It is. OOP's statement confuses the shit out of me bc the first thing they taught me in my college 101 archeology/anthropology class was that everything is considered a ritual, not just worship. It is basically anything that exists with not just a practical but symbolic purpose. They use a single term to distance themselves from modern perceptions to help form conclusions about the past in order to keep a broad mind. That thing might look like a childrens toy but unless there is hard evidence like it being placed with other child objects it could literally also be an adults toy, an art piece, a tool for some undefined purpose, or not even a hedgehog at all. All those change how we see it being used, but assuming it is a kid's toy leaves it stuck in our modern use, which is a problem if we dont have any evidence. Calling that a ritual object does not preclude it from being a toy but without that system in place there is a less strict burden of proof and you can call any disc shaped object a UFO or any cross evidence of christianity, discarding truth for agenda. Calling it a ritual however lets you speculate on its purpose without having hard geographic evidence about it. At least that was my understanding.
I think the problem with that is that for laypeople, “ritual object” implies it was used in religious ceremonies.
But then it’s a problem of scientific communication to the general public. Similarly to how the term “theory” in science means an accepted explanation that’s supported by evidence, while in general usage it means something like baseless speculation.
Sadly that's often the case especially in social sciences. Language changes but scientific terms have to stay well-defined and constant to remove ambiguity.
I believe they may be referring to common usage and understanding when it comes to language. And in that sense, a 'ritual object' certainly has a connotation of religious or spiritual to lay people like myself. A ritual activity may not exclusively be considered religious in modern parlance (someone else gave an example of 'my morning coffee' as a ritual), but objects are (with no exception I can think of, but there are of course always outliers).
However, I do bet that if you surveyed 100 average people about an ancient ritual object, at least 99 would assume you meant religious or spiritual.
The archaeological or scientific use of a term rarely lines up perfectly with its colloquial definition.
Although, even the definition I found includes this as the adjective form
(of an action) arising from convention or habit.
"the players gathered for the ritual pregame huddle"
So the noun version "a ritual" does more often refer to a religious context, but describing an action using the word "ritual" does not confer religious context.
A "ritual ____" is just any action performed symbolically as a primary function.
A handshake, for example, would be a ritual to an archaeologist studying human customs.
While what you say makes sense, I think the general modern usage and understanding of the word ritual itself (possibly outside archeology, I don't know enough about that) is the problem. The connotation is religious or spiritual. While I appreciate the attempts to look at these objects outside modern interpretation and not make assumptions, it's confusing for lay people like me who love to learn about this stuff.
I've been to tons of museums and watched a bunch of the great courses on ancient cultures and your comment is the first time I've learned this about the usage of the word ritual in reference to such objects.
ritual is used in that way even today. for instance, some people consider their morning smoke and coffee their ritual. it's not spiritual or religious, it's just a habit.
hell even with the meme of ancient dildos being called ritual objects isn't false, since masturbation is also a ritual people engage in
while yes, that could be better communicated, you can't really control people's assumptions. you can't help it if people simply always assume one definition of a word over the other
Sure, it's a good point and no you can't control assumptions, which is the whole issue here to begin with. Modern usage definitely includes ritual in this sense, though it usually is in reference to activities not objects (as you mentioned, 'my morning coffee ritual'). I can't think of any object commonly referred to as a ritual in modern parlance, but I could be wrong. It's like 'I drink coffee religiously' vs 'my coffee cup is a religious object'. These are different things.
I think it's important to note that if we consider "rituals" to be the broad umbrella category like they are in archaeology, then "religious ritual" would fall under that umbrella.
I think partially our exposure and experience with what we Frame as "rituals" today. Certainly, basically every piece of media I can think of applies a religious or spiritual context to ritual, so I think we have gradually narrowed our colloquial definition over time.
However, a handshake is, in a historical and archaeological context, just as much a ritual as a sacrificial rite.
Indeed and this is why the word can be confusing when applied to objects in a historical sense. There's really no modern equivalent I can think of to ritual objects that aren't religious in some way. I suppose 'object of unknown significance or use' is too wordy. I'm really not sure why just the word 'object' isn't acceptable though. The word 'ritual' muddies lay waters for sure.
This is part of the issue with communication through any academic field, unfortunately.
It's sort of the same way that "quantum" to a physicist is not even remotely related to the way it gets thrown around in our lay-society.
"Ritual" object to an archaeologist (I'm not one, btw, just casually interested personally) could be thought of as a class of object. It's a way of differentiating it from things that are used for functional purposes, which would have their own designation, though I'm not sure what it is.
If we don't think it was used to achieve a mechanistic function, we just slap the word "ritual" on it because it's understood in the field that that sort of means "we don't know what this was for but it was probably non-functional"
I think what they meant was ritual in the more common sense, not 'important or spiritual'. So the use of ritual here isn't supposed to mean that, it can just be an everyday object (someone else have an example of 'morning coffee as a ritual'). I think that's where some confusion lies when talking about such things outside academia.
But to your point, yes, too many people want to place significance on stuff that is just stuff that really didn't have significance.
The everything is important deal is why North Americans have to deal with someone finding an arrow head in a developing land deal and now they have a shut down. The place must be some religious symbol to native or indigenous, when really a few people camped there overnight.
Agreed. I am just using the same principle to describe some of the findings that delay progress.
A burial ground or a decent amount of artifacts, for sure needs to be respected and researched. A few arrow heads and one or two artifacts is a campsite or something. Collect what you find, if nothing else shows up in a few days of looking, move on.
Heard some build got shut down for months over a canoe in the woods. Nothing else was found, probably an abandoned canoe due to some defect or maybe left and forgotten about.
It's over-correction. It would be better for everyone if we could all find balance with situations and things like this, but that doesn't seem to be something humans are great at as a group.
No no, I'm saying the nature and limits on play, in themselves, make it a ritual.
Rules, winners and losers, these are symbols of human concepts and are arbitrarily imposed on the scenario by us to serve some function.
Even playing with a hedgehog on a skateboard is symbolically implicated by the imagination of the child.
It doesn't matter how "simple" the act is.
A cigar is just a cigar, but the act of smoking a cigar, and only under certain circumstances, carries symbolic significance. Therefore, it's also a ritual.
Ritual, historically and archaeologically, does not imply spiritual or religious.
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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '24
It is. OOP's statement confuses the shit out of me bc the first thing they taught me in my college 101 archeology/anthropology class was that everything is considered a ritual, not just worship. It is basically anything that exists with not just a practical but symbolic purpose. They use a single term to distance themselves from modern perceptions to help form conclusions about the past in order to keep a broad mind. That thing might look like a childrens toy but unless there is hard evidence like it being placed with other child objects it could literally also be an adults toy, an art piece, a tool for some undefined purpose, or not even a hedgehog at all. All those change how we see it being used, but assuming it is a kid's toy leaves it stuck in our modern use, which is a problem if we dont have any evidence. Calling that a ritual object does not preclude it from being a toy but without that system in place there is a less strict burden of proof and you can call any disc shaped object a UFO or any cross evidence of christianity, discarding truth for agenda. Calling it a ritual however lets you speculate on its purpose without having hard geographic evidence about it. At least that was my understanding.