Why does nobody talk about how much a wet sieve changes what you see at a dig

Laura Knight · 2026-10-20T02:50:03.42871+00:00

I spent two weeks at a site near Tucson dry screening everything and pulling maybe 40 tiny flakes a day. Then the lead switched us to wet sieving one trench and the same dirt started giving up 200 plus pieces a day, mostly microdebitage under 5mm that just rolled off the dry mesh. The water breaks up the clay clumps that trap the small stuff, and it only took us about 2 hours to see the difference. We reran the spoil pile from the first week and pulled another 300 flakes out of dirt we already "finished." Now I want to know how many site reports out there are based on dry screening only, because those small counts look way off.

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Why does nobody talk about how much a wet sieve changes what you see at a dig | Archaeology Discoveries - Librear