I don't know if this will help two of my favorite listroids (geoff and
Carol) out of ALL their moments of despair (we've all hit THAT wall before,
in trying to decipher the function of some enigmatic artifact), but it is
somewhat comforting to find that much has been recorded (since mankind
started scribbling crude-but-artful illustrations on cave walls) to assist
in those daunting tasks ... for example ... the fine 1881 Knight's American
Mechanical Dictionary provides a fantastic amount of useful description (and
illustrations) of a wide panoply of technological apparatus [and modes of
deployment], that if not providing the key to your specific cryptic
conundrum, at least should provide useful clues that enable you to
hypothesize more cogent possibilities. Here, on only the 7th of nearly
3,000 pages, is provided a discussion [compleate with helpful illustrations]
of the various popular methods of slinging accoutrements [Who would have
EVER known?]:
http://www.princetonimaging.com/library/mechanical-dictionary/djvu/v01/INDEX.djvu?djvuopts&page=p0007.djvu
Bob Skiles
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carol Serr" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 1:43 PM
Subject: Re: problems with deriving meaning from archaeological remains
> Since we're reminiscing...the pebble issue reminds me of a residential
> dump site we collected and analyzed a few yrs ago. But more
> importantly, while excavating, crew members had the forethought to
> collect....a handful of small (25 cent pc size) pebbles, found in
> various locations within the discarded trash...situated on the upper
> slope of a knoll...of solid bedrock. WHY would pebbles be up there?
> They would have been collected from the river area down the hill.
> Well...what do kids (or men?) Like to do at dumps...with shimmering
> glass bottles tempting them? Shoot them as targets! But if you're a
> kid...and don't have a firearm at your disposal...use a sling shot...and
> pebbles for ammo. Breaks glass and dishes just as well. :o)
> But, who knows if that is the real function of the out of place pebbles.
> ??
> Maybe they were alligator gizzard stones (ha ha; sorry inside
> side-joke).
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> geoff carver
> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 4:51 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: problems with deriving meaning from archaeological remains
>
> [just one of those things which sort of makes me despair of ever really
> making any sense out of archaeological data; I mean: what would anyone
> say
> if they had found these 3 objects while excavating; they'd probably all
> be
> thrown away, unrecorded...]
>
> Lecturing at the London Institution in 1876, Ruskin held out both his
> hands
> to his audience. On his right palm lay "a little round thing" and on his
> left "a little flat one." The first was a pebble and the second a
> sovereign.
> The latter launched him into the themes of empire, value and the
> economy.
> The former, the black pebble, led him to recall a meeting with the great
> geologist James Forbes - a man seemingly made of mountain flint in his
> inaccessibility and taciturnity. To these two objects, Ruskin added a
> further black pebble, one that "used to decorate the chimney-piece of
> the
> children's play-room" in his aunt's house in Perth when he was seven
> "just
> half a century ago." With this third pebble, Ruskin exposed the bond
> between
> two types of time: the human span of time evoked by the image of his
> self at
> age fifty-seven and his self at age seven, and the mineralogical span of
> time that forms the life of the pebble. The span of time invoked by the
> memory of his own childhood was, of course, a mere flicker by comparison
> with the mineralogical time of his pebbles. But childhood - his own and
> that
> of others - was more than a rough and emotive yardstick in Ruskin's
> discourse; it was a framework for the emotional management of time
> (Pointon
> 1999: 199-200)
>
>
> REFERENCES CITED
>
> Pointon, M.
> 1999 "These Fragments I have Shored against my Ruins". In The Story of
> Time,
> edited by Lippincott, K., pp. 198-201. Merrell Holberton, London.
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