The holes at the bottom were probably tacked into a strip of leather and secured, and I’d imagine there’s some sort of stud or hook on the backside of the buckle.
They say devouring a frog, I say biting a dude’s nuts off.
For real though, what a neat buckle. Since they think it was related to an unknown pagan cult, I wonder what the purpose of wearing the symbol on the belt was? For others to see you were part of the cult (assuming it was worn visibly)?
Could it not just be a war trophy? The frog representing some “barbaric hoard” that the great dragon king put down? What is it that makes it pagan besides the lack of a cross?
No God damn way is it an intentional body mod. If it were, the pinky would not be the digit chosen.
Grip strength.
If you lose your pinky, you lose almost half your fucking grip strength. And as something like grip strength is pretty fucking important for a hunter-gatherer society, I’d be shocked if they were just lobbing off pinkies for the hell of it.
All the images in the article are showing that the hand with missing fingers is the left hand. Most people are right handed, so missing a left finger for most people wouldn’t hurt the grip strength of a one handed weapon/tool much in the main (right) hand. You could attach something like a shield strapped to your left arm and wouldn’t notice the issue for hunter gathering then. (Shields aren’t just for defense against claws, they can also be a bashing tool.)
Now, I doubt they were cutting off a pinky finger because they were bored on a Saturday night, but there could have been religious/group beliefs involved. Body modification has been around for a very long time, from as simple of scarification, to tattoos and piercings, to removal of body parts (circumcision), so it isn’t out of the realm of possibilities.
Hands are actually pretty easy to injure, and modern medicine is the reason most of us get to keep them all our lives. I've known enough farmers and construction workers who are missing digits to assume a significant number are likely to be from injury in agricultural or hunting contexts. Frostbite would be another easy source of injury depending on climate.
While I could see a possible religious practice coming out of reverence for injured hands contributing too, this seems like the age old archeology practice of assuming anything is intentionally done for religious reasons if they don't have a neat and tidy singular explanation.
I think it is a relatively new phenomena where it isn’t a regular thing to lose a portion of a digit.
Also in a similar level of inquiry these researchers are engaging in: the guy who lost a finger wrestling a coyote is also likely to be the one to tell that story.
“Oh no middle finger guy? Yeah I know that story. It was coming right at him.”
I used to work at a zoo and a lot of the older keepers had a finger or part missing to some animal or another back when health and safety was less, used to be common in factories too, Tony Iommi lost bits in a factory and has spoken about how it wasn't that unusual.
To be fair when it comes to this kind of research comparison with modern hunter gatherer societies is the closest thing you can find to evidence, some things never enter the archaeological record.
Perhaps we'll never find conclusive evidence pointing to any one of the theories on these missing-finger handprints.
Right. With no written documentation or known modern descendants of the culture, it’s all speculation. I don’t know why they’d leap to conclude it was intentional religious sacrifice vs. accidents or amputations following injury.
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