That professor at the University of Texas was right about using ground penetrating radar first

He told me to run GPR before digging on a site near San Antonio, but I skipped it to save time and ended up hitting a buried septic tank from the 1800s that ruined three days of work. Has anyone else ignored expert advice and paid for it with actual dig damage?

3 comments

3 Comments

ward.diana5d ago

Do you think that septic tank had any archaeological value, or was it just a pain in the ass to dig around? Honestly, I’ve seen people skip the radar and wreck a whole site because they went in blind. Tbh, sometimes the old timers know what they’re talking about, even if it feels like extra work. Ngl, I’ve made that mistake once with a buried pipe on a survey, and now I just listen to the pros.

margaret5515d ago

Oh man, I feel that. One time I thought I'd save time by skipping the radar on a site and ended up digging straight into an old metal pipe that shot mud everywhere, looked like I was in a bad cartoon. In my experience, the old timers might be grumpy about extra steps but they've usually got a reason for it, even if that reason is just "I already made that dumb mistake 20 years ago so you don't have to." So yeah, take this with a grain of salt but I'd bet that septic tank was more trouble than treasure, though it probably gave some archaeologist a good story over beers.

the_lucas5d ago

One YouTube channel I saw said a Victorian septic tank actually had intact medicine bottles, @ward.diana would probably love that.