Even if you pick up a piece of pottery next to a wall, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is significant! What layer was it in? Was it in a sealed deposit? Was it close to a disturbance? How deep down…
Draw four irregular, horizontal areas on a piece of paper. Put the letter A on the top, B on the second, C on the third and D on the bottom. Draw a small pit cutting through A and B but…
A pottery sherd, a storage pit, and a burnt grain can all occur in the same square, but we don’t enter them into the same column. A sherd is an artifact; a pit is a feature; a grain is an…
Artifacts shouldn’t be picked up when they are first exposed. Sometimes their exact location holds clues that will be lost if the surrounding soil is removed. Archaeologists take time to document the object itself, the context it was found in,…