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Comment by amatecha | Hacker News Reader

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

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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...

Huh, but that's totally a tin can telephone. Would be a fun project for an experimental archeologist. The cans - I mean gourds - have little drumskin membranes stretched over them! The twine looks like the only dubious part, too stretchy maybe. Not sure what qualities an acoustic transmission line should have.

Make one out of gourds and see if it works.

If you have to yell in it, though, the other end can hear you 75 feet away just fine without it!

Why would it not? The string/twine is more the key to it really, are you thinking the gourd would be too dampening? They do say it's resin-coated.

I'm not saying I buy that that's what this was made for or how it was used, but I do reckon you can make a functional 'telephone' of this style with gourds.

Try it and see.

I seriously doubt twine would be a good carrier of vibrations over 75 feet. The fibers would dampen it out. Then there's the mass of the gourds, I doubt the faint vibrations left would vibrate them to a point you could hear anything.

I also suspect that the reason nobody tries it is because then the theory that it is a Fred Flintstone telephone falls apart.

The onus isn't really on me, it's not my device, I'm not even the organisation/article author claiming it is functional. You claim it can't work, have you tried it and seen? (Although admittedly you can't really show by practical experiment that it can't possibly be done.)

I do think it's more likely it was for use as a rope, with gourd weights to ease throwing.

The burden of proof should be on the people writing academic papers asserting it is a telephone.

Just like if someone claims they found a way to use water as an automobile fuel. I don't need to prove it doesn't work. They need to prove it does.

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.

Yeah I was wondering about that too (the shoulder area for example), conversely maybe striking there is the most likely to cripple the animal, thus making it easier to catch? But I was thinking that as well, "maybe these are the least desirable areas to strike". Either way I was just surprised they really skimmed over the "meaning", when I expected the paper would have delved a bit further into that.

I like JR's "shaggy fur" interpretation, but my initial thought for the mammoth was that it might be butcher markings? (as someone who is not a butcher and knows less than they should about anatomy)

The Xs are in the wrong place relative to modern ethical kill standards, selected for immediate lethality. Instead those are around the heart and lungs.

Contradicted by the marks on the side and back of the badge

Looks just like stylised shaggy fur to me.

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