Realized I was cleaning pottery shards wrong for 3 field seasons

I always scrubbed artifacts with a stiff brush and water right after pulling them out of the dirt. Last month at a dig near Santa Fe, the site supervisor stopped me and said I was probably grinding off microscopic use-wear marks. She showed me how she just dry brushes with a soft toothbrush and bags them immediately. My whole approach was destroying the very evidence I was trying to find. Anyone else get corrected on basic field technique way later than they want to admit?

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felixfisher18d agoProlific Poster

Switch to soft brushes and bag finds in the field, you can wash later after mapping wear marks.