Iron age people were emotionally attached to objects, research shows

[FfFfFfFF 58,069]

 

From outgrown baby clothes to hideous mugs once used by a parent, there are certain items it is curiously hard to part with. Now research suggests difficulty of what to do with such objects could date back at least 2,000 years.

Writing in the journal Antiquity, Dr Lindsey Büster, an archaeologist at the University of York, argues that bone spoons and gaming pieces found between the walls of an iron age roundhouse at the Scottish hillfort settlement of Broxmouth, as well as worn-out grinding stones in its floors, could be a centuries-old example of the same conundrum.

The locations of the items, said Büster, were clearly not an accident, while their low value meant they were not put away because of their worth. Instead she said they could have been what she has labelled “problematic stuff” – items that cannot be jettisoned, even if no longer needed or liked, for emotional reasons.

“There is this category of artefacts – these little caches of objects which aren’t necessarily accompanying the dead and they are not high material value or of exotic quality but they are clearly not just rubbish either. They have been very deliberately deposited.”

Büster added that the idea of problematic stuff is relevant today and creates a link to the people of the past.

“Everybody has that box of stuff in the attic – or in the cupboard or under the bed – that they don’t quite know what to do with but they are not ready to throw away. Maybe it belongs to a deceased relative. Maybe … it just belongs to our own social persona that doesn’t exist any more,” she said.

Indeed, Büster said a small sword in its wooden scabbard found in the grave of two adults at a Roman cemetery in Canterbury may have been a favourite childhood toy kept by the deceased.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jun/22/iron-age-people-emotionally-attached-objects-researcher

[Debithius 6,056]

It's a fun read but I wonder why people are surprised by this. It is human nature.

[bionic 50,111]

Iron age people were also humans huh?  

 

I wonder if there were hoarders in the bronze age

[HuffsAhoy 7,433]

Glad to know my irrational attachment to certain material things is historically accurate 

[bionic 50,111]

3 minutes ago, HuffsAhoy said:

Glad to know my irrational attachment to certain material things is historically accurate 

Me looking at old teddy bears and thinking "I'm larping my iron age fantasy rn"

[ladygagafan1234 700]

Yea, we're pretty much the same. We can advance technologically all we want but we will always be in our primitive bodies.

[PunkTheFunk 125,703]

The Iron Age was only a couple thousand years ago. From an evolutionary perspective, a modern human and an Iron Age human are exactly the same.

[A MESS 3,938]

1 hour ago, HuffsAhoy said:

Glad to know my irrational attachment to certain material things is historically accurate 

well, you're almost there with your age 

[RAMROD 117,004]

Honestly, I believe that. There weren't much entertainment or hobbies back then.