Just realized I've been cleaning pottery shards wrong for a year

I volunteer at a local dig site and for months I've been using a stiff brush and water on everything we pull up. Last week, a visiting expert from the University of Michigan saw me and said, 'You're scrubbing the residue right off.' She showed me that for certain types, like suspected cooking ware, you should use a dry brush first to collect any organic material for analysis. I was basically washing away potential data on ancient diets. Has anyone else had a basic field method tip that totally changed their process?

4 comments

4 Comments

daniel14010d ago

That's actually a HUGE deal about the residue. You could have been erasing the best clues about what they ate. Makes you wonder what else we get wrong by just doing things the usual way.

the_taylor10d ago

I mean, sometimes the usual way is the only way to even find the stuff, though.

keith9009d ago

Ever think about how many digs just toss the dirt aside without checking it first? Like, what if the soil itself holds way more info than the broken pot in the middle of it? We might be throwing out the whole story for one chapter.

ellis.faith9d ago

Remember reading about a dig where they washed all the pottery right at the site. Later tests showed the dirt stuck to it had pollen from plants that weren't supposed to be there for that time period. They basically rinsed away proof of early trade. Makes @the_taylor's point about finding stuff, but then you lose the tiny things that explain it. We treat dirt like trash when it's really the first page of the book.