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The volunteer who kept washing every roman coin at the dig site in York
I was at a Roman excavation near York back in 2019, scrubbing dirt off pottery shards on a rainy Tuesday, when this older guy named Dave came over and started dunking every single copper coin we dug up into a bucket of water. He said he was 'helping preserve them' but he was actually stripping off the patina that archaeologists use to date the layers, and our supervisor had to pull him aside three times before he stopped. Has anyone else run into volunteers who don't follow basic field preservation rules?
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anna_craig27d ago
@brookebailey maybe patina tells you less than careful cleaning would, and volunteers should be trusted to handle finds correctly.
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Had a similar thing happen at a site in Chester a few years back. This lady thought she was helping by scrubbing the dirt off every bone fragment we dug up with a toothbrush, but she was actually scratching off the cut marks and butchering evidence. Our archaeologist had to literally hide the finds tray from her. It's wild how some people think they're being helpful when they're actually destroying the whole context. You gotta just stand there and watch them sometimes, ready to grab the bucket.
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