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The week my dig site got shut down over a single piece of broken pottery
Last month, we were working a site in New Mexico, uncovering what looked like a small Puebloan storage pit. We were just getting to the good stuff, maybe a few inches from what felt like a whole pot. Then a grad student on my team found a tiny, painted pottery shard about the size of a quarter. He showed it to the lead archaeologist, who took one look and said, 'That's a trade piece from over 200 miles away. This changes the whole site context.' The next day, the state office put a full stop on our dig. Just like that, two weeks of work halted because we needed a whole new permit and research plan. It's good science, but man, it felt like hitting a brick wall. Has anyone else had a project grind to a halt over one small find?
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hayes.tara2mo agoMost Upvoted
Ever had a whole move get canceled because someone found a single cracked plate in the packing box? Feels like that, but with way more dirt!
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wesleyburns17d ago
Blame it on @hayes.tara for bringing up cracked plates, I bet that moving truck is still circling the block looking for the nearest landfill to dump the whole load.
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the_michael2mo ago
A cracked plate is just a plate. A single piece of dirt is just dirt. The whole point of a move is to get things from point A to point B, not to have a perfect museum exhibit. Canceling over minor stuff shows a real lack of commitment to the actual goal. People get way too hung up on tiny flaws and lose sight of the bigger picture. It’s just stuff, and stuff can be fixed or replaced.
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