[5] The sculpture was discovered on January 24, 1890 at a depth of 4 m (13 ft) in the peat bog of Shigir,[6] on the eastern slope of the Middle Urals, near the village of Kalata (modern Kirovgrad) and approximately 100 km (62 mi) from Yekaterinburg.

[8] In 2021, in the journal Quaternary International, researchers from the University of Göttingen, and the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences published the results of a series of recent AMS-results dating the Idol close to the beginning of the Holocene (c. 10,000 years ago).

[4] Researchers note that, while any direct parallel to this find is not yet known, nevertheless, the contextualization can be assisted by some very limited evidence of wooden objects from the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic.

[7] Mikhail Zhilin, an archaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology in Moscow, guessed that the statue could depict mythological creatures such as forest spirits.

[15] Archeologist Peter Vang Peterson, of the National Museum of Denmark, speculated that the idol could serve as a warning not to enter a dangerous area.

[14] Scholars noted that the Shigir Idol's decoration was similar to that of the oldest known monumental stone ruins, at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey.

[10] Scientists had previously believed that complex art comparable to the Shigir Idol began in sedentary farming populations in the Middle East around 8,000 years ago.

[10] Zhilin stated that the sculpture was made from the larch, which is naturally phytoncidic, then preserved in a bog that had an acid, anaerobic environment, which kills microorganisms and also has a tanning effect.