Loading…
11
The museum label in Tucson said "ritual object" and I finally figured out why that bugs me
I was at the Arizona State Museum on Saturday looking at a case of ground stone tools from a Hohokam site, and sure enough, three of the labels said "ceremonial" or "ritual use" with no real explanation. Here is the thing: in the actual site report from the 1970s dig, the residue analysis on those same tools came back with corn starch and mesquite pollen, which points to plain food prep. It bugs me because "ritual" is often just a placeholder for "we don't know yet," and it makes regular daily life from 1,000 years ago sound exotic and strange when it was mostly grinding dinner. Does any label like that drive other people up the wall too, or am I overthinking it?
0 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In0 Comments
No comments yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this discussion.