Everytime I see clips of these archaeologists dig stuff, I can’t help but wonder how do they know where or when to stomp their shovel into the ground? It seems to me that if you aren’t for certain, your digging could easily damage or break a potentially great discovery.
I’ve seen anything from shovels to excavators and they seem to go pretty hard into the dirt.
So how do they know how much force to hit and make sure they don’t cut or destroy such ancient and delicate items?
In: Earth Science
Initial discoveries can be made by normal construction activity that obviously is done with excavators and shovels, but when archaeologists are digging in an area known to contain artifacts they do their preparation. Dirt layers build up over time, so when something is uncovered say 3m underground they will look at the layers above in the area already exposed to see what was going on during those periods and if it is of interest. After checking a number of spots they gain confidence that indeed the area of interest is covered by 2m of overburden and they can use equipment to remove that material more efficiently than the hand trowels, brushes, and fine picks used for the delicate work.
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