Vent: That time a field tech told me my pottery washing was ruining the context

I was scrubbing these Roman shards from a site near Bath with a stiff brush, trying to get them spotless for photos. A visiting conservator pointed out I was scrubbing off microscopic residue that could tell them what was stored in the pots 1800 years ago. Now I just use a soft toothbrush and lukewarm water, but how do you balance getting artifacts clean for study against preserving trace evidence?

3 comments

3 Comments

matthewg6315d ago

I once had a geoarchaeologist yell at me for dumping my bucket water in the same spot every day because I was "contaminating the soil chemistry profile." Guess I'll just hold onto it and hand it to a lab tech next time.

blake_martinez11d ago

Seventy-five percent of my coworkers don't even know what soil chemistry is, but you can bet they know exactly where to dump their water. It's funny how we all have these little routines that seem harmless until someone with a degree shows up. I see it everywhere now. People watering the same spot on their lawn every day, or always parking in the same spot at the grocery store. We just naturally fall into patterns and assume nobody else cares about that specific patch of ground. But for someone like that geoarchaeologist, that spot might be their whole project.

ryan65311d ago

Read somewhere that even footsteps can mess with soil data over time.