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Study indentifies scallop shell history surrounding pilgrims

t2andreo

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Apr 6, 2013
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I came across this in my daily reading and thought some might be interested. I was - very.


As before, some browsers will convert this to English on the fly. I am trying to improve my Spanish comprehension by trying to read in Spanish first, before converting using the computer.

Either way, I hope you enjoy this article.

Tom
 
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Vacajoe

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I encourage everyone to read that original article, if only for the background on the history of the pilgrimage and how it evolved into one the more common villager could undertake due to the existence of religious hospice groups. i continue to be amazed at those who research sleeping bags, the best Albergues, and bedbugs for hundreds of hours but then fail to try to understand the history of the path they will be following.
 

dougfitz

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Thank you very much, @t2andreo. This allowed me to find the actual study which is available online on ScienceDirect:
Thank you.

Pardon my cynical view of archaeology as more properly belonging in an arts faculty along with other branches of creative writing, but the rub in this is the statement that:
Of these individuals, 20 were identified as pilgrims as they were buried with the scallop shell
from the paper linked by @Kathar1na.

I don't have access to the sources that might establish that this is more than just a plausible link, and that there is some evidence that the only individuals buried with a scallop shell were pilgrims. Without that, I would suggest that relying on such a linkage would not be sustained in any form of real science. Even if it looks to contemporary descriptions of pilgrim behaviour, it seems little more than well informed speculation that anyone buried with a scallop shell must have been a pilgrim.
 
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