whatevercomestomymind:

stuff-n-n0nsense:

assasue:

saxifraga-x-urbium:

systlin:

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. 

Until, of course, they showed it to a traditional leatherworker and she took one look at it and said “Oh yeah sure that’s a leather burnisher, you use it to close the pores of leather and work oil into the hide to make it waterproof. Mine looks just the same.” 

“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.

I read something a while back about how pre-columbian Americans had obsidian blades they stored in the rafters of their houses. The archaeologists who discovered them came to the conclusion that the primitive civilizations believed keeping them closer to the sun would keep the blades sharper.

Then a mother looked at their findings and said “yeah, they stored their knives in the rafters to keep them out of reach of the children.”

Omg the ancient child proofing add on tho lol

brucespringsteen:

a family can be just a girl and her bruce springsteen albums

wonem:

you know how theres an official government office of preserving the french language? my life mission is to found a counter-organization to that, formally devoted to degrading and destroying the french language by any available means of psychological and cultural warfare

Homosexualité Anarché Beyoncé

tulliolaciceronis:

ommanyte:

how dull for you to live your life without any hills to die on, you, on your vast flat barren plains of compromise, acceptance, and accommodation, while I reign supreme over the lush, rolling highlands of stupid shit I have irrationally chosen to stake my entire identity on

– Marcus Porcius Cato, finally driving Marcus Tullius Cicero over the edge into madness

Variations On A Theme

elodieunderglass:

tremorbond:

aaronsmithtumbler:

God said to Adam: you may eat of any other tree in the garden, but you must not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you eat of it you will die. And Adam fashioned an axe, and he cut down the Tree of Knowledge. And God asked “Adam, what have you done?” And Adam said “I refuse to be complicit in my own temptation.”

God said to Adam: you may eat of any other tree in the garden, but you must not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you eat of it you will die. So Adam picked the fruit of the tree and planted it in the ground. A few years later, another Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil grew from the place he had planted it, and Adam ate the fruit of that one.

God said to Adam: you may eat of any other tree in the garden, but you must not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you eat of it you will die. But the serpent told him this was lies, and that if he ate from the Tree of Knowledge he would not die, but would become as God. “How do you know?” asked Adam. “Have you eaten the fruit?” “Yes,” said the serpent. “I have tasted of it, yet I did not die.” So Adam ate the serpent.

God said to Adam: you may eat of any other tree in the garden, but you must not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you eat of it you will die. And Adam asked “The fruit of the Tree?” And God said “Yes, the fruit of the Tree”. So Adam picked the leaves of the Tree and made a delicious Good And Evil Salad.

God said to Adam: you may eat of any other tree in the garden, but you must not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you eat of it you will die. Adam desired to taste of the fruit, and he decided that if he was going to get in trouble for breaking a commandment he might as well go all out. So he waited until the tree was heavy with fruits, then binged on all of them in one sitting. And the Lord definitely cast him out of Eden - but on the plus side, thousands of years later his descendants had excellent moral compasses and always knew the right thing to do in every situation.

God said to Adam: you may eat of any other tree in the garden, but you must not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you eat of it you will die. And Adam obeyed the commandment, and instead he ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Cool and Uncool. Then he saw his own nakedness, and found it unfashionable, so he made a snazzy jacket out of leaves and bark. And the Lord saw the jacket, and said “Adam, have you eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of Cool and Uncool?” And Adam said “You’re not my dad, you can’t tell me what to do.” And the Lord sent him forth from the garden, but Adam just said “Laaaaaaaaaame”.

“but on the plus side, thousands of years later his descendants had excellent moral compasses and always knew the right thing to do in any situation.”  Which is not to say they *did* it, they just knew what they *should* do.

“so Adam ate the serpent”

outlawpine:

reajeasa:

pea-green:

the real lie about who gives kids presents at christmas isn’t that they’re from santa (bc everyone over the age of 10 knows that), it’s that they’re from mum ‘and dad’ because 90% of fathers see taking an interest in their kids’ likes and hobbies, let alone actually planning and shopping for things that are ‘from’ them, as something they can opt out of (and nobody talks about it!!!!!!!)

@pea-green hey look, more fuel for your rage

It makes me furious that I have to do this for my dad.

oneapatheticwinter:

It may be the end of

20-GayTeen

But now we can look forward to

20-BiTeen