Hit 50 volunteer hours at the Pueblo dig site and it changed how I see pottery sherds

I've been helping at the Ancestral Puebloan site outside Santa Fe for about 4 months now, and last weekend I logged my 50th hour sifting through trench dirt. What surprised me was that after that many hours, I could finally tell the difference between a rim sherd and a body sherd just by feel. Has anyone else hit a milestone like that where everything suddenly clicked?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamiekim16d ago

Is anybody else tracking what your ears are doing when you sift? Because that was the real game changer for me, not just the fingertips. After enough hours, you start hearing the difference between a rock and a sherd when it tumbles down the screen, and that audio cue is what finally made the visual recognition stick. @graceprice is right about letting your hands work first, but I'd add that your hearing is doing a lot of the heavy lifting before you even look down. Once I trusted that sound, I stopped second guessing every piece and started noticing patterns in the debris that I swear I'd walked past for weeks. It's like the whole site gets louder once you know what to listen for.

graceprice16d ago

Ever notice how your hands figure things out before your brain does? I remember hitting that same wall around hour 40 at a site near Mesa Verde, and suddenly I could spot a cooking jar rim from a mixing bowl one just by the curve. Honestly, the trick for me was stopping to rub the sherd between my fingers every single time before looking at it. Don't rush it, just let your fingertips do the cataloging first and the pattern will stick. After that, you start noticing things like how often broken rims show up near fire pits and it changes the whole site story. That click is real, and it makes the next 50 hours fly by.