wren_jackson•8d agoProlific Poster

I got fed up with pottery shards and started using a kitchen colander

On a dig in New Mexico last fall, we had a huge pile of mixed dirt and tiny fragments that were taking forever to sort. My professor said to just keep at it with tweezers, but after three days I was going nuts. I grabbed a cheap plastic colander from the camp kitchen and ran a bucket of the mix through it. It caught all the bigger pieces and let the fine dust go, so we could actually see the good bits. Has anyone else ever used a totally non-archaeology tool that saved a project?

2 comments

2 Comments

spencer_webb7d ago

Man, that's brilliant. It makes me wonder how much time we waste being "proper" when a simple kitchen gadget works. I bet half the tools in our kits started out as something else that just got the job done faster. The best ideas always feel obvious after the fact.

brian_kelly918d ago

We used a cheap flour sifter for the same reason on a site in Texas. It sorted the gravel from the pottery grit way faster than by hand. Sometimes the best tool is just whatever gets the job done.