That dig in New Mexico where I stopped brushing like crazy

I was on a site near Santa Fe last summer, brushing every speck of dirt off a pot sherd for like 20 minutes. The field director walked over and said I was actually damaging the surface by being too aggressive with the bristles. Switched to a softer brush and barely touching it, and suddenly the decoration lines popped out way clearer. Has anyone else had a supervisor call them out on something basic like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

danielb431mo ago

Came in hot with a hard bristle brush my first season in Nevada and got the same talk. The site director pulled me aside and showed me a sherd I'd been scrubbing vs one I'd barely touched. The scrubbed one looked cleaner but all the fine incised lines were basically gone. Swapped to a soft paintbrush and started using just air from my breath to blow away loose dirt. Ended up finding mica flecks in the temper that I never would have seen if I kept attacking it like a dirty bathtub.

verar211mo agoTop Commenter

Read a thing from a dig supervisor in Colorado once who said the best tool for cleaning pottery is your own spit. Sounds gross but the idea stuck with me. They said the enzymes break down dirt without messing with the surface. Never tried it myself but the logic makes sense when you see how easy it is to scrub away the good stuff. That mica flecks thing is wild though. Proves the point that you're not just cleaning dirt off, you're reading the whole story of how the pot was made. Most people think archaeology is all big discoveries and digging up bones but half the job is just learning not to wreck the little clues.

murphy.barbara1mo ago

The real issue here isn't just brush pressure, it's about how we learn to see. Most of us start out thinking archaeology is about cleaning things perfectly, but the field director was teaching you to read the dirt, not erase it. That soft brush trick works because you're not scrubbing away the patina that holds the decorative elements together. I've seen rookies ruin a whole panel of petroglyphs by wiping them with a wet rag thinking they were helping. Sometimes the best cleaning is almost no cleaning at all.