Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them.
“Wait you’re still using the exact same fucking thing 50,000 years later???”
“Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”
It’s just.
50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job.
i also like that this is a “ask craftspeople” thing, it reminds me of when art historians were all “the fuck” about someone’s ear “deformity” in a portrait and couldn’t work out what the symbolism was until someone who’d also worked as a piercer was like “uhm, he’s fucked up a piercing there”. interdisciplinary shit also needs to include non-academic approaches because crafts & trades people know shit ok
One of my professors often tells us about a time he, as and Egyptian Archaeologist, came down upon a ring of bricks one brick high. In the middle of a house. He and his fellow researchers could not fpr the life of them figure out what tf it could possibly have been for. Until he decided to as a laborer, who doesnt even speak English, what it was. The guy gestures for my prof to follow him, and shows him the same ring of bricks in a nearby modern house. Said ring is filled with baby chicks, while momma hen is out in the yard having a snack. The chicks can’t get over the single brick, but mom can step right over. Over 2000 years and their still corraling chicks with brick circles. If it aint broke, dont fix it and always ask the locals.
I read something a while back about how pre-columbian Americans had obsidian blades they stored in the rafters of their houses. The archaeologists who discovered them came to the conclusion that the primitive civilizations believed keeping them closer to the sun would keep the blades sharper.
Then a mother looked at their findings and said “yeah, they stored their knives in the rafters to keep them out of reach of the children.”
The thing with telling “cliche” stories, but with representation, is… these stories aren’t cliche for us.
Picture this. The people at the table next to you have been getting chocolate cake as a dessert for YEARS. After every meal, they get a chocolate cake. Now, it’s been years, and the people at that table can barely stand chocolate anymore. They want maybe a cheesecake. Or lemon mousse.
But your table? Has NEVER had chocolate cake. Mousse is also good, but you are SO hungry for that chocolate cake, cause you never had it before, and it’s brand new for you, and you’ve been watching the other table eat it for YEARS.
That’s what’s like getting a “cliche” story that’s representative. Has it been done a million times before? Yes. Has it ever been done for US? Well… no. Maybe it’s the 500th chocolate cake in existence, but all the other chocolate cakes weren’t meant for us (girls/PoC/queer folk/disabled folk/etc)
So it being cliche is not a bad thing. You may not want chocolate cake anymore. But we want our slice too.
I don’t know if you have considered this but stop smoking in areas where people are forced to wait at. Don’t smoke at crosswalks. Don’t smoke outside doorways. Don’t smoke at bus stops. People with asthma or other breathing conditions or people that idk DON’T WANT TO BREATHE IN YOUR CIGARETTE SMOKE are trying to get to places and need to be able to breathe. Stop smoking in crowded areas. stop smoking in crowded areas. STOP FORCING NONSMOKERS TO SECOND HAND SMOKE.
That goes for anyone who is doing something that produces are strong smelling vapor or smoke. Please don’t vape indoors. Please smoke weed with the same courtesy you would cigarettes (not indoors and not too close to other people/near doorways or bus stops).
i quit smoking two years ago and even till now, whenever I smell smoke in public, I just feel like smoking again
so to all smokers, please do smoke in smoking areas because you’re not only endangering everyone physically but you’re also torturing some of us mentally
now that probably sounded selfish but I just had to say it so I’m sorry if it offended anyone
“When I was little, I thought love was about red roses and expensive dinners.. Truth is, love is giving her half your fries when she said she wasn’t hungry. It’s waking up at 4am to her snoring and refraining from shoving her off the bed. It’s talking in accents just for shits, and trying to embarrass one another in public. It’s going on adventures, and making fun of each other. It’s stupid fights and memorable make ups. Love isn’t pretty and romantic.. Love is just stumbling through life with your best friend.”
