Unpopular opinion: I spent 11 days trying to date a bone fragment from a Shelby County dig site before realizing I'd been reading the catalog card wrong

Amy Murray · 2026-11-04T05:20:04.255842+00:00

Last spring our little volunteer crew pulled a small bone fragment out of a test unit near a creek bank outside Columbiana, and I got stuck trying to place it in a layer. I kept getting weird readings on the depth measurements, so I re-shot the photos, re-checked the datum, and even emailed two people at the county historical society. Turns out the catalog card listed the depth in centimeters from the surface, not from the unit floor, and I'd been comparing it to the wrong grid the whole time. Eleven days of work, one flipped number. Has anyone else had a paperwork mix-up cost them a whole unit? How do you double check field records before they pile up?

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Unpopular opinion: I spent 11 days trying to date a bone fragment from a Shelby County dig site before realizing I'd been reading the catalog card wrong | Archaeology Discoveries - HW Forums