> all these symbols have to had meaning to the people but how will you reconstruct that with complete certainty? how do you create a hypothesis about what the "meaning" was to someone, whether it's a neanderthal, a mesolithic hunter, a neolithic farmer, a bronze age merchant, a roman soldier, a medieval peasant even? what information do you need to say: "ah, this is exactly their lived experience, this is how someone perceived this idea in their mind and this is exactly what they want to express with this symbol". and then maybe you have someone else in that exact culture, the same village, with a totally different experience/opinion/belief in regards to that same ritual/symbol, never mind in different communities, different cultures, different time periods, different regions around the world. > "it's just the patterns you brain makes, stop asking bro" the aim of these kinds of theories is not to definitively define symbols. it is impossible to say anything definitive and meaningful about a wide array of symbolic expressions in human history and prehistory. researchers want to say something meaningful, not necessarily something that entirely defines the complete origin, lived experience and individual/societal meaning of certain rituals and symbols, but at least some aspect of it that can be realistically constructed. maybe you can't understand the car, maybe you can't even understand the engine, but maybe you can understand how differential gearing works. you still don't understand the entire car, or the engine, and you're not pretending that understanding differential gearing lets you understand the rest, or that everything is based on how differential gearing works.
Netherlands