Showerthought: That time a random stranger at a dig site in New Mexico showed me the difference between a rock and an artifact

I was volunteering on a surface survey near Santa Fe about 3 years ago, just picking up anything that looked interesting. This older guy, maybe 70, walked over and held up a piece of chert. He said 'see how this one has a clear flake scar? That's not nature, that's a person taking a tool to it.' Then he handed me a similar looking rock with no marks. It was such a simple lesson but it totally changed how I see stuff on the ground now. Has anyone else had a moment where one person just explained something obvious and it clicked?

3 comments

3 Comments

sarah5312mo ago

Did you ever go back and look for more stuff after that? Same thing happened to me once with a guy who told me to stop picking up every cool looking rock and start looking for the ones that looked "wrong" in a human way. Flake scars and edge wear are the big tells, but also look for rocks that don't match the local geology (like a piece of obsidian in a limestone area that shouldn't have any). That's usually a sign someone carried it there on purpose. It's one of those things where once you see it, you can't unsee it, and suddenly every hike turns into a slow scan of the ground.

danielr942mo ago

Isn't it funny how once you learn to spot one kind of pattern you start seeing hidden clues EVERYWHERE?

gavina731mo ago

Did you ever catch that Radiolab episode about pareidolia and how it messes with your brain? It was about how we're hardwired to see faces in stuff, but they also talked about how the same wiring makes us pick up on other patterns too, like in rocks or clouds. They had this one guy on who studied ancient tool marks, and he said once you train your eye to spot the tiny chips and stuff, you start seeing them in every broken rock on the trail. It's wild how your brain just flips a switch and suddenly you're scanning for these little details you never noticed before.