Of course, it probably wouldn't do much to help me understand why they can count random smears on a canvas as "art"...

By way of reversing the ADBOC concept, I disagree denotationally but confirm your connotation. As you explain in the cousin several times removed post, many kinds of art are bullshit. Cultural preferences that would not be particularly likely to be rediscovered if all trace was removed. This differs from other forms of art which are more specifically directed at aesthetic preferences intrinsic to humans.

Of course, immersing yourself in a culture and experiencing the flow of status first hand is the perhaps the best way to get an intuitive anthropological understanding. I found, for example, that having done a research degree in a subfield of AI helps me understand how peer affiliation by persisting with researching silly ideas can be counted as 'science'.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/1om/bizarre_illusions/1iub