Loading…
0
The forgotten sherd pile in the field report saved my excavation
I was digging a small site near Santa Fe back in April and kept hitting sterile layers, was about to close the trench. Then I dug out an old 2019 report from a survey crew that mentioned a surface scatter 30 meters east of my grid. Following that footnote, I found a hearth with 14 corrugated sherds and a broken mano. Has anyone else had luck chasing down old field notes instead of trusting the main summary?
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
uma_williams1mo ago
Grabbed my screen when I read 30 meters east, are you serious? That crew in 2019 basically handed you the whole site and nobody bothered to look? The hearth was just sitting there the whole time while everyone focused on sterile dirt in the main grid. This makes me want to go through every old survey and shovel test log I can get my hands on, because the real site was hiding in a footnote the entire time. Old notes from some tired tech who wrote three sentences before quitting for the day might be worth more than the polished summary. It blows my mind that a surface scatter mention saved your whole season.
3
david_jones381mo ago
Man, this hits home for me. It reminds me of when I'm looking for a good taco spot and the four star place on the main drag is just fine but the real magic is in some handwritten note on a napkin that a buddy gave me two years ago. The shiny summary gets all the attention but the boring backup stuff is where the real goods hide. Same thing when I bought my truck, the dealer's fancy listing said one thing and the old service records told the real story. Makes you wonder how much good stuff gets tossed because it didn't make the final cut of the report.
1