What was the purpose of these ancient cowrie shell artifacts? - Archaeology Studio 161

[@ArchaeologyStudio]

What are your thoughts about these ancient cowrie shell artifacts?

[@Davlavi]

Informative as always.

[@ArchaeologyStudio]

Thank you so much! I am glad that the video was useful.

[@triffton1]

So i have no problem admitting my ignorance here. So i guess my question is how do you come up with dates for these finds? Carbon dating organics found near the artifacts? Or is it just a knowledge passed down through time? Reason i ask is the show time team always dates things and somehow they do so with the smallest most insignificant piece of pottery imagineable. So im just wondering what methods you ise to date onjects accurately

[@ArchaeologyStudio]

Thanks for asking! in these cases, the dating was by radiocarbon of multiple materials (charcoal, food midden shells, corals, and algal bioclasts) to ensure the same results, within the layer of the findings, as well as in the above layer and in the below layer, repeated in separate sites of different islands, all pointing to the same results.

[@Swingingbells]

Look like buttons

[@Eloraurora]

They do, but he said the center cross-bar is fragile, so I don't know if they'd work that well as closures.

[@Swingingbells]

@@Eloraurora yeah, they're not really robust enough are they? My mind keeps coming back to netting but I don't know why. Like they're some kind of structural component of a fishing net.

[@Eloraurora]

@@Swingingbells Maybe weighting the edges of a small net, so it spreads out evenly when cast?