3 ms·
I did some archaeology as an undergrad, and found it full of amusing/annoying conventions in this regard. “Ritual significance” was a (heavily used) euphemism f
by gmac 7y ago
I did some archaeology as an undergrad, and found it full of amusing/annoying conventions in this regard. “Ritual significance” was a (heavily used) euphemism for “no clue what this was for”. And who could forget the Law of Stratigraphy, which says that things that are deeper are older?
- marcus_holmes 7y ago"ritual purposes" is the bane of anyone trying to interpret finds. Because whoever dug it up doesn't say "I don't know what this is" and therefore throws it open to interpretation, instead they say "ritual purposes" and anyone trying to interpret the find has to start by saying "this isn't a ritual object because...". Archaeologists never have to specify which ritual was involved, or what part in the ritual the object took. Which you have to do for everything else. That one condition would massively improve archaeological find interpretation imho.