My first thought was, since people then and people now are not significantly different outside of the technology available, what are the chances these are just legitimately tchochtkes, decorations, and just little trinkets made by people feeling bored and artistic for the purpose of simply making something they thought was "these are just pretty dang neat and fun to make"?

I feel like a lot of stuff found in tombs, burials, and other things often are ascribed a lot of religious significance when in fact it could just be things they were buried with by family because they liked owls, or because it was something a grandchild had made for their grandma? I'm not saying all or even most of the artifacts ascribed religious importance by archeologists are such objects, but there simply must be a handful that are.

I mean, memes are nothing new. And even today, there are millions of people who just enjoy decorative knickknacks that look like owls (just to use the OP as an example), so why should we consider ancient people's to be so different? Maybe a certain culture thought owls were cute, or neat, or maybe the animal did indee hold a religious or superstitious significance which led people to make owl tablets because they found them to be nifty?

Honestly, I think the authors make a reasonable argument about the toys. Kids have always made toys out of things they've found in the woods or whatever, e.g. ever picked up a stick that made the perfect sword or wizard staff? Why should this be so different? What if someone commonly saw owls and thought they were just pretty darn cool, so they tried to make an trinket that looked like the animal they enjoyed?

Just a thought. I'm certainly not an archeologist or anthropologist, but I do wonder how many artifacts like these are ascribed far more significance than their crafters ever intended.

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Does Barbie seem to be modeled by a child, or for a child.

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Agreed. The author writes "some of the models were found in [child] tombs..."

Why don't they write how many of these were burial associated?

In what context were the rest of these found?

They seem to have very little concrete evidence so far. Honestly, I don't think we'll ever know the usage of these owls beyond them being some kind of cultural or religious artifact.

>Many of the plaques have two holes at the top, which the team believes makes threading string through them to hang them as ritual objects impractical.

Or it could just be a pendant. And why would holes make it impractical to hang them? Run a string though the holes and tie a knot. That's kinda how we hang most stuff.

Also if there weren't more intricate depictions of owls at the time then why assume it was children making them? Most petroglyphs from this period weren't exactly what you'd call anatomically correct.

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>On a scale of one to six, the authors graded 100 plaques according to how many of six owl characteristics they exhibited, including two eyes, feathery tufts, patterned feathers, a flat facial disk, a beak, and wings. The authors found many similarities between 100 contemporary owl drawings made by kids between the ages of four and thirteen and these plaques. Owl drawings more closely resembled owls as children aged and became more skillful.

I mean maybe but I'm not sure about this methodology.

Given that the article does not say if they are found largely associated with child burials I can only assume they are not.

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They wanted to make their own nation in their own place. They had developed different cultures and ways of life since then, and wanted freedom. One of the other reasons of the revolution was the taxes on them, and because they had no representation of the Parliament that was ruling them. Many people came from Britain to the Americas to get away and start a new life, and many came for religious freedom.

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