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"Archaeologists are nervous of using the word “ritual”" Because it's archaeological code for "We don't know what it's for" LOL. Although I do wish they'd just
by ars 8y ago
"Archaeologists are nervous of using the word “ritual”"
Because it's archaeological code for "We don't know what it's for" LOL.
Although I do wish they'd just say "We don't know", instead of using code words........... It's not required that we know everything.
- roywiggins 8y agoI think in this case they do actually believe it was used as a ritual site, which is why they are nervous about using the term since it's been over used before.
- groestl 8y agoMany professions have some kind of "last resort" explanation, which is (sometimes jokingly) used when no one has a clue what's going on. When I meet people with an interesting job, I sometimes ask what their last resort explanations are, and from an archaeologist I got this short poem in German: "Was man nicht erklären kann, das sehe man als kultisch an." ("What cannot be explained, should be assumed as ritualistic.").
- kaybe 8y agoWhat answers did you get from other professions?
- dang 8y agoCould you please not post unsubstantive comments, and especially not shallow dismissals, to Hacker News? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- close04 8y agoWell, archaeologists are known to resort to "ritual" or "religious" when no obvious explanation exists. There's always the assumption that older civilizations were guided by more simplistic principles and since religion was a staple of almost every civilization it means this had to stand out and be overly represented in the findings. Religion along with war related stuff. So while the point above is made derisively it shouldn't be dismissed outright. This becomes a problem if they have evidence of it being a ritual site but the explanation was mistakenly overused in the past and lost its punch.
- ars 8y agoIt's really not dang, see the other replies in this thread, and search google as well, it's not a shallow dismissal, it's an insight into how archaeological results are reported.
- dang 8y agoOK, point taken.