That conversation with a museum archivist hit me harder than I expected

I was talking to a woman named Carol from the Field Museum in Chicago last weekend at a local history fair. She told me that most of the 'ancient' pottery they get is actually from dump sites less than 200 years old, not the old civilizations people assume. It made me rethink all those TV shows where they dig up a pot and call it a major find from Rome or something. Has anyone else had a run-in with a pro who totally changed how you read a discovery story?

2 comments

2 Comments

amygonzalez15d agoTop Commenter

Wait, most of it's actually from recent trash dumps? That's wild, I always thought museums had this whole system for authenticating stuff. So those pots on display could just be someone's old trash from like 1800s?

spencer_johnson2214d ago

Wait @amygonzalez didn't mention the best part. Those 1800s pots? People actually used em for chamber pots. 🤯