would be more interesting cultural finds if baskets or clothes from the time survived at the same rate.

[chrisco255]

Yeah I bet there were hundreds of thousands of works of art painted on animal canvas or pottery, but due to deterioration did not survive.

[Cthulhu_]

Pottery is one of those things that is still found regularly in archeological finds; it doesn't really deteriorate if it's sealed / buried.

[chrisco255]

I'm sure the later stuff lasted, once we had perfected the technique of producing ceramic (still probably a lot is buried under earth somewhere and over time will be crushed with pressure). But I'm talking about the early to late-stone age period (10K YA and earlier), when we probably still produced containers, but they were probably made from less durable materials or techniques.

[qwertox]

For those who haven't heard about survivorship bias, the following section in the Wikipedia illustrates it interestingly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#In_the_milit...