I finally cracked why my trowel kept digging up nothing at a site in Tucson

Nathan Robinson · 2026-10-21T10:35:05.018755+00:00

Kept finding sterile dirt on a 1x1 unit for 3 days at a dig near Tucson, just past the old mission wall. A grad student showed me I was skimming a foot above the actual occupation layer, so I cut in slower at 2 cm passes and pulled 14 sherds plus a chert flake in one morning. Does anyone else have a trick for reading soil color changes before you commit to a depth?

Librear

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I finally cracked why my trowel kept digging up nothing at a site in Tucson | Archaeology Discoveries - Librear