Pro tip: an older guy at a dig in Arizona told me to stop washing my pottery sherds

Richard Hall · 2026-09-17T13:10:02.772356+00:00

Back when I first started volunteering on digs, I used to scrub every sherd clean with a toothbrush because shiny artifacts looked better in the tray. An older archaeologist at a site near Tucson pulled me aside and told me I was washing away residue that could tell us what was cooked in a pot 800 years ago. I switched to dry brushing and bagging things separately, and sure enough a lab later pulled food traces off pieces from that same room. That one comment changed how I handle everything now, even lithics get left alone until someone who knows what they are doing looks at them. Anyone else get taught the hard way to leave dirt on stuff?

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Pro tip: an older guy at a dig in Arizona told me to stop washing my pottery sherds | Archaeology Discoveries - HW Forums