Comment by amatecha
8 hours ago
The X's on the animal forms (Fig. 1B) ... isn't that likely to be "hit here" type markings, for hunting reference? Shoulder, side, stomach... surprised this wasn't really touched on in the paper, since it seems really likely. Though, the paper doesn't seem to care so much about the actual meanings, seemingly just narrowing down the number of possible interpretations /shrug
Interesting comment, I remember something similar about how researchers thought hairstyles depicted in paintings or statues were unrealistic but it wasn't until a hairstylist pointed out that you can sew the hair together:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-woman-is-a-ha...
I've also heard similar stories about people working with leather recognizing some set of artifacts as being more useful for work rather than ceremonial.
Here's of video of creating a roman Vestal Virgins hairstyle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA9JYWh1r7U
I bet there are many more similar stories yet to be told.
Ever tried carving a regular pattern, such as XXXXXXX, in a piece of wood? The blade keeps getting stuck on the wrong course, the angle deviates from vertical, you have to retry strokes and they don't land in the same place the second time. If the work piece is small your accuracy goes down. In this case they're carving bone, which may be easier, but the tool is a tiny piece of flint held between fingers.
So then instead of XXXXXXX the researchers record X/\XXV/X. Let's run that through some mystifying statistical software and tell the world about its information content! Or "complexity", which might not be information.
Come to think of it, an example of misunderstood artifacts from this period, the Aurignacian, is the "perforated baton", formerly proposed to be held at meetings for the right to speak, now found out to be a spear shaft straightener.
I remember the two gourds connected by a 75 foot string was interpreted as a "telephone". Apparently nobody has tried it out, and there's no mention of anyone trying to make one with a modern gourd.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/there...
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Some of the marks on it, particularly the head marks, are right over areas of the thickest bones. It's not impossible, but always worth being self-critical of "obvious" meanings with things like this.
Things that are straightforward even to us as non-expert megafaunal hunters would probably be completely obvious to actual experts (if it's not wrong), and people usually don't want to record the obvious stuff.
It's also possible the meaning is inverted. Kill the animal by throwing a spear anywhere other than these places
And put the armor where the bullet holes on surviving planes aren't.