31–37 of 37 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're being sarcastic, but aren't you accidentally right? Swiss watchmaking started because local bible-thumpers banned jewelry but made an exception for watches, thus creating demand for watches that fill the role of jewelry. Once established, the industry maintains itself.
Except mechanical watches were very high-tech at the time and were very practical devices. By the time they became mainly an accessory/status symbol sumptuary laws weren’t a thing.
I'm always suspicious of "it was religious" claims in archeology.
Neither the article nor the backing paper discussed made any such definite claim. Many casual readers confuse statements such as "which *may* have had symbolic or ritual significance." with meaning "this absolutely had to do with (a) religion" when no such thing is intended. Attribution of potential cause of inferred behaviour to "ritual" is a long standing practice in archaeology; it's code for "we don't know" and c…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're being sarcastic, but aren't you accidentally right? Swiss watchmaking started because local bible-thumpers banned jewelry but made an exception for watches, thus creating demand for watches that fill the role of jewelry. Once established, the industry maintains itself.
Except mechanical watches were very high-tech at the time and were very practical devices. By the time they became mainly an accessory/status symbol sumptuary laws weren’t a thing.
perhaps the purpose was didactic: when a child gets interested or wants to help those tribe members making stone tools, it is not yet aware of difficulty levels of different materials. teaching a newcomer to make a proper tool from a more annoying material, may make their skills more robust when relaxing to easier materials later on. think of all the skills you had to learn in your own education, and how little of it…
From the comments too as well I will add that while I have no concrete proof what purpose they served, security or religion, they certainly could kill if used via an atlatl.