For some archeologists, everything is for ritual use rather than actual use in a real-life situation.
Why would you have a ritual weapon unless its ritual use was based on a real weapon used for normal weaponry purposes?
I mean ritual weapons without a basis in fact begin to sound like a Platonic form concept, eg. if there was a real weapon out there for use, this is what it would look like.
I remember a while ago the remains of a path being found in an English bog, and the archeologists had this entire story of it being a “ritual path” for worship.
Our freepers had fun with that. I mean, it was some decayed wood spikes in a bog, and the PTB had built a whole religion out of it.