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An ancient site in Laos, known as the Plain of Jars, is finally beginning to give up its secrets, as the first major excavation effort since the 1930s digs into its mysteries.
Strewn over hundreds of square miles in central Laos, thousands of ceramic jars ranging from three to nine feet in height pepper the landscape, scattered in clusters of anywhere between one and 400 individual pieces.
[...] And while the specific function of these jars is still to be determined, those involved in the most recent work have their theories.
One such theory is that the pots were actually used for decomposition, as lead researcher Dougald O'Reilly of Australian National University in Canberra explained in a statement.
The professor hypothesized that once the process was complete, the bones would then be buried nearby. But whatever the details, he is now convinced that the jars "were used for the disposal of the dead."
Wikipedia says, "[Grave sites] are one of the chief sources of information on prehistoric cultures, and numerous archaeological cultures are defined by their burial customs."
What does it say about ancient cultures in Laos that they put their dead in big stone jars?
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Sunday April 10 2016, @04:59PM
This "joke" fails entirely, because it is not funny.
The intention in its telling is not to amuse. Any possible wit is entirely subordinated to smugness and gratuitous identification for those of like mind. Such feints at humor cannot do other than fail, because delivered as a joke, it is intentionally insincere.
That is the typical kind of joke that "conservatives" make. They tend not to be self-aware or self-deprecating enough to contain actual humor. This stance is sympathetically disarming and helps the audience of a joke lower their guard. Without this quality, any joke had better be damn clever, or present something contrary to the expected, to be funny.
Conservative humor always misses the point. It most often states the obvious and agreeable to it's intended audience, with the implicit message "isn't it laughable that this kind of thing you dislike exists?" It's not funny because the base motivation is anger - and for humor to work from anger, it must most often be combined with some kind of insight, not just a simple doctrine or judgement. Examples of this are notably, George Carlin and Richard Pryor.
Here's a way to have told a reasonably funny, conservative joke about this story:
"What does it say about ancient cultures in Laos that they put their dead in big stone jars? Well, archaeologists supect one of the earliest examples of a strong potter's union."
Ta bump!
I'll be here all night.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 11 2016, @02:55PM
So in other words, you've got a huge stick up the ass.
Just because you haven't got a sense of humor, doesn't mean that the rest of us are humor impaired. It's a little bit ironic that the guy behaving like a smug jackass is calling somebody else smug because of imagined intents.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 11 2016, @05:29PM