Had to choose between two dig sites for my first volunteer season

I got accepted to two projects last summer one was a Roman villa in England with tons of pottery and the other was a prehistoric shell midden in Florida with almost no artifacts in the first layer. I picked the midden because I wanted to see how they screen for tiny fish bones and charcoal bits, and honestly it was way more hands-on than I expected. Has anyone else picked a site based on technique over flashy finds and ended up glad they did?

2 comments

2 Comments

garcia.charles13d ago

Knee pads and a lamp really make or break the whole experience?

maryadams13d ago

Picking for technique is actually super smart. At the midden you probably learned way more about actual field methods than you would have counting pottery rims for weeks straight lol. The screening for microfauna is no joke either, you end up sitting there for hours with tweezers but the data you get from those tiny bones tells you so much about what people actually ate season by season. Just make sure you pack good knee pads and a magnifying lamp if you ever do another wet screen heavy site, total game changer.