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Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

phys.org

11–20 of 301 posts

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#11
post #4

I’m surprised by how tenuous the link is between the cave find and the archival find. Is the bar really that low for claims in archaeological papers or am I missing something? It’s a compelling story, but surely Occam’s razor would conclude that poking sticks into dead animals and fire pits is just what people have done for thousands of years? Where’s the evidence that there was chanting and a healing ceremony? Edit:…

"Each one was found in a separate fireplace around the size of the palm of a hand—far too small to have been used for heat or cooking meat.

The slightly charred ends of the sticks had been cut specially to stick into the fire, and both were coated in human or animal fat."

That's rather more than circumstantial evidence. Granted the ritual might have changed a bit over 12,000 odd years but where else have you seen people poke sticks into tiny hearth's?

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#12
post #4

I’m surprised by how tenuous the link is between the cave find and the archival find. Is the bar really that low for claims in archaeological papers or am I missing something? It’s a compelling story, but surely Occam’s razor would conclude that poking sticks into dead animals and fire pits is just what people have done for thousands of years? Where’s the evidence that there was chanting and a healing ceremony? Edit:…

[flagged]

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#13
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a cultural ritual, not scientific research. What scientific basis is there for Christmas or Thanksgiving?

It's a healing ritual as per the article, it either works more than random chance or it doesn't

Now now we aren’t allowed to assert that our culture is better or worse than any other, that is an inviolable cardinal sin for our pristine progressive rationalist minds. We have all of modern pharmacology and they have tiny sticks poked into burning animals in the fireplace. Different healing rituals for different folks.

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#14
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a cultural ritual, not scientific research. What scientific basis is there for Christmas or Thanksgiving?

It's a healing ritual as per the article, it either works more than random chance or it doesn't

I've seen an estimate that it was only about 1920 that Western medical intervention had a positive effect on average. In other words, you would generally end up worse off by visiting the doctor before then. And yet medical treatment clearly carried on as a continuous tradition throughout all of history.

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#15
post #4

I’m surprised by how tenuous the link is between the cave find and the archival find. Is the bar really that low for claims in archaeological papers or am I missing something? It’s a compelling story, but surely Occam’s razor would conclude that poking sticks into dead animals and fire pits is just what people have done for thousands of years? Where’s the evidence that there was chanting and a healing ceremony? Edit:…

[flagged]

I really don't think that watching documentaries are equivalent to being able to discerning anything about an academic field. That reminds me of reading press releases to understand scientific papers, which we all understand to be a junk way of doing it.

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#16
post #4

I’m surprised by how tenuous the link is between the cave find and the archival find. Is the bar really that low for claims in archaeological papers or am I missing something? It’s a compelling story, but surely Occam’s razor would conclude that poking sticks into dead animals and fire pits is just what people have done for thousands of years? Where’s the evidence that there was chanting and a healing ceremony? Edit:…

[flagged]

Psychology as well is built on a house of cards.

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#17
post #4

I’m surprised by how tenuous the link is between the cave find and the archival find. Is the bar really that low for claims in archaeological papers or am I missing something? It’s a compelling story, but surely Occam’s razor would conclude that poking sticks into dead animals and fire pits is just what people have done for thousands of years? Where’s the evidence that there was chanting and a healing ceremony? Edit:…

[flagged]

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#19
post #4

I’m surprised by how tenuous the link is between the cave find and the archival find. Is the bar really that low for claims in archaeological papers or am I missing something? It’s a compelling story, but surely Occam’s razor would conclude that poking sticks into dead animals and fire pits is just what people have done for thousands of years? Where’s the evidence that there was chanting and a healing ceremony? Edit:…

[flagged]

> it's basically conjectures pilled upon one another.

It's not just archeology, history is not much better either. They're both basically pseudosciences

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