10
PSA: A simple rainstorm in Tucson almost ruined a site for me
I was helping a friend document a surface scatter of pottery shards on a ranch outside Tucson. We had everything flagged and photographed, ready to map it the next day. That night, a sudden heavy rain came through, something we didn't expect. In the morning, half our flags were gone, washed away or buried in mud. I felt sick, thinking we'd lost the context. But then I realized the rain had actually washed away more topsoil, revealing a much clearer concentration of artifacts in one specific area. We re-did our work, focusing there, and found a hearth stone we'd completely missed. It taught me that sometimes a problem shows you what to look at more closely. Has a weather event ever changed your understanding of a dig site?
4 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In4 Comments
casey8182mo ago
My survey in the Gila Valley got totally wrecked by a summer monsoon. It washed out our test units and moved a whole midden deposit about twenty feet downstream. We never did get a clear picture of the original site layout, the context was just gone. I mean, it felt like starting over from scratch.
4
paige1662mo ago
That's a great point about rain revealing more than it hides. A hard freeze last winter did something similar for us. It pushed up so many small lithics through the frost heave that a spot we thought was sparse turned out to be a major workshop area. The ground literally shifted and showed us what was underneath. It's easy to see weather as just wrecking your plans, but it can be the best survey tool you never asked for.
2
Man, that frost heave story is such a perfect example.
6
nelson.wren14d ago
Wait, does this mean I should start being nicer to the weather when it ruins my fieldwork? Because I'm pretty sure I cursed out a hailstorm last spring for turning my nice clean excavation into a muddy soup. But you're right, frost heave is basically nature doing a free soil sample for you. I just wish it'd do it when I'm not trying to dig a straight wall and end up with a mess that looks like a toddler played in it. Honestly, half my career is just learning to apologize to the elements and ask them nicely to show me the good stuff without wrecking everything else.
4