Fired up over rewrapping that dig in Arizona

I was on a survey crew near Tucson and we flagged a spot as a trash pit, then a volunteer noticed a rim shard pattern. We dug 3 test units before discovering we'd missed a whole hearth feature 2 feet to the east. Was that a bad call by the lead or just standard timing with limited days on site?

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derekgibson6d ago

Kinda reminds me of the time we spent three days mapping a supposed cistern in New Mexico, turned out it was just a really deep animal burrow with a bunch of old tin cans stacked in it. The crew lead at the time kept saying we'd find the feature on the next level, and we kept going deeper because nobody wanted to be the one to call it. But that's the thing about survey work, you're always balancing the clock against what's under your feet, and that hearth being two feet east is just the kind of thing that keeps you humble. Missing a feature doesn't mean the lead was bad, it means the ground's good at hiding stuff, especially when you've got limited days and the sun's baking your brain.