Pro tip: I was totally wrong about how to clean pottery sherds

For years, I'd just use a stiff brush and water on anything I found, thinking I was being careful. Then, during a volunteer dig at the Cahokia Mounds site, a supervisor saw me scrubbing a piece of decorated shell-tempered pottery and said, 'Stop! You're erasing the carbon residue we need for dating.' That specific moment made me realize I was destroying data. What's the gentlest cleaning method you all use for different materials?

3 comments

3 Comments

skyler_mitchell1mo agoMost Upvoted

Same vibe as scrubbing cast iron "clean" and ruining the seasoning.

jesse7733mo ago

Honestly, that carbon dating stuff gets overblown sometimes. A good scrub just makes the artifact easier to study and display right now.

thomas1053mo ago

Right? Like how much info do we really lose with a little cleaning... seems like it helps more than it hurts.