Ritual: What is and isn't?

I'm currently working on a chapter for my thesis discussing Neolithic ritual.  However, I need to expand on my definition of ritual.  To that end, I've been reading Catherine Bell's book.  I personally believe that all aspects of behaviour can be construed as ritual in nature, but this definition has little utility archaeologically - as it means that there is no category of evidence that can be separated out as being ritual.  There is the joke that any item that isn't understood by archaeologists is considered ritual, but this is also not very satisfactory for an understanding of Neolithic society.

Ritual has historically been approached from one of two directions - either associating it with religion and beliefs, or referring to the more daily aspects.  Both of these are technically correct, but religious ritual would seem to be a subsection of a wider definition of ritual where all actions communicate meaning ascribed by the participants.  

Bell points out that theorists have distinguished between the thoughts and beliefs and the actions of rituals, while at the same time saying that ritual mediates between thoughts and actions, allowing practitioners to  integrate and reaffirm their beliefs by acting them out.  This is a very theoretical statement though, that can be applied to many different sorts of actions, and again, depends on the context of the actions and the meanings that are applied to them by the participants.  This means that while all actions are ritual to some degree, as they will all be communicative and mediating between thoughts and actions, some are more ritualized than others.

How does this help archaeologists understand enigmatic artifacts that they believe would have had some "ritual" function?  I'm not sure it does, that's the problem.  We are interested in how these objects were used, what their use accomplished and how they were perceived by the practitioners.  Even if we have a very specific definition of the types of actions that are considered ritual, this does not help us answer our questions about a specific artifact.