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Finally realized I was dating pottery all wrong for 2 years
I kept getting weird results on my St. Louis site sherds until a visiting professor from Mizzou pointed out I was using the wrong type curve for the local clay composition lol. Switched to a regional reference collection and suddenly everything clicked into place. Has anyone else found that textbook methods just don't work for certain soil types?
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shanes665d ago
Totally feel you on the textbook methods not matching reality. I spent a whole season trying to date a site near the Mississippi River using standard charts and everything came out way too late until a local geologist pointed out the high iron content was throwing off the readings. Once I switched to a collection from the actual county we were digging in, the dates lined up perfect with what we dug up.
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miaprice4d ago
Oh man, I feel this so hard. I'm pretty sure I've personally wasted about a month of field time trusting textbook charts before realizing the local clay deposit was just messing with everything. Maybe I should switch to just throwing darts at a calendar, at least then I'd save some money on equipment.
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colegarcia5d ago
Whoa, that's wild but honestly makes total sense. @shanes66 I've heard similar stories from guys working in the Ozarks where the limestone content messes up everything if you don't calibrate locally. It's like the textbooks assume every site is some perfect midwest soil with no weird minerals. I bet a lot of amateurs give up on dating sites because they follow the book exactly and get junk results. Have you had any luck sharing that iron tip with others who dig near rivers?
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