irismartinez•9d agoMost Upvoted

A volunteer at a dig in New Mexico told me I was cleaning bones wrong

I was on a field school near Santa Fe last summer, helping with a Pueblo site excavation. We had this strict volunteer coordinator, a retired high school teacher named Doris, who came over while I was brushing dirt off a rabbit bone. She said, 'Stop scrubbing like you're cleaning a casserole dish. You're removing the surface residue that holds together context.' I had no idea I was basically destroying tiny traces of butchery marks and maybe even DNA. She showed me how to use a soft brush and only move in one direction from the center out. Now I never dry brush anything even if it looks clean. Has anyone else had an old school volunteer totally rewire how you approach artifact cleaning?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace_bailey8d agoTop Commenter

Just go with the grain and barely touch the brush, learned that the hard way with a broken potshard.

xena18d ago

Grace you've got it backwards... the brush should follow the clay not the other way around. What broke your potshard was probably pushing against the grain when it was too dry. You want the brush to skim across the surface like skipping a stone on water, not dig in like a shovel. A light touch with the bristles barely kissing the clay is what saves your piece. Too much pressure and you'll tear the clay or catch an edge every time.