
Ancient kids’ toys have been hiding in the archaeological record - gruseom
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-toys-kids-archaeological-record
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benbreen
Debate about whether or not artifacts are for ritual purposes always reminds
me of a wonderful book by David Macaulay called "Motel of the Mysteries." [1]
The publisher's description gives a good sense of it:

"It is the year 4022; all of the ancient country of Usa has been buried under
many feet of detritus from a catastrophe that occurred back in 1985. Imagine,
then, the excitement that Howard Carson, an amateur archeologist at best,
experienced when in crossing the perimeter of an abandoned excavation site he
felt the ground give way beneath him and found himself at the bottom of a
shaft, which, judging from the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from an archaic
doorknob, was clearly the entrance to a still-sealed burial chamber. Carson's
incredible discoveries, including the remains of two bodies, one of then on a
ceremonial bed facing an altar that appeared to be a means of communicating
with the Gods and the other lying in a porcelain sarcophagus in the Inner
Chamber, permitted him to piece together the whole fabric of that
extraordinary civilization."

[1] Some images here: [https://wearethemutants.com/2017/12/06/david-macauleys-
motel...](https://wearethemutants.com/2017/12/06/david-macauleys-motel-of-the-
mysteries-1979/)

~~~
angmarsbane
I have this book! It's delightful and absolutely introduced me to a new
perspective when I was a kid.

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happy-go-lucky
As kids growing up in a village, my friends and I played with button
whirligigs and we made them out of broken pieces of clay pots discarded by our
parents: Take a piece, rub its boundary on a hard irregular surface until it
is smooth and discoid, make a hole in the center (take care not to break the
object), pass a thread through this hole and keep the thing at the midpoint of
the thread. Hold the two ends of the thread with your hands, spin it for a
while and stop, and then immediately start whirling the thing by alternately
pulling and releasing the tension on the thread.

Here’s a wiki with some nice drawings:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirligig#Button_whirligigs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirligig#Button_whirligigs)

We also made ropes with jute, spinning tops of wood with an iron tip etc. We
could not afford to buy things such as these. It was fun :)

~~~
gxs
Interesting, our process was way simpler. Flatten a bottle cap and make two
holes in it with a nail.

~~~
hinkley
Ours was even lazier. Find an oversized button.

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dmix
Just wanted to point out that it's great seeing the "Citations" and "Further
Reading" links to the actual studies at the bottom and within the article. If
only more of those 'science' news sites did the same...

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caf
_Kids must have made those somewhat unevenly shaped jars and bowls, each
easily held within a child’s hand,..._

I feel a certain knowing connection with these parents of 4,000 years ago,
when I imagine them also with a shelf of inexpert yet earnest pottery.

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megaman22
> “Hey, what’s this?” asks the first guy. “I dunno, probably a toy … or a
> religious object,” says the second.

> Archaeologists have long tended to choose the second option

One of the many reasons archaeology frustrates me. If you can't figure out why
somebody built something in the past, its always for ritual reasons, rather
than more mundane reasons.

For example, I went to Chichen-Itza last week. If something happened, and all
the street vendors' stalls were abandoned, it's almost certain that
archaeologists of a thousands years in the future would conclude that it was a
major religious pilgrimage site, of a culture obsessed with miniature
pyramids, obsidian miniatures, marble chess sets, and brightly glazed ceramic
skulls. What they would make of the multitude of ceramic phallic hash pipes,
I'm not sure I want to speculate about...

~~~
rhn_mk1
In your example, the activities are not religious.

However, to me, the tiny pyramids and other trinkets are a kind of modern day
ritual - if something that has no clear explanation or practical purpose can
be called a ritual.

Let's take a moment and think: why do we carry those items home after
journeys? I've observed most of the time we toss them in a drawer and smile
aftre discovering them 5 years later. We place them on the shelves. Do we use
them to signal social status? Not really, they can usually be readily bought
locally. When we gift them, do we expect the other person to remember what
they meant 2 years later?

Or do we do it because "this is what people do"?

Of course, maybe there is a different answer, but to me, it looks like we
produce these things to fulfill some irrational, ritualistic? need. If we do
that now so often, then people in the past most likely did that too.

~~~
ars
The problem is not the label "ritual", it's the way the word shuts down all
further discussion.

Why? "Ritual." Done.

But that doesn't actually answer "why" it just gives it another word.

Another example in the same light: "How was the world created?" "God" vs "How
was the world created?" "Big Bang".

In both cases you have answered nothing. You just used another word. "How was
God created?" "Don't know", "How was the Big Bang created?" "Don't know".

Using a scientific sounding word _does not actually answer the question_ ,
anymore than using the word "ritual" answers the question.

Instead the lack of knowledge should be made explicit, and not hidden behind a
"comfort" word. (I.e. a word used to make you feel better about not knowing.)

