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.
okay but the screenwriter for Thor: Ragnarok is obviously intimately aware of what it’s like to have siblings because like…the snake scene? Bickering at every opportunity? Throwing things at each other for no real reason? “You know this guy?” “I have no idea who this person is”? Smirking when your sibling does something cool because ‘nothing but respect for MY sibling’ and then turning around and punching each other in the face right afterward? Stabbing each other for fun and then going ‘oh come on you big baby, that didn’t even hurt’? The fucking ‘Get Help’ scene? Like bruh…that is some Truth in Hollywood right there
In honor of this post reaching 10K notes, I have more examples of Siblinghood Done Right in Ragnarok:
*parent leaves the area* “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!”
“You’re just…the worst.”
*internally* bitch I am the only one that gets to kill my sibling back off!
That little conciliatory pat on the back Loki gives to Thor after Thor says “Jane and I dumped each other”
“I swear I left it right here”
*casually talking to each other about something mundane with the underlying threat of violence everpresent in both of your voices*
casual jibes and banter about the way each other dresses (“Why would I do that? I’m not a witch.” “Then why do you dress like one?”)
“YES! THAT’S WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE!”
but also the concealed worry about your sibling getting actually hurt, even though you know they’ll probably be fine
Loki’s extremely obvious eyerolling when those girls approach Thor in public and ask for a selfie
*sibling walks in while you’re trying to cause trouble and enjoy yourself* “oh shit”
willowfoot 