In a message dated 8/25/2006 2:23:52 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

because  "trash dump" somehow sounds more rational, and we have a continuing 
stigma  against anything labelled as being a "ritual object" as that was the 
old  catch-all cop-out, basically meaning "anything we don't have any better  
explanation for"?



This is a Catch 22 kind of issue. The answer always comes back to careful  
research of issues before labeling the item in public. I am quite certain  
buttons slipped beneath the floor boards and even some lazy people tossed junk  
under the floorboards. When people went to the trouble of putting things in  
difficult to access locations, we should be more cautious. Sometimes, things  
concealed have other answers. For example, at the Machado House Adobe in Old  Town 
San Diego (January-Feb 1973), one member of the investigation crew removed  
sheets of white wash and scratch coat to reveal a small porcelain saint figure  
stuck upright in the mortar between adobe blocks (what did it mean?). After I 
 delivered my paper in 2000 at the Long Beach SHA Conference, people started  
emailing me about horse skulls found under floor boards, sealed inside walls, 
 and up in the rafters of old houses and barns (what does it mean?). When  
archaeologists reject all religious answers because of the failings of older  
generations, we can be equally as guilty as those we castigated. 
 
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.