Can we talk about the guy at the dig site who kept rearranging my finds?

Last summer I was on a volunteer dig out in New Mexico, near a pueblo site. There was this older volunteer, Bob I think his name was, who kept walking over to my grid and moving my labeled pottery shards into his pile. I asked him three times to stop, and he said he was 'helping me sort them by era' even though I had them cataloged by depth. It totally threw off my records for two hours because I had to re-bag everything. Has anyone else dealt with someone at a site who acts like they know your work better than you do?

3 comments

3 Comments

max2231mo ago

Drove me nuts when I was sorting through old bottles at a site in Nevada and this guy kept grabbing things out of my tray saying he was "checking for dates" when I literally had them lined up by year. I finally just started labeling everything with crazy fake notes like "possible alien artifact" just to mess with him, which honestly backfired because he got way too interested. Ended up spending the whole afternoon watching him try to carbon date a rusty soda can from the 80s. Least I got my shards back though.

moore.beth1mo ago

Oh come ON, that's hilarious. Carbon dating a soda can, I can't even. You basically turned his whole day into a weird science fair project and he loved every second of it. Sometimes the best way to deal with those grabby types is just to lean into their nonsense until they get bored. Bet he still talks about that "alien can" every time he sees you.

moore.beth1mo ago

Oh man, I read somewhere once that some dig sites have a "two-touch rule" where you're not supposed to handle artifacts that someone else is cataloging without their okay. Doesn't sound like Bob ever got that memo. Sounds exhausting to have to re-bag everything but at least you got a good story out of it.