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Watched a volunteer at the Mesa dig bag a plain rock and the lead archaeologist told her to keep it, here is why that stuck with me
Two summers back I helped at a site outside Mesa, Arizona, mostly washing pottery and hauling buckets. A volunteer named Dana pulled out what looked like a boring gray rock, and everyone groaned until the lead archaeologist said it was a hammerstone, worn smooth from thousands of strikes. That one beat up rock told us more about how people worked there than any arrowhead we uncovered all season. Now I look at plain stuff in the dirt completely different, and I wonder how much I walked past before I knew better. What is the most ordinary looking find you have seen turn out to matter?
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the_nathan2d ago
A plain rock that turns out to be a tool is way cooler than a shiny point, no contest. Hammerstones and fire cracked rock tell you what people actually did all day, not just what they lost. Most of the real story is sitting in piles we walk right past.
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