Archaeologists and Religious Artifacts

It's often seemed to me that archaeologists tend to interpret any decorative and/or otherwise unexplainable item (from buildings to bowls) as having a religious purpose. In 10,000 years they will probably refer to us as the "Mouse Worshippers" because of all the Mickey Mouse artifacts. On second thought, maybe that's not so far off.

I recently came across a nice quote by Ian Tattersall which illustrated the tendency. He was showing an Acheulean point (a stone arrowhead) to an interested journalist; a point that weighed roughly 25 pounds and would have been unwieldy for even two users. Tattersall noted that it's difficult to imagine what such a monstrosity could have been used for and must have had "some symbolic significance."

I can think of lot's of possible uses for such an implement that have nothing to do with symbolism, however, they rely every bit as much on guesswork as does Tattersall's statement. A
"symbolic significance" for it's creation is so much more interesting, however, than "just for the hell of it." What famous ethnologist was it that noted the high correlation between risky undertakings and the tendency to seek magico-religious assistance?

Bronislaw Malinowski wasn't it? Didn't he have a brother named Kohlslaw...invented a salad with mayonnaise and cabbage? Kidding.

Malinowski's proposed a theory about magic in response to what he observed among the Trobriand islanders. He noted that there was a lot of magical ritual surrounding the dangerous undertaking of sailing the high seas, but very little magic invoked in the safer task of fishing inside the lagoon. I read another paper in which the author's results confirmed this theory by looking at which activities in baseball garnered the most superstitions and talismans. Those activities that were less certain, such as pitching and batting, garnered more superstitios rituals and objects; lucky socks, for example.

At any rate, religion and magic are often used to make sense of that which can't otherwise be made sense of, according to Malinowski. I agree with this, as do many archaeologists, but it makes me take their explanations of certain sites, artifacts, and structures with a grain of salt when they attribute magico-religious purposes to them.

NOTE: This is not to say that any and all explanations relying on magic or religion are wrong.