They were materials whose value was partly ceremonial, partly status-marking, partly connected to beliefs about the world that the archaeological record can only partially recover.

The cave minerals fit within this framework.

They came from underground, from a place that was unlike any surface environment, through a process that required dangerous and difficult travel.

The labor of getting them was not incidental to their value.

In many cultural frameworks, the difficulty of acquiring a material is part of what makes it valuable — the effort invested in the journey becomes part of the meaning of the thing carried out.

Patty Jo Watson and her colleagues proposed, on the basis of their research, that the cave expeditions may have served multiple purposes simultaneously — practical mineral collection and ritual or initiatory experience combined into a single organized activity.