I found a weird trick for spotting pottery shards in a plowed field

I was helping with a surface survey near Taos, New Mexico, and we were having zero luck finding anything in this huge field. The usual walk-and-look method just wasn't working. On a whim, I tried walking the rows at a 45-degree angle to the plow lines instead of parallel. In just one afternoon, I found 17 pieces of black-on-white pottery! I guess the different angle made the broken edges catch the light better. Has anyone else tried changing their survey pattern like this with good results?

2 comments

2 Comments

king.stella8d ago

Honestly that's more likely just random luck than the angle.

piper_reed8d ago

So what's the threshold for luck versus skill in that situation? Like how many tries before you'd call it the angle?