I doubted the timeline of a local mound until we found pottery shards

I thought the mound was from the 1700s based on surface finds. But when we excavated, the pottery matched older styles. Guess you can't judge a site by its top layer?

3 comments

3 Comments

valallen7d ago

Yeah, that top layer is almost always the worst one to date from. Wind, rain, animals, even old farming can churn stuff up from deeper levels and drag it to the surface. You might find a colonial pipe stem sitting right on top of a thousand year old hearth stone. That's why we dig squares and screen everything, the real story is always deeper down.

grayellis7d ago

My friend dug up a candy wrapper right above some pottery that turned out to be prehistoric.

anthony6187d ago

Man, my buddy Mike had this happen last summer. He was sure a field near his town was from the early 1900s because of some glass bits on top. But when his team dug down, they hit a layer with stone tools way older, like from before contact. It totally changed their whole idea of the place. Goes to show you really can't trust what's sitting on the surface, you gotta get down in the dirt to see the full picture.