Just that the discovery was missing something called context in archaeology. Where they were found geographically, the stratigraphy such as the dirt it was found in and the layers around it, where it was found in relation to the nearest settlement, what kinds of animal bones were found in the same general area, and so on. Archaeologists are meticulous about recording these little details because every any one of them could become important to the investigation.
An artifact on its own is (relatively) scientifically useless. Without at least geographic location and a rough idea of the area it was discovered, most analytical methods will have a hard time getting accurate results and any conclusions are suspect.
What would be a supernatural reason then? Is there some context in archeology that is labeled as supernatural that's different from ritualistic context? And what other things lie in the range between those two?
The word ritual is orthogonal to how much is known about the usage. "Ritual" is just a way to describe objects that have some higher purpose, beyond any mundane and utilitarian purposes their basic form might serve. The textbook example is a thurible, the censer on a chain used in churches. They're not used because anyone specifically wants a lot of smoke in the air (a fog machine would do just fine) or because swinging them is fun, but rather because there's a higher ritual purpose being served by those particular objects being used in those particular ways.
It's like calling an object rugged or utilitarian. It's not a statement on what you know about the object's specific purpose, but rather an adjective describing something else entirely.
Hmm, isn't rugged strongly associated with the purpose of something? It's like "military-grade", it means it's designed to stand up to heavy usage in bad conditions.
It's not indicative of the specific purpose of something. You can have a rugged backpack, a rugged water bottle, and a rugged vehicle without any of them sharing the same purpose to you.
An artifact on its own is (relatively) scientifically useless. Without at least geographic location and a rough idea of the area it was discovered, most analytical methods will have a hard time getting accurate results and any conclusions are suspect.