Just hit 100 hours sorting pottery shards from a dig in Tucson

I was logging finds from a Hohokam site and the counter on my spreadsheet ticked over. It felt weird to realize I've spent that much time just on basic sorting, not even the cool analysis part. It made me think about how much quiet work goes into a single paper's findings. Anyone else get surprised by the sheer volume of small tasks behind a big discovery?

3 comments

3 Comments

aaron_mitchell2mo ago

Ever wonder what the coolest shard you found was?

charles212mo ago

Oh man, I always get that mixed up! I think you mean "sherd," like a piece of broken pottery. Found a killer one last year that had this glossy, almost metallic blue glaze on it. It was just a tiny triangle, but you could tell it was from something fancy. Made me wonder about the whole pot it came from.

wyatt1352mo ago

Wait, a hundred hours just on sorting? How many boxes of shards did you even go through to hit that number?