Appreciation post: digging with a trowel vs. using a shovel on that old site near Santa Fe

Back in 2018 I was on a dig near Santa Fe, looking at these old pueblo layers. First few weeks I was using a big shovel like everyone else, just moving dirt fast. Then the lead archaeologist handed me a trowel and said "slow down, you're missing everything." Switched to the trowel and within three days I found a tiny obsidian arrowhead point that was probably 800 years old. The shovel method just destroyed context. That trowel work changed how I see everything now. Anyone else have a moment where a different tool totally shifted what you found?

2 comments

2 Comments

emma_ramirez3d ago

Tell me more about what you were missing with the shovel - was it literally just small artifacts like that arrowhead dropping through your screen, or was it more about how the layers got mixed up? I've always wondered if the big tools just scatter the small stuff or actually destroy the patterns in the soil.

tessawebb2d ago

Yeah exactly, it's BOTH things. The shovel blade just cuts right through the little stuff like bone fragments or beads that you'd pick up with a trowel, so you lose them completely. But even worse is how it smears the soil layers together. You can't tell if something came from the top of an old pit or from way down below, and that context is EVERYTHING for dating stuff.