Re: More Bad Science - From Marks on Little Bones a "Religion" Is Invented

["Followup-To:" header set to talk.politics.misc.]
On 2024-05-18, 68hx.1808 <68hx.1807@g5t0x.net> wrote:

https://greekreporter.com/2024/05/17/carved-bear-bone-symbolic-art-made-neanderthals-study-says/
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https://greekreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/neanderthal-carved-bear-bone-is-symbolic-art-credit-journal-of-archaeological-science-cc-by-nc-4-1-1024x949.jpg.webp
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. . .
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   Ummmmm ... "symbolic art" ??? Kinda PUSHING it there !
>
   Really really looks like some guy just idly testing
   his new flint knife. It's just some lines, done with
   no particular precision. Of course that doesn't keep
   folks from inventing an entire religion around it ...
>
   Did it ever occur that humans, and near-relatives,
   just FUCKED AROUND sometimes ? Maybe a lot of those
   little doodles and such were just 'spare time'
   activities, an amusement, not anything of "holy"
   intent ?
>
   We always tend to project current/recent culture,
   esp 'western', back into the distant past. If WE
   do something for a particular reason, THEY had to
   have done it for the SAME reason, right ?
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   Humans, and maybe to a degree Neanderthals, DID
   make some "symbolic" art - mostly "fertility
   figures". However everything found with a mark
   on it is NOT gonna be "symbolic". THIS particular
   artifact, I see "whittling", not deep meaning.
>
   150,000 years from now, someone will unearth
   the Taylor Swift shoe line - and decide the
   togs were 'religious artifacts' - 'symbolic
   art' .........

Archaeologists of the future will dig up rubbish dumps, find lots of
artifacts and conclude the site must have been of great importance,
and place people made offerings.  The dump is where all the history
will be found.

And you're right, a lot of what will be found, will just be screwing
around, graffiti and the like.  There is some ancient graffiti which
has been uncovered here and there.