Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Ritual use” is a term of art in archaeology. It refers to any object whose survival/economic use is not readily apparent. Basically, anything that isn’t a basic tool (and many things that are tools if they’re decorated) are considered ritual objects. It doesn’t imply any religious purpose. Lots of what people do in life is composed of rituals. Morning coffee ritual, for example.
It is beyond ridiculous at this point, and serves to make people not take archeology seriously anymore. Where's the shame in admitting they don't know what an object was for? And a coffee maker is not for ritual use, it is for making coffee.
Put yourself in the seat of someone coming to look at your house 1,000+ years after you died. Most things are gone but some things are intact. Our history and language was either wiped out or indiscernible. What would they find?
Well, in my house, here's a few things:
- they'd find that the softwood in my kitchen is much more worn than the rest of my house. We either spent a lot of time there or didn't care about it.
- they'd then find that there's bags of fragrant stuff by this steel machine with a pressurization cup that also has a steam wand.
- they'd find a water reservoir on the back of the machine.
- if I left in a hurry, they'd find cups scattered throughout the house, particularly in what looks like working areas.
- they'd find clean cups near the machine; some are plain but some are decorated!
Even from all this, they'd have to look at coffee beans to find out they're caffeinated, they'd need to determine the presence of sugar, spices, and the various types of milk humans use. The "morning coffee ritual" would still look pretty amalgamous, and lots of context as to what we did around it would be lost, but they'd get an idea around what it all was about.