Update: sifting dry beats wet screening for spotting tiny flakes, and I wish someone had argued this with me years ago | Archaeology Discoveries - Hub Chatter
Update: sifting dry beats wet screening for spotting tiny flakes, and I wish someone had argued this with me years ago
I spent last Saturday at a site outside Tucson helping screen material two ways side by side, and the difference was not even close. The wet screens clogged every 20 or so buckets and I lost a microdebitage flake that washed right through the mesh. When we switched to dry sifting with a 1/8 inch screen, we pulled 11 tiny flakes out of the same volume of dirt in under an hour. I know wet screening is the go-to for sticky clay soil, but for dry desert dirt it just feels like extra work for fewer finds. Has anyone found a case where wet screening really did catch stuff dry sifting missed?