Ron
thanks for the impressive reading list. I actually have done some
anthropology (even though Australian archaeology courses are set up
differently from the American model) and I don't have a problem with the
idea of ritual concealment as such. What I do have a problem with is the
idea that ALL items found within wall cavities etc are the result of ritual
concealment, which seems to be the position you are taking (correct me if I
am wrong here but that is the impression I get). There are other site
formation processes at work and to ignore them so that ones pet theory is
the only one presented, as it was on the program I originally commented on,
does not, to me, represent what archaeology is all about which is, surely,
the SCIENTIFIC study of human culture through the material remains left
behind.
I came into archaeology late in life, being 57 years old when I graduated,
and this may have clouded my judgement, but it seem to me to be
fundamentally flawed science to reach a conclusion before looking at the
evidence. The army hat and boot found sealed in a brick cavity you wrote of
earlier must have been deliberately placed there, although I do not have any
evidence as to the motivation. The child's shoe, lace, newspaper and other
material found within a wall cavity may have several possible explanations.
On the program the only explanation given was that the shoe had been placed
there to protect from evil spirits. The other material was ignored
completly. So how did it get there and for what purpose? If brought in by a
rat, a site formation process that has been demonstrated elsewhere, why not
the shoe as well? Which came first? Was the shoe placed there and the rat
just added to the collection or did the person placing the shoe add to to an
already existing collection of material? Perhaps they added the extra
material just to confuse archaeologists 140 years later. There are several
explanations and it is not scientific or helpful in explaning what has
occurred to just ignore those pieces of evidence that do not suit ones
favoured theory.
I am still rather puzzled by your statement that cats mummified in grotesque
positions are proof positive that they were placed there unwillingly, unless
they were actually set in the plaster which is not the situation with the
mummified cats which were alleged in the program to have been used to ward
off witches. How do you get a live cat placed within a wall cavity to hold a
grotesque position while it starves to death and why would the position it
died in be any different from that of a cat which was trapped accidentally
within the same cavity?
And if if it makes sense that church-going Christians can be responsible for
the embedding of live cats and chickens in walls to die a slow and horrible
death to protect future residents, I can only thank God I'm an atheist.
John