Local dig team laughed at my trowel technique, now I actually find things worth keeping

After 3 seasons at the Camulodunum site, a volunteer archaeologist told me I was scraping too deep and missing context layers, so I switched to a slower dusting method and suddenly started finding Roman pottery shards that actually match the catalog, has anyone else had to unlearn bad habits from field school?

2 comments

2 Comments

oliver_ward1412d ago

Hear me out, I don't totally agree that field school teaches bad habits. I mean, yeah, scraping too deep is a real thing, but sometimes the dusting method misses the bigger picture if you're not careful with your context. Maybe it's just me, but I think the trowel technique is about speed versus precision and both have their place depending on what you're digging. Idk, I've seen people spend forever dusting and still miss stuff because they're too focused on the tiny details. Slow down for the delicate finds but don't throw out everything you learned from field school, you know?

luna51912d ago

Three seasons of field school and I still can't tell if the hole I'm digging is a feature or a bug. My trowel has seen things, mostly my own frustration when I hit what I thought was bedrock and it was just really compacted dirt. Maybe we're all just overthinking how to dig holes with fancy tools.